The reigning Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks kicked off the 2026 regular season the way champions should: winning a tight, low-scoring game at home in front of their own crowd. It wasn’t pretty. Thirteen points will not silence anyone who wonders whether the Seahawks can repeat, but a win in Week 1 is a win in Week 1, and the defending champions have the banner and the pedigree to back up their right to make it look workmanlike when they need to.

Quarterback Drew Lock passed for 187 yards, efficient enough to keep the offense moving without the kind of sustained explosion that a healthy version of this offense can produce. The real story on offense was Jaxon Smith-Njigba, who led all receivers with 122 yards and reminded everyone paying attention that the Seahawks have one of the more dynamic young pass-catchers in the NFC. The defense did enough to hold the Patriots to 10, and when the final whistle blew at Lumen Field, the banner was still hanging and the scoreboard said what it needed to say.

New England, operating under the pressure of a franchise trying to find its next identity in the post-dynasty era, fought to the final possession but couldn’t close the gap. A 13–10 loss on the road in Seattle against the Super Bowl champions is not a crushing result for a team with rebuilding work to do. It is, however, a reminder that the conference is not waiting for anyone to catch up.

The NFL played its first-ever regular-season game on Australian soil Thursday night at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, and San Francisco made absolutely certain the moment was remembered for the right reasons. A crowd of 100,021 fans — the largest to watch an NFL game in the Southern Hemisphere and one of the largest ever to watch any NFL game anywhere — packed the MCG and watched Brock Purdy pick the Rams apart with the calm, decisive efficiency that has defined his game since his first start.

Purdy completed 25 of 34 passes for 205 yards and three touchdowns, connecting with Mike Evans, Demarcus Robinson, and Deebo Samuel for scores in what amounted to a clinic in the kind of controlled, aggressive passing attack that defensive coordinators dread most. The 49ers scored on their terms, in their rhythm, without the kind of anxiety that a hostile international crowd and an unfamiliar venue might introduce to a less composed offense.

Matthew Stafford and the Los Angeles Rams simply could not find an answer. Stafford was held to 155 yards with an interception by a 49ers defense that came to Australia with something to prove and left with the result to show for it. The 27–7 final was not as close as that margin implies at certain points in the game. San Francisco was the better team on Thursday night in Melbourne in every way that the sport measures, and the 100,000 Australians who stayed through the full game saw NFL football at its most convincing.

The significance of this game extends beyond the final score. The NFL’s first regular-season game in Australia represents a genuine expansion of the sport’s global footprint, and a 100,021-person crowd at the Melbourne Cricket Ground is a number that will be cited in conversations about international expansion for years. The 49ers will be remembered as the team that won the first one. Brock Purdy will be remembered as the quarterback who threw three touchdowns in front of the largest crowd in the history of NFL football in Australia. That’s not a small thing.