NFL's Week 1 9/11 tribute begins in Seattle with wild guitar solo during national anthem
The NFL promised that its Week 1 games would honor the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the 25th anniversary. However, individual teams had some leeway in how they did so, and the Seattle Seahawks took a uniquely local approach.
The league’s first game of the 2026 regular season, a rematch of Super Bowl LX between the visiting New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks, featured a pregame announcement that will be heard throughout the league Thursday in Australia, before Sunday’s games and ahead of Monday Night Football:
"This weekend marks the 25th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11th, the deadliest in our nation's history," the Lumens Field announcement bellowed. "We now ask that you join us in a moment of silence in honor of those affected by the September 11th tragedy."
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And immediately, one of the NFL's loudest venues fell mostly silent.
This must be said: The NFL's script calls the attacks of September 11, 2001, exactly what it was.
It wasn't "some people did something," as some Somalian-born congresswoman once said. It wasn't just a hijacking of planes.
These were indeed coordinated "terrorist attacks."
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A jihadist attack might have been a more accurate description, but we all know what kind of terrorists perpetrated it.
Anyway, after the moment of silence, the crowd was directed to both a sign language and guitar solo interpretation of the national anthem.
The guitar solo was performed by Pearl Jam's Mike McCready.
McCready, a liberal who has advocated all things ObamaCare and former President Obama, started out quite well.
It actually kind of hearkened back to Jimi Hendrix's rendition for a minute.
And then McCready apparently remembered he's a Seattle grunge rocker and went totally off Francis Scott Key script.
"Authentically Seattle," NBC's Mike Tirico noted on NBC.
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The Seahawks also invited some first responders who actually flew across the country to aid in the recovery effort after Sept. 11.
Seattle loved all of it, and the military flyover at the end provided some high-drama punctuation overhead.
And with that, the NFL's salute to Sept. 11 and the 2026 regular season has begun.