Quick Slant: NFL Kickoff Game - Right Where We Left Off
Mat Irby’s Quick Slant
Everything faded from nothing at once, and I just came to – slight at first. Pressure, tugging, sterile light, moisture, heat, mechanical whirring, chatter, my growing form – it all rose. Then out. Asleep.
Back again. Terrifying silence, the first I’d ever heard. A sweaty man in a polo, glasses, and a surgical mask withdrew a box cutter and violently detached me.
SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHNNNNK.
I barely noticed the other side. Rolled around cardboard. A cap pressed firmly into place. Darkness.
Whirring. Silence. Cutting.
Another tube joined me.
Whirring. Silence. Cutting.
Again.
The bin rolled us to the shelves. We stayed there a while. Each day, darkness. Sometimes a light snapped on; Lee collected a few in a hamper, then disappeared again. Mostly, it was darkness, stillness, quiet.
Then one day, Lee chose me. Hamper. Warehouse. Hot. Humid. I was snatched away, laid on a pallet, wrapped tight in plastic. Forklift. Container. Hitched to a big rig. Off we went.
A winch lifted us onto a cargo ship. Stacked, cramped, trapped from above, below, and side to side. No frame of reference. More darkness. More quiet. Then the world began to move beneath us. A low vibration remained always. The container creaked and groaned as it shifted. Sometimes, great metal pops followed by echoing clangs. I lost time. Could’ve been days, maybe months. I remember storms and calm, new smells, different air, the cries of birds in conversation.
And finally, Seattle.
Of course, I didn’t know that yet. Men rescued containers by crane, and clues accumulated: English. Ocean smells. Chatter. Seagulls. Pride.
I glimpsed the tip-top of the Space Needle when the truck doors opened at the warehouse. Mark pulled my pallet, cut the plastic. I could breathe. His dark-navy hat carried some busy pastel logo – Roman numerals, and, in gold: Champions. Mark and the boys had a flag, too – deep blue, wolf gray, action green. A bird’s profile, two stripes trailing behind it. They talked about it constantly.
Seahawks.
Whatever those were, they made them all happy. One Seahawk was named Sam; I gathered that quickly. He really made them smile. Another they called JSN. And yet another was Walker; apparently, he left or something. I don’t know; I only got puzzle pieces.
I liked the warehouse, but one day Mark put me in a van with some others. I didn’t mind the van. There were windows, at least. He drove me deeper into the city, right up to a shiny glass building with a great, big sign: Lumen Field.
In the office, I felt suddenly nervous. Executives pored over me and the others. They talked about the Seahawks, too, but more analytically, as if more was at stake. They said words I didn’t understand: Super Bowl, last February, 29-13, and something coming up called a home opener; I gleaned that everything there had to be perfect. They pinched us, stretched us, held us to the light: too heavy, too sheer, too stiff. They kept coming back to me.
After I was selected, everything blurred. I got the impression it was good to be picked, but it was back to the machines. Heat. Pressure. Color. Blue flooded through me. Letters appeared. Needles stabbed my edges; hands pulled and stretched and scrutinized. People gathered. Smiled. Took pictures. I was emblazoned with a message:
SUPER BOWL LX CHAMPIONS.
I gained more context as people around me spoke. Seattle had beaten New England in something called the Super Bowl a few months back. Sam, JSN, and the others had done this thing – this important thing everyone wanted to remember, and they smiled when they talked about it – and me. They spoke of turning me into a keepsake, a monument to what the Seahawks had done, to keep forever. Wow, little old me?
Approved. Rolled. Dark again. Wait, then hurry.
When light returned, everything moved quickly. Concrete hallways. Elevators. Strange hands. Harnesses and cables. Up, up, impossibly high, until they rolled me tight again and left me hanging in quiet dark.
One last sleep.
Wednesday began quietly. Then footsteps. Carts. Radios. Music. Whistles. Voices multiplied beneath me. Hundreds became thousands, thousands became tens of thousands. The building began to vibrate. And then I heard another familiar word:
Patriots.
Wait. Was New England here? How brutal! I knew what Seattle had done to them by then. I knew what I represented. And now I realized something nobody had mentioned. They were going to be forced to watch – to replay their worst day, to relive their deepest regrets.
Lights. Music. The announcer. A roar rising from below. Something released. I fell open. And suddenly, everyone was looking at me, elated, joyous, driven to tears. They hugged. They held tight to each other, to the memory, to what would exist forever. And me.
Somebody put a football on a tee. Pats/Seahawks, rematch. 2026, right where we left off.
