Seahawks Embrace Uniqueness of Super Bowl Opening Night

Sights and sounds from the Seahawks’ experiences during Super Bowl Opening Night.

Feb 02, 2026 at 10:40 PM

John Boyle

Seahawks.com Senior Reporter

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SAN JOSE—Somewhere between Abraham Lucas meeting Chris Kael, the bassist from metal band Five Finger Death Punch, and Brady Russell explaining his playoff mullet to a German reporter, and Ernest Jones IV getting Pokémon cards from someone in a Charizard costume, and Sam Darnold briefly putting on a hat shaped like a giant ham, there was some football talk mixed in on Monday night.

But while the rest of this week in the Bay Area will be focused on football and Seahawks' Super LX matchup with the Patriots, Super Bowl Opening Night is a far less serious event. The evening began with Patriots players and coaches spending an hour with media, followed by Seahawks players and coaches having their hour to field questions from everyone ranging from local beat reporters to international media to kid reporters to comedian Craig Gass to, yes, people in costumes.

As the Patriots finished up and the Seahawks arrived, both teams' quarterbacks and head coaches met on a stage with NFL Red Zone host Scott Hanson, something somewhat akin to a boxing weigh-in, only if the boxers just said nice things about each other and didn't get into fake fights to drum up excitement for the main event.

With fans in attendance, plenty of them being 49ers fans, given the location of this year's Super Bowl, the Seahawks were greeted with a mix of cheers and booing when they took the stage, which players seemed to find amusing.

Not long after taking his seat at a podium, Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald declared that Devon Witherspoon was the funniest player on the team, which later led to the Pro-Bowl cornerback being asked about his coach's sense of humor.

"He's funny in a way that's not funny," Witherspoon said with a big grin. "You know when somebody says something that's not funny, but then it's funny, like, why would you say that. It's stuff like that."

Witherspoon's sense of humor does not, however, include really corny jokes, because he wasn't all that amused when he heard the following joke.

What do you call a dinosaur that's good at hide and seek?

A DoYouThinkHeSauraus.

Back at Macdonald's podium, Seattle's coach showed remarkable restraint giving a non-condescending answer when asked if the Super Bowl was a must-win game.

While Macdonald and some of the team's bigger-name players were assigned podiums for their hour with the media, most of the team's players and coaches stood around the convention center doing interviews with various outlets throughout the night.

For Lucas, a big heavy metal fan, meeting the bassist from Five Finger Death Punch was a highlight.

"That was pretty cool, yeah, I got a picture with him," he said.

Lucas likened having this much time with the media to his experiences at the NFL scouting combine or Senior Bowl, and his only complaint was being on his feet for so long.

"It's like the combine or the Senior Bowl, so I'm sort of used to the format and the structure," he said. "My legs kind of hurt from standing though."

Darnold, who along with receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba drew the biggest crowd of reporters at his podium, answered plenty of questions about his career journey, but there were also plenty of light-hearted moments, including when Guillermo Rodriguez of Jimmy Kimmel Live! fame offered up the giant ham hat, which Darnold dutifully put on for a brief moment before switching back to his Seahawks Super Bowl LX hat.

When one of the several kid reporters at Opening Night asked Witherspoon what advice he'd give to young football players, he didn't give tips for how to succeed in the sport or how to reach the heights he has in his young career; he instead encouraged them to be present in the moment.

"Enjoy your childhood, man, because when it's gone it's gone, you can never get it back," Witherspoon said.

The same could be said for a Super Bowl experience, especially the first one, which this game will be for the vast majority of players on Seattle's roster. And though the Seahawks will get down to business the rest of the week, they enjoyed Super Bowl opening night, bad jokes, costumes, ham hats and all.