Before the rest of the NFL plays, these four teams get to answer some questions

We don't even have to wait until Sunday.

The NFL season starts Wednesday night, and before the rest of the league takes the field, four teams are going to give us our first real look at what they might be this season.

And honestly, there probably isn't a better way to start Week 1.

A Super Bowl rematch right away

First, we get a Super Bowl rematch.

The defending champion Seattle Seahawks will welcome the New England Patriots to Lumen Field, just seven months after Seattle beat New England 29-13 to win Super Bowl LX.

The obvious question is whether either team is really different from the one we watched in February.

For Seattle, it's about finding out if last year's dominant team is ready to do it again. The Seahawks went 14-3 last season and return much of the roster that carried them to the championship, although Super Bowl MVP Kenneth Walker III is now in Kansas City.

Seattle doesn't need to prove it can win. We already know that.

What we don't know is whether this team is good enough to do it all over again.

What did New England fix?

For New England, the question might be even more interesting.

Was the Super Bowl simply the end of one season, or did it expose something about the Patriots that Seattle figured out?

The Patriots have spent the offseason making changes around Drake Maye, including adding A.J. Brown, Romeo Doubs and Alijah Vera Tucker.

Now we get to see what that looks like against the same team that just beat them for a championship.

That's a pretty good first test.

Then things get weird

Then Thursday gets strange.

Before most NFL teams have even played a game, the San Francisco 49ers and Los Angeles Rams will be playing each other nearly 8,000 miles from home at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Australia.

It will be the first regular-season NFL game ever played in Australia.

That creates a completely different set of questions.

How much will the travel matter? San Francisco arrived a week early to adjust to the time difference, while the Rams have taken a much different approach and plan to arrive just a day before the game.

Maybe it matters. Maybe it doesn't.

But we're going to find out.

Two NFC contenders with something to prove

And then there is the football itself.

The 49ers and Rams are both expected to have something to say about the NFC this season. So while the location makes this game unusual, the matchup itself could tell us quite a bit.

Is San Francisco ready to make another run?

Are the Rams as good as many people expect them to be?

Can either team make an early statement against a division rival?

We don't have to wait long for those questions to start getting answered.

Just don't overreact

That's what makes these first two nights so interesting.

We're going to spend all offseason trying to figure out which teams are real contenders, which teams got better and which teams are being talked about because it's September and everybody is undefeated.

By the time Sunday arrives, we'll already have four teams giving us some answers. Of course, we should probably remember one thing.

It's Week 1.

Whatever happens Wednesday and Thursday will tell us something.

It just won't tell us everything.