Seahawks just received a unique gift from the NFL that no other Super Bowl champion has ever had before

Opening game will be on Wednesday

Contrary to the tradition of Thursday games to open the season, the Seahawks will play their first game on Wednesday, Sept. 9. The first matchup is yet to be determined, but it will start at 5:20 p.m. (PT)/8:20 p.m (ET) on NBC and Peacock. The big advantage for the Seahawks is that the team will have an extra day of rest before Week 2.

That happens because the NFL will play a regular season game between the Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers in Melbourne, Australia.

Because of American laws prohibiting NFL games on Friday night from the second weekend in September through the second weekend in December, the league won't be able to replicate what it did in the past two years, when the Thursday kickoff was followed by a Friday night game in São Paulo, Brazil.

The time difference from Australia is also much more significant, so the 49ers-Rams game will start at 10:35 a.m. Australian Eastern Standard Time, making it a Thursday night game in America.

The Seahawks will most likely have 11 days of rest, presuming the Week 2 game will happen on Sunday. It could be 12 games if it's a "Monday Night Football" matchup. Since 1950, there have been just four games that have been played on a Wednesday. The Seahawks will become the ninth current NFL team to have played a game on every day of the week.

Seattle will open the regular season at Lumen Field. That means the possible opponents for Week 1 are the Arizona Cardinals, Dallas Cowboys, New York Giants, Kansas City Chiefs, Los Angeles Chargers, Chicago Bears, and New England Patriots.