The Seattle Seahawks are just weeks away from starting their journey to defend their Super Bowl championship. While this is not the same team as last year, the Seahawks are returning players from their championship team at a higher rate than most teams in the last 15 years.
During free agency, the Seahawks lost Super Bowl MVP Kenneth Walker III, Riq Woolen, and Boye Mafe, but overall, the Seahawks will experience little roster turnover heading into this season.
On offense, the team returns 14 of its 15 players who logged 300 or more snaps, a 95% return rate. This shouldn’t be taken for granted and is rare for a Super Bowl champion to have such continuity.
Rare Feat
The Seahawks are looking to be the first NFC team to go back-to-back since the Dallas Cowboys in 1992 and 1993. It’s no coincidence that the last time an NFC team went back-to-back coincided with the introduction of NFL free agency.
The 2014 Seahawks came within a yard of pulling off a repeat, but a Malcolm Butler interception at the goal line dashed those hopes. In 2026, the Seahawks hope to finish the job, and they’re counting on their roster continuity to give them an extra edge.
Cameron Van Til of Seattle Sports, in his July 6 article, wrote about the Seahawks’ historic continuity.
“The Seahawks are returning 86.9% of their combined offensive and defensive snaps from last season (including both the regular season and postseason), Van Til wrote. “That’s the third-highest rate among a reigning Super Bowl champion since 2010, trailing only the 2020 Tampa Bay Buccaneers (98%) and the 2019 Kansas City Chiefs (87%).
For context, the Seahawks’ 2013 Super Bowl-winning team returned 76.9% of its snaps the following season.”
The Seahawks view their continuity as an advantage because they love their roster.
Retaining Great Players
The goal for any team in its offseason is to lose as few great players as possible, and while the Seahawks did lose some key players, they largely feel they have accomplished that goal.
Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald, at the NFL’s league meetings, expressed how much he loves the Seahawks’ current roster. Ari Horton of Seahawks.com, in her March 30 article, wrote about Macdonald’s thoughts.
“The goal is to try to retain as many great players as we can,” head coach Mike Macdonald said at the NFL’s annual league meetings. “We love our roster, and we love our guys, and we’re trying to keep that unit together, to have that continuity. So that’s what we’ve been trying to do, and that’s part of the long-term plans as well, and how we budget. I’m not really in those conversations on budgeting for multiple years in and out, but I know that’s how we’ve done business, and I feel like we’ve executed pretty well for the most part. There’s going to be like, all the guys that left, to a man, you want those guys back. But just that’s the way that the NFL goes. You have success, and guys are able to get paid and stuff, and I’m really happy for them.”
Repeating as Super Bowl champions is never easy, but the Seahawks are in a position few recent Super Bowl champions have found themselves in with roster continuity, and they hope to take advantage of it.
Seahawks Have Historic Roster Continuity for Super Bowl Champions