RENTON, Wash. — Seattle Seahawks tight end AJ Barner said he and his teammates are excited for the dropping of the banner Wednesday night at Lumen Field to commemorate their Super Bowl win over the New England Patriots last February.

But Barner said he’s far more excited for what will happen next: a rematch against those same Patriots and the beginning of the 2026 regular season. Kickoff is 8:20 p.m. ET Wednesday.

“Banner is going to be special,” Barner said before the Seahawks hit the field for practice Saturday at the VMAC.

“For me, I’m ready to turn the page, though. The Super Bowl was awesome, definitely a sick moment. But like, it’s over with. It’s in the past. I still love it. But like, I’m good. Let’s go play some new football.”

That comment is illustrative of a philosophy coach Mike Macdonald has tried to drill into his players since they first met to begin the offseason program in the spring: The Seahawks are not trying to run back the 2025 season and defend the Super Bowl title, but run it forward in 2026 and create an entirely new story.

Barner and other players say that has been heartily embraced with the understanding that dwelling on last season isn’t going to help win any games this year.

“We’ve lived it,” Barner said of the Super Bowl. “That first hit, the Patriots don’t care about that banner going up. The rest of the 31 other teams, they don’t care about it. So, it’s time to go, it’s time to turn the page. The banner will be cool, but it will be there tomorrow (the day after the game) and the day after that as well.”

Safety Julian Love said Saturday that one step the team has taken to reinforce that this is a new season is discouraging players from wearing Super Bowl-related clothing in the locker room or team facility.

“Start of camp it’s like guys feel a certain way if someone is wearing Super Bowl gear around the building,” Love said. “It’s like there’s that level of ‘no, no, no, that’s last year. Put that in your closet.’”

Love said he felt players began to turn the page the night of the ceremony in June when they received their Super Bowl rings.

“I feel like the building up to the ring ceremony it was understood that, like, this is the last hurrah,” he said. “We’re going to celebrate the hell out of this, getting these rings. After that it’s like, that chapter is closed. That book is closed. What’s next?”

That doesn’t mean they don’t understand that “what’s next’’ is a particularly rare sports challenge of trying to repeat as Super Bowl champions, something that has been accomplished only nine times since the game began being played in 1967.

One player who has some specific insight into that is defensive lineman Leonard Williams, whose father-in-law is Ronnie Lott, who won four rings with the San Francisco 49ers of the 1980s, including in consecutive seasons in 1988-89.

“People are going to play us differently,” Williams said. “Teams are going to see us as the defending champs and they’re probably going to play harder against us than they would against other teams. I have a great example in my father-in-law, Ronnie Lott, who’s done it before. And he talks about how hard it is, and how much we have to forget about the last season and focus on now. That gives me a lot of hope because I see that in the building. … Everybody’s done a good job of handling that success and just looking forward. Nobody’s talking about what we were last year. We’re all focused on how we can get it done this year.”

Williams said he’s had similar conversations with a few players from the other Seattle team to win a Super Bowl in 2013.

“Yeah, I have a good relationship with Kam Chancellor and Richard Sherman,” he said. “They all pretty much tell me the same thing Ronnie told me. It’s clearly different phases of football and different times, but it’s all the same thing as just focusing on what’s ahead and not looking back.”

Still, the sight of the Patriots on the other sideline — the first time there’s been a Super Bowl rematch in the season opener since Denver and Carolina in 2016 — will make it that much more tempting for everyone to think back to February in Santa Clara and Seattle’s 29-13 win.

Macdonald, though, is also making sure his team understands that, while there are a lot of familiar faces on each side, there are also several new ones.

The Patriots have a revamped receiver corps, cutting leading receiver Stefon Diggs in March and then trading for A.J. Brown and signing Romeo Doubs to take his place.

That will be a good test for a Seahawks secondary that is still in some flux with it being unclear if safety Nick Emmanwori will be able to play as he continues to recover from July ankle surgery (the team won’t release an injury report until Sunday and Macdonald did not offer any injury updates) and who will fill the third cornerback spot.

The Patriots have reconfigured the interior of an offensive line that was manhandled in the Super Bowl (notably trading center Garrett Bradbury to the Bears and inserting Jared Wilson in his place).

The Patriots also added a few big-name free agents to further beef up their defense, notably safety Kevin Byard (who led the NFL with seven interceptions with the Bears in 2025) and former Seahawk Dre’Mont Jones, who had a career-high seven sacks last season while splitting time with Baltimore and Tennessee.

The Seahawks, meanwhile, return all but two players who started in the Super Bowl.

But one of those two was the game’s MVP, running back Kenneth Walker III, who signed with the Chiefs. Seattle drafted running back Jadarian Price out of Notre Dame in the first round to help take his place.

The other departed starter is safety Coby Bryant, who signed with the Bears and will be replaced by Ty Okada.

“There’s a lot of new players involved,” Macdonald said. “That makes it simpler to get that message across. Context changed but it hasn’t really been a topic of conversation. It’s been a long time between the two games. Both teams will tell you that we’re different versions of who we are. It does help the message of, ‘Hey, we’re a new team.’ I’m sure the Patriots feel the same way. We’re focused on doing what we need to do on this game to make it come to life.”

Notes

— Cornerback Terrion Arnold, who signed with the Seahawks last Saturday and was placed on the commissioner’s exempt list last Sunday, cannot practice or play but is attending meetings, Macdonald said. There is no set time for when Arnold may come off the exempt list, which he was placed on for the league to let his legal process play out after he was charged with eight felony counts (four for robbery, four for kidnapping) in June. “He’s in the building and being part of our program and learning the heck out of our defense,” Macdonald said, adding his message to Arnold is to “keep training and stay ready for when there’s an opportunity.”

____

©2026 The Seattle Times. Visit seattletimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.