GAME ENVIRONMENT
New England Patriots at Seattle Seahawks (-3.5)
Over/Under: 44.5
The contestants in last year’s Super Bowl may have been surprising from the view in August. However, they were anything but undeserving, finishing first and second in Pythagorean Wins, which is a formula that uses points for and points against to find an expected wins total.
The Seahawks are +1100 to repeat, third in Super Bowl championship odds, according to FanDuel Sportsbook, and they open as 3.5-point favorites. The market seems more convinced that the Patriots’ 2025 success was anomalous, as they open at +1800 (9th).
Both teams ran slow last year. The Patriots averaged 30.2 seconds per snap in a neutral script (T-23rd), and the Seahawks averaged 30.4 (27th). Even so, the Patriots averaged 62 plays per 60 minutes (T-2nd), while the Seahawks averaged 56 (20th). The 44.5 over/under is close to the middle of the pack in Week 1, and both teams represent a relatively neutral overall fantasy environment in terms of offensive and defensive EPA balance.
The weather is expected to be temperate and mild with little wind, perfect conditions for a football game.
Patriots Key Injuries: RB TreVeyon Henderson (ankle) has not practiced since August 24 and has been ruled out for Wednesday.
Seahawks Key Injuries: RB Zach Charbonnet (ACL) is on the PUP list and will not play. WR Tory Horton (hamstring) is listed as questionable. S Nick Emmanwori (ankle), one of the best safety/nickel hybrids in football, has not practiced since surgery in late July and is listed as questionable; he feels truly iffy. Fellow S Ty Okada (hamstring) was already ruled out.
PATRIOTS
Implied Team Total: 20.5
New England was the most efficient team in the NFL last year in terms of EPA per play (0.155). This was driven entirely by their passing game, which ranked first in EPA per dropback; their rushing offense was slightly below average.
The Patriots were pass-heavy last season, finishing fourth in PROE (+2.4%).
Patriots’ QB Drake Maye was the runner-up for MVP in 2025. Maye had 601 dropbacks (10th) and 492 pass attempts (12th). That disparity came from Maye’s abundant scrambles (61, 1st) and sacks (47, 4th).
The gap between Maye’s dropbacks and converted attempts was large, yet he faced pressure on only 37.9% of his dropbacks (16th). Maye’s time to throw was 3.12, sixth-slowest, and his pressure-to-sack rate was 20.6%, 32nd among qualified QBs.
And Maye didn’t demonstrate that he was overly perturbed while under duress. His QB rating while throwing from a clean pocket ranked second (123.0), but his QB rating while under pressure ranked third (90.4).
Maye was far and away the best among all QBs in terms of EPA/CPOE composite, ranking first in each individually. This shows he is consistent and efficient each time he drops back to pass.
Maye is reasonably well-balanced as a runner and thrower, giving him stronger upside potential in fantasy. He ranked 9th in rushing FP/G (4.06), and 19.01% of his fantasy points came from rushing (16th). With his balance of good rushing and excellent passing, Maye ranked fourth in QB Apex Score this preseason.
Maye and the Patriots face a Seahawks defense led by HC and DPC Mike Macdonald. The Seahawks ranked first in the league in EPA per play allowed (-0.113).
Seattle allowed the fewest team PPG last year (16.9). They faced the fifth-fewest dropbacks in 2025 (690) and allowed the fourth-lowest QB rating to opponents (77.9). They generated 47 sacks (T-7th) and the second-lowest time-to-pressure average in the NFL (2.39).
They have experienced some personnel changes: ED Boye Mafe, CB Riq Woolen, and S Coby Bryant have departed. ED Dante Fowler, CB Noah Igbinoghene, and S Rodney Thomas have been brought in to replace them.
In 2025, Seattle ran zone the fifth-most in the NFL (77.1%), and two-high the sixth-most (0.38). Their most common alignment was Cover 3 (30.1%, 16th). They ran Cover 6 at the third-highest rate in the league (17.7%). They blitzed at a below-average rate (19.3%).
Against the types and rates of coverage Seattle uses, this is an adverse matchup for Maye, according to Fantasy Points’ QB Coverage Score, which expects a 7.3% reduction from Maye’s 2025 average of 0.56 FP/DB. Even so, Maye is very good at football, and that would still produce the fifth-best FP/DB in Week 1 (0.52). In fact, Seattle was the second-worst matchup for opposing QBs in their last five games last year.
Seattle profiles as a pass funnel, allowing the third-highest pass rate in 2025 (65.2%). The Seahawks were also better against the run, recording the best EPA per rush allowed (-.206). Their EPA per dropback allowed was also fifth-best (-0.065), so they are tough to beat overall. Missing one of, if not both of, its starting safeties on Wednesday may only exacerbate this tendency.
