The 2016 season was the

Seattle Seahawks The Seattle Seahawks are a professional American football team based in Seattle. The Seahawks compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) West, which they rejoined in 2002 a ...

' 41st in the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ma ...

(NFL) and their seventh under

head coach A head coach, senior coach or manager is a professional at training and developing athletes. They typically hold a more public profile and are paid more than other Coach (sport), coaches. In some sports, the head coach is instead called the "manage ...

Pete Carroll Peter Clay Carroll (born September 15, 1951) is an American football coach who is the head coach and executive vice president for the Seattle Seahawks of the National Football League (NFL). He was previously the head football coach at USC from ...

. On October 23, the team played the

Arizona Cardinals The Arizona Cardinals are a professional American football team based in the Phoenix metropolitan area. The Cardinals compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC West, West division, an ...

in a game that ended in a 6–6 tie, the Seahawks' first

tie Tie has two principal meanings: * Tie (draw), a finish to a competition with identical results, particularly sports * Necktie, a long piece of cloth worn around the neck or shoulders Tie or TIE may also refer to: Engineering and technology * Ti ...

in franchise history. With their win against the

Los Angeles Rams The Los Angeles Rams are a professional American football team based in the Greater Los Angeles, Los Angeles metropolitan area. The Rams compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC Wes ...

in Week 15, the Seahawks claimed their third

NFC West The National Football Conference - Western Division or NFC West is one of the four divisions of the National Football Conference (NFC) in the National Football League (NFL). It currently has four members: the Arizona Cardinals, the Los Ange ...

title in the last four years. The Seahawks defeated the

Detroit Lions The Detroit Lions are a professional American football team based in Detroit. The Lions compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) North Division. The team play their home games at For ...

in the Wild Card Round, but lost to the eventual NFC champion Atlanta Falcons in the Divisional Round. Another highlight from this season includes head coach Pete Carroll's first return to

Gillette Stadium Gillette Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium located in the town of Foxborough, Massachusetts, which is southwest of downtown Boston. It serves as the home stadium and administrative offices for both the New England Patriots of the National Footb ...

on November 13 for the first time in 17 years. Carroll served as Patriots head coach from

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of ...

–

1999 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school s ...

, the last before

Bill Belichick William Stephen Belichick (; born April 16, 1952) is an American professional football coach who is the head coach of the New England Patriots of the National Football League (NFL). Additionally, he exercises extensive authority over the Patr ...

's hiring in

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...

. For the first time since trading for him in

2010 File:2010 Events Collage New.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2010 Chile earthquake was one of the strongest recorded in history; The Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland disrupts air travel in Europe; A scene from the opening ceremony of ...

Marshawn Lynch Marshawn Terrell Lynch (born April 22, 1986) is an American former football running back who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 12 seasons. Nicknamed "Beast Mode", he spent the majority of his career with the Seattle Seahawks. Lyn ...

did not play for the Seahawks as he retired in the offseason. Lynch would later come out of retirement to play for his hometown team

Oakland Raiders The Oakland Raiders were a professional American football team that played in Oakland from its founding in 1960 to 1981 and again from 1995 to 2019 before relocating to the Las Vegas metropolitan area where they now play as the Las Vegas Ra ...

before their relocation to Las Vegas before rejoining the Seahawks in December

2019 File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...

Roster changes

Free agents

Signings

Departures

Trades

* September 3: The Seahawks acquired

strong safety Safety is a position in gridiron football on the defense. The safeties are defensive backs who line up ten to fifteen yards from the line of scrimmage. There are two variations of the position: the free safety and the strong safety. Their duti ...

Dewey McDonald Dewey Dupree McDonald (born June 10, 1990) is a former American football linebacker. He played college football at California University of Pennsylvania, and signed with the Indianapolis Colts as an undrafted free agent following the 2014 NFL d ...

in a trade that sent a conditional 7th-round draft pick to the

Draft

Draft trades

Undrafted free agents

All undrafted free agents were signed after the

2016 NFL draft The 2016 NFL Draft was the 81st annual meeting of National Football League (NFL) franchises to select newly eligible American football players. As in 2015, the draft took place at the Auditorium Theatre and Grant Park in Chicago. The draft be ...

concluded on April 30, unless noted otherwise.

