Patriots already being rumored for two marquee games on 2026 NFL schedule

We've still got a little over a month until the NFL announces the schedule for the 2026 season. Yet the New England Patriots are already being tied to two of the marquee games on the league's slate.

Over the weekend, both ESPN's Mike Reiss and Ben Volin of The Boston Globe noted the Patriots have a chance to be the opponent in the season opener, hosted by the Seattle Seahawks.

The defending Super Bowl champion playing the first game of the year is an annual tradition, but that game being a Super Bowl rematch is rare. The last time the NFL did so when the Broncos and Panthers played in Super Bowl 50, then in the 2016 season opener seven months later (the Broncos won both games).

Options are limited to matchup up with Seattle in Week 1. It obviously has to be a home game, limiting the possibilities to nine teams - the Patriots, 49ers, Rams, Cardinals, Chiefs, Cowboys, Giants, Chargers, and Bears.

The Rams and 49ers are not available as they'll be playing a Week 1 game in Australia. According to Reiss, the Chiefs are out as owner Clark Hunt said at the NFL's annual meeting that his team won't be in that mix due to uncertainty around Patrick Mahomes' return from a torn ACL.

That leaves the Cardinals, Chargers, Cowboys, Giants, Bears, and Patriots. The Cardinals seem unlikely as a rebuilding team, and while the Chargers were in the playoffs last year, is there enough juice for an interconference game against a team that got bumped in the Wild Card round?

Reiss did note that the Giants could be an option, with "John Harbaugh's debut as Giants coach, along with the chance to grow quarterback Jaxson Dart's profile as an up-and-coming star." Additionally, the Bears are an up-and-coming NFC playoff team with a star quarterback. The Cowboys, as always, are a potential draw as well - although they played in this game last year when they visited the Philadelphia Eagles.

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If neither of those fit, then that would leave the Patriots. This year's opener will be played on a Wednesday instead of the traditional Thursday, to accommodate that game in Australia.

The other game of note is the Patriots' scheduled road game against the Detroit Lions. Reiss noted that "the value a potential Patriots-Lions game could create as part of a Sunday morning TV package was noted by some at the annual meeting." Volin wrote that game "has a high probability of being [played] in Munich in mid-November," as part of the league's international slate.

He added that if that doesn't end up happening, the game "probably would land on Thanksgiving" as the Lions' annual home game for the holiday. Other potential opponents for that game are the Bears, Packers, Vikings, Saints, Buccaneers, Jets, Giants, and Titans.

It'll still me more than a month until the Patriots - and NFL - schedule is finalized. After winning 14 games and appearing in the Super Bowl the team is cleary destined for more primetime and otherwise standalone window games - will these be two of them?