The Seattle Seahawks are a professional American football team based in Seattle, Washington, USA.

They are currently members of the Western Division of the National Football Conference (NFC) in the National Football League (NFL).

The team, along with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, joined the NFL in 1976 as expansion teams.

On December 5, 1974, NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle announced the official signing of the franchise agreement by Lloyd W. Nordstrom, representing the Nordstrom family as majority partners for the consortium.

On March 5, 1975, John Thompson, a former University of Washington executive, was hired as the general manager of the yet-unnamed team.

Thompson recruited and hired Jack Patera, a Minnesota Vikings assistant coach, to be the first head coach of the new team.

The team took the field for the first time on August 1, 1976 in a pre-season game against the San Francisco 49ers in the then newly constructed Kingdome.

The franchise began play in 1976 in the NFC West division but switched conferences with the Buccaneers after one season and joined the AFC West.

This realignment was dictated by the league as part of the 1976 expansion plan, so that both expansion teams could play each other twice and every other NFL franchise once during their first two seasons.

They have won the NFC Championship Game once in 2005, and lost the AFC Championship Game once in 1983.

As a tribute to the raucous fans that made the Kingdome one of the loudest stadiums in the NFL the Seattle Seahawks retired the number 12 on December 15, 1984.

2010 Seattle Seahawks tickets and schedule