Seattle Seahawks

Seattle Seahawks, American professional gridiron football team based in Seattle. The Seahawks play in the National Football Conference (NFC) of the NFL and have won one Super Bowl title (2014) and three NFC championships (2006, 2014, and 2015).

Along with fellow expansion team the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Seahawks began play in 1976. After an initial season in the NFC followed by a move to the American Football Conference (AFC) in 1977, the Seahawks recorded their first winning season in 1978, earning head coach Jack Patera NFL Coach of the Year honors. The early Seahawks teams were led by quarterback Jim Zorn, running back Curt Warner, and wide receiver Steve Largent, who retired as the NFL’s all-time leading receiver and in 1995 was the first Seahawk inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. In 1983 head coach Chuck Knox led the Seahawks to the AFC championship game in his first season with the team, and over the next nine years he posted a record of 83 wins and 67 losses. The Seahawks had their worst season in franchise history after Knox left in 1991, winning only two games that season.

The following years saw many seasons of on-field struggle as well as off-field controversy, as team majority owner Ken Behring announced plans to move the team to Los Angeles in 1996, citing as the reason the condition of the team’s home stadium, the Kingdome. In 1997, however, billionaire Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen purchased the Seahawks and helped push through public funding for a new football stadium, which kept the team in Seattle. Allen hired Mike Holmgren as head coach and general manager in 1999. In 2000 the team drafted running back Shaun Alexander and the following year traded for quarterback Matt Hasselbeck, who, along with All-Pro offensive lineman Walter Jones, formed the core of one of the most successful team in Seahawks’ history.

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After 25 seasons of playing in the AFC, the Seahawks moved to the NFC in 2002 as part of an NFL realignment. That same season saw the team move into a new stadium, which was successively called Seahawks Stadium, Qwest Field, CenturyLink Field, and Lumen Field. The stadium quickly became known as one of the loudest in American professional sports, largely because of the passionate Seahawks fan base that since the franchise’s early seasons has been known as the 12th Man. The Seahawks made the playoffs in five of their first six seasons in the NFC. In 2006 the franchise made its first trip to the Super Bowl, in which the team lost to the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Seattle’s play fell off after 2007, and—after Holmgren left the Seahawks following the 2008 season—the team made a series of front-office, coaching, and player personnel changes in an effort to rebuild. Notably, in 2010 the Seahawks hired Pete Carroll, who had led a successful resurgence of the University of Southern California football team, as head coach. In 2011 the Seahawks became the first team in NFL history to qualify for the playoffs with a losing record after going 7–9 in the 2010 regular season. Seattle then upset the defending champion New Orleans Saints in its first playoff contest before being eliminated from the postseason the following week. Led by a dominant defense featuring star defensive backs Richard Sherman and Earl Thomas and rookie quarterback sensation Russell Wilson, the Seahawks won 11 games in 2012, only to lose a dramatic 30–28 contest to the Atlanta Falcons in the second round of postseason play.

In 2013 the Seahawks featured the top-ranked defense in the NFL in terms of both points and yardage allowed, and they posted an NFC-best 13–3 record. The team then won both of its home playoff games to advance to the Super Bowl. There Seattle’s commanding defense corralled a Denver Broncos team that had set numerous offensive records during the 2013 regular season in a 43–8 victory to capture the franchise’s first world championship. In 2014 the Seahawks again posted the best record in the NFC (12–4) and advanced to a second consecutive Super Bowl, after a thrilling overtime victory over the Green Bay Packers in the NFC championship game that saw Seattle rally from a 12-point deficit with just over two minutes left to play in regulation. The team was on the other side of a dramatic comeback against the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl. There, the Seahawks gave up a 10-point fourth-quarter lead and threw an interception from the Patriots’ one-yard line with just over 30 seconds left in Seattle’s 28–24 loss.

Seattle returned to the postseason after the 2015 campaign, where the team won another close playoff contest against the Minnesota Vikings before being eliminated in the divisional round by the Carolina Panthers. The Seahawks struggled through an injury-riddled 2016 season that nevertheless ended with a division title, an opening playoff win, and a divisional loss. That season also included the end of the team’s NFL record 85-game streak of not losing by more than 10 points. The Seahawks’ five-year playoff streak ended in 2017, followed by an offseason that saw the team lose many of the notable defensive stars that had propelled it to its recent success. The team was widely expected to be one of the worst in the NFL in 2018 but surprisingly posted a 10–6 record to return to the postseason, where Seattle lost its opening game.

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The team continued its strong play in 2019, winning 11 games and its opening postseason game behind an excellent season of quarterback play by Wilson, before being eliminated from the playoffs in the divisional round. The Seahawks improved to 12 victories in 2020 but fell in the wild card round. Faltering because of a finger injury to Wilson, the team slumped to a 7–10 record in 2021 and traded its star quarterback to the Broncos in the following offseason. The team had middling performances in 2022 and 2023, finishing each season with a 9–8 record, and longtime head coach Carroll was let go in January 2024.