Seahawks

Along Interstate 5, the Seahawks and the Los Angeles Rams have spent decades trading NFC West titles, and that highway distance is the whole point of the rivalry that carries its name. The San Francisco 49ers occupy the other end of the division grudge, though neither has ever quite matched what happens when the Seahawks' own crowd gets involved: the "12th Man" grew loud enough, often enough, to earn the club a share of credit for opposing offenses' false-start penalties, and Lumen Field still carries that reputation into every home game.

Seattle joined the NFL in 1976, having beaten out Sockeyes and Mariners in a public vote for its name a year earlier. Nearly three decades passed before the club reached its first Super Bowl, in the 2005 season, and it took until 2013 for the breakthrough: a 43–8 demolition of the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XLVIII, built on a defense that had by then earned the nickname "Legion of Boom." Richard Sherman, Kam Chancellor and Earl Thomas anchored that secondary, and the following January's NFC Championship produced "The Pick," Sherman's tipped-ball interception that sent Seattle back to the Super Bowl and, for a moment, made him the most talked-about man in the sport.

Not every big moment broke Seattle's way. The 2012 "Fail Mary" against the Green Bay Packers remains a sore point elsewhere in the league, however it landed in Seattle. Pete Carroll arrived in 2010 and built the roster and the temperament that carried the franchise through its best years, a run that stretched long enough to add a second Super Bowl in the 2025 season.

No player is tied to the club more tightly than Russell Wilson, the quarterback who ran that 2013 championship offense and became the face of the franchise for a decade afterward.