The Seattle Seahawks are a professional American football team based in Seattle, Washington, that play in the National Football League (NFL). The team entered the league in 1976 as an expansion franchise and played their home games at the Kingdome until 2000. [1] Their new stadium, now named Lumen Field, opened at the same site in 2002 south of Downtown Seattle and has 68,740 seats in its football configuration; [2] [3] the stadium is renowned for its fan atmosphere and has set records for crowd noise. [4] [5] The Seahawks were originally a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) in their inaugural season, but switched to the American Football Conference (AFC) the following year and played in the West division for 25 seasons, where they won two titles. [6] [7] The team rejoined the NFC in the 2002 season as a member of the West division and have since had more success than their division rivals with nine titles and regular appearances in the NFL playoffs. [6] The Seahawks won three NFC Championships between 2005 and 2015 and won their first Super Bowl championship in 2013. [8] [9] They are the only team to have played in both the AFC and NFC Championship Games. [10] The team's ownership group was led by the Nordstrom family from 1976 until 1988, when it was sold to real estate developer Ken Behring. His attempt to relocate the Seahawks to the Los Angeles area in 1996 was unsuccessful, as were early attempts to build a successor to the Kingdome. [11] Behring sold the team in 1997 to Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who remained owner until his death in 2018; [12] the Paul G. Allen Trust, managed by Jody Allen, has since retained ownership of the Seahawks. [13]
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Seattle and fellow 1976 expansion team Tampa Bay Buccaneers played an unusual non-division schedule for their first two seasons, which included switching conferences. In their first seven years under head coach Jack Patera, the Seahawks had two seasons with winning records and failed to make the playoffs, falling short by one game during the 1978 season as he was named NFL Coach of the Year. [6] [14] Patera was fired during the strike-shortened 1982 season and replaced on an interim basis by Mike McCormack for seven games. [14] [15] The Seahawks earned their first playoff berth as a wild card team in 1983 as Chuck Knox coached the team to a 9–7 record; the team earned an upset victory on the road against the Miami Dolphins and advanced to the AFC Championship, where they lost to the Los Angeles Raiders, a division rival. [6] [16] Knox coached the team through their most successful years in the AFC West as they qualified for the playoffs as wild cards in 1984 and 1987 and clinched their first division title in 1988. [16] [17] He resigned in 1991 after three consecutive seasons without a playoff berth and was replaced by team president and general manager Tom Flores, who was head coach from 1992 to 1994. [18] Flores led the team to a 2–14 record in the 1992 season—the franchise's worst finish—with only 140 points scored by the offense, an NFL record low for a team playing 16 games. [19] He was followed by Dennis Erickson, who coached the team for four seasons and failed to finish with a winning record and fell short of a playoff berth in 1998, shortly before he was fired. [20] [21]
Allen hired Green Bay Packers coach Mike Holmgren ahead of the 1999 season, which the Seahawks ended with an AFC West division title as they broke the longest active playoff drought in the league. [22] The team lost in the Wild Card round to the Miami Dolphins in their final AFC playoffs game, after which Seattle would not clinch a playoff berth until they rejoined the NFC. [23] The Seahawks earned their first NFC playoff berth in 2003 as a wild card team; [16] it was then followed by four consecutive NFC West division titles. [6] The run included their first Super Bowl appearance in 2005, where they lost to the Pittsburgh Steelers; the year also marked Seattle's first playoff wins since 1984. [23] [24] Running back Shaun Alexander was also named the NFL Most Valuable Player, the first in franchise history. [25] Holmgren left at the end of his ten-season contract after the Seahawks failed to earn a playoff berth in the 2008 season and was replaced by Jim L. Mora, who finished with a 5–11 record and was fired after one season. [23] [26] Pete Carroll was hired in January 2010 and remains the team's head coach with a contract through the 2025 season. [27] His tenure began with an NFC West division title despite a losing 7–9 record, a first in NFL history, and included consecutive Super Bowl appearances: a win against the Denver Broncos at Super Bowl XLVIII in 2013 and a loss to the New England Patriots at Super Bowl XLIX in 2014. [23] [28] As of 2022 [update] , the Seahawks have won five division titles and made ten playoff appearances in thirteen seasons under Carroll. [8] [29]
As of the end of the 2023 season, the Seahawks have an all-time record of 392 wins, 366 losses, and 1 tie in the regular season, with an additional 17 wins and 19 losses in the playoffs. [2] [8] The team has had 27 winning seasons, 18 losing seasons, and four seasons tied at 8–8. [8] After decades of losing seasons, the Seahawks reached an overall .500 franchise record late in the 2015 season by winning their 625th regular season game. [30] [31] The Seahawks are one of three modern men's major league teams in the Seattle area to have an overall winning record, alongside the Seattle SuperSonics (who relocated in 2008) [32] and Seattle Sounders FC, who moved to Major League Soccer in 2009. [33] On October 23, 2016, the Seahawks played the Arizona Cardinals at University of Phoenix Stadium to a 6–6 result, the first tied game in franchise history. [34]