The Patriots have reworked their offensive pass-catching unit since last year. In 2025, WR Stefon Diggs led the team with a 22% target share. The only other pass-catcher with a share of at least 15% was TE Hunter Henry. Diggs, Kayshon Boutte, and Austin Hooper have all moved on.
The Patriots have added WRs A.J. Brown and Romeo Doubs, who should slot into their No. 1 and No. 2 WR roles in two-wide sets. Henry should return to his role as the primary TE, and WR DeMario Douglas will likely be tethered to the slot.
Brown, 29, has a great chance to become the team’s alpha. There has been some chatter about Brown slowing down, but he was extremely solid last year, finishing in the top 85 percentile in PFF receiving grade (85.9, 11th), TGTs/G (8, 11th), recs/G (5.2, 11th), TPRR (27%, T-9th), 1st-read TGT % (35%, 8th), and ESPN Open Score (89.3, 9th), as well as three of the four metrics that go into Apex Score calculation: TGT share (27.5%, 9th), YACo/G (11.3, 6th), and AY share (37.7%, T-11th). Brown had one of the most well-rounded profiles last season and finished third among WRs in preseason Apex Score (9.20).
Not only should Brown be the undeniable focal point of the Patriots’ passing game, but Maye is the best passer Brown will ever have played with. Moving from a situation with a -2.4% PROE to a +2.4% PROE, an increase in routes seems likely; if Brown can match or beat his 27% target share and pair that with more routes in a more efficient passing offense, he would beat his WR11 finish from a year ago, and potentially beat his WR7 ADP.
Romeo Doubs feels like the only other Patriot WR you could consider starting in Week 1, and that would require a pretty deep league and probably a shallow stable of fantasy WRs. Based on 2025 fantasy results, it is not a favorable matchup for New England WRs.
According to PFF’s matchup tool, which combines PFF player grades with expected individual matchups, Brown has a good opportunity this week, while Doubs and Douglas have fair matchups.
Based on last year, Henry may have the best pathway to fantasy production, as Seattle was less effective against opposing TEs than they were against WRs, although it would still be a below-average matchup.
According to PFF’s matchup tool, Henry’s matchup is considered to be good.
The Seahawks should have an advantage in the pass-rush; they ranked eighth in defensive PrROE (pressure rate over expectation) generated in 2025 (+9.5%). The Patriots ranked 27th in offensive PrROE allowed, so it really could be a lopsided situation on that side of the ball.
As mentioned earlier, Maye isn't overly susceptible to coming undone under duress; his QB rating drop when pressured vs. when clean was 32.6 points in 2025, which ranked 18th of 36 qualified QBs, or about average. Of course, he is prone to scrambling, which doesn’t go into QB rating computation.
Last year, the Patriots ranked ninth in offensive adj. YBC/Att generated (2.32), and the Seahawks’ defense ranked 2nd in defensive adj. YBC/Att allowed (1.53). This also works to the Patriots’ disadvantage: the seventh-worst run-blocking matchup of the week.
The Patriots have a complicated RB situation, and drafters didn’t seem overly confident about how to handle it; they went back-to-back in Underdog ADP this summer, RB26 and RB27, with Henderson holding a slight edge.
Stevenson caught fire as Henderson cooled, starting in Week 18, when Stevenson was AFC Offensive Player of the Week with 153 scrimmage yards and three TDs on nine touches. In the playoffs, Stevenson doubled Henderson in touches, 70-35, and accumulated 343 scrimmage yards to Henderson’s 109. That included the AFC Championship, where Stevenson outsnapped Henderson 60-4 in a blizzard (perhaps an argument on Henderson’s behalf since Stevenson is far bigger).
To be fair to drafters, Stevenson and Henderson are difficult to parse. They had nearly an exact overlap last season except for receiving stats, where Stevenson was far more effective. Henderson is a Year Two player, and he is viewed as more explosive.
While Henderson does have far greater speed (Henderson ran a 4.43 to Stevenson’s 4.64), Stevenson ran for 20+ yards on 5.4% of his carries (3rd), and Henderson ran for 20+ yards on 3.3% (T-7th), so this is at least overblown, if not transposed. Stevenson seems to have the coaches' trust; Henderson seems to lack vision.
For now, Stevenson is healthy, and Henderson is not; Stevenson could be a legit bell-cow.
The Seahawks have been tough to beat for fantasy RBs, holding them to 22nd in PPR/G in their last five games in a sample that included Bijan Robinson, Jonathan Taylor, and Christian McCaffrey.
The Seahawks’ weakness when it comes to RBs may be against pass-catchers, as they surrendered the second-most RECs to RBs and the 12th-most rec Yds in that span. That could help Stevenson to a small degree.