Ho-ho-ho? Reports of Seahawks playing two most intriguing games on unique dates

Santa’s apparently bringing one of the NFL most attractive games for the coming season to Seattle.

Sam Darnold, Mike Macdonald and the Seahawks are hosting Matthew Stafford, Sean McVay and the division rival Los Angeles Rams on Christmas Day at Lumen Field, in a rematch of January’s NFC championship game. That’s per Dave Mahler of KJR radio in Seattle Wednesday afternoon.

The game is likely to be a 5 p.m. or so local-time kickoff on FOX television Friday, Dec. 25. Games earlier in the day on Christmas are going to be on the Netflix streaming service. It’s unlikely the Rams will get three Netflix games. The Rams are already reportedly playing two Netflix games this coming season. That includes L.A. versus the San Francisco 49ers in Australia in week one.

The leak is ahead of the league officially releasing its complete 2026 schedule Thursday at 5 p.m. If it’s true, this will be the first Christmas game in the Seahawks’ 51-season history.

The team has played on Friday only one other time: Dec. 20, 1985, a loss to Denver in an ABC television primetime special from the Kingdome that season.

A Rams-Seahawks Christmas game would mean a short rest for both teams before one of the most compelling and likely influential meetings of the 2026 season. Either Seattle or Los Angeles could play one of the Saturday games the NFL will have the weekend before. Otherwise, they will be playing on Christmas on four days’ rest.

The Rams and Seahawks played three thrilling games last season. Seattle won two of them, both at home. That included a crazy win in overtime 38-37 on a Thursday night in December at Lumen Field, when the Seahawks rallied from down 16 points in the fourth quarter. Seattle then beat L.A. 31-27 in the conference title game in January to get the Seahawks into Super Bowl 60.