Staff

Final roster

* Starters in bold. * (*) denotes players that were selected to the

2017 Pro Bowl The 2017 Pro Bowl (branded as the 2017 Pro Bowl presented by Aquafina for sponsorship reasons) was the National Football League's all-star game for the 2016 season, which was played at Camping World Stadium in Orlando, Florida, on January 29, 2 ...

Preseason

The Seahawks' preliminary preseason schedule was announced on April 7. Exact dates and times were finalized on April 14, when the regular season schedule was announced.

Regular season

Schedule

Note: Intra-division opponents are in bold text.

Game summaries

Week 1: vs. Miami Dolphins

Week 2: at Los Angeles Rams

Week 3: vs. San Francisco 49ers

Week 4: at New York Jets

Week 6: vs. Atlanta Falcons

Week 7: at Arizona Cardinals

Chandler Catanzaro and

Steven Hauschka Stephen Theodore Hauschka (born June 29, 1985) is a former American football placekicker. He was signed by the Minnesota Vikings as an undrafted free agent in 2008. He played college football at Middlebury College and North Carolina State. Haus ...

both missed chip-shot field goals in overtime as the Seahawks and Cardinals played to a 6–6 draw, the first tie in Seattle Seahawks history.

Week 8: at New Orleans Saints

Week 9: vs. Buffalo Bills

With the win, the Seahawks have now recorded at least one victory at CenturyLink Field against each of the 31 other franchises.

Week 10: at New England Patriots

Over one and half year after

Super Bowl XLIX Super Bowl XLIX was an American football game played to determine the champions of the National Football League (NFL) for the 2014 season. The American Football Conference (AFC) champion New England Patriots defeated the National Football Co ...

, the Seahawks were trying to get their revenge against the Patriots after the heartbreaking interception. They successfully got their revenge by stopping the Patriots from getting into the end zone, and won the game 31-24. The Seahawks were the only team to defeat the Patriots under Tom Brady during this season (their one other loss, against the Buffalo Bills in Week 4, happened during Brady's suspension for the Deflategate scandal). This also marked Pete Carroll's first game in New England in 17 years after he got fired from the Patriots organization.

Week 11: vs. Philadelphia Eagles

Week 12: at Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Week 13: vs. Carolina Panthers

Sunday Night Football featured a Divisional Playoff rematch from 2015 as the Seattle Seahawks faced the Carolina Panthers in CenturyLink field. Russell Wilson threw for 277 yards with one touchdown and one interception while Cam Newton was held to 182 yards and one touchdown. This was the first time that Seattle had scored 40 points in a regular season game since the 2013 season. Seattle improved their record to 8-3-1 of season. The win was not without cost, however, as star safety

Earl Thomas Earl Winty Thomas III (born May 7, 1989) is an American former football free safety who played in the National Football League (NFL). He was drafted by the Seattle Seahawks in the first round of the 2010 NFL Draft. During his time with the Se ...

broke his leg early in the second quarter, knocking him out for the rest of the season.

Week 14: at Green Bay Packers

Russell Wilson had his worst game of his career, throwing only one touchdown and a career-high five picks against a red-hot Packers team, causing the Seahawks to fall to their worst loss in the last six years. Seattle's defense was without safety Earl Thomas, who was out for the year with a broken leg. They only managed one sack on the final play in the third quarter, ending a streak of 10 consecutive quarters without a sack.

Aaron Rodgers Aaron Charles Rodgers (born December 2, 1983) is an American football quarterback for the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League (NFL). Rodgers began his college football career at Butte College in 2002 before transferring to t ...

, with a 3:0 TD-INT ratio, posted a 150.8 passer rating in this game, the highest allowed by the Seattle defense since

became head coach in 2010.

Week 15: vs. Los Angeles Rams

With their 24–3 victory over the Rams, the Seahawks moved to 9–4–1 and clinched the NFC West title.

Week 16: vs. Arizona Cardinals

Week 17: at San Francisco 49ers

Postseason

Schedule

Game summaries

NFC Wild Card Playoffs: vs. (6) Detroit Lions

NFC Divisional Playoffs: at (2) Atlanta Falcons

This was the final game in Seattle for longtime Seahawks Jermaine Kearse and

Standings

Division

Conference

References

External links

* {{2016 NFL season by team

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a port, seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the county seat, seat of King County, Washington, King County, Washington (state), Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in bo ...

Seattle Seahawks seasons

Seahawks NFC West championship seasons