On June 15, 1972, Seattle Professional Football Inc., a group of Seattle business and community leaders, announced its intention to acquire an NFL franchise for the city of Seattle, WA. Almost two years later on June 4, 1974, the NFL awarded the group an expansion franchise.

The Seahawks are the only NFL team to switch conferences twice in the post-merger era. 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. In 2002, the Seahawks were returned to the NFC West as part of an NFL realignment plan that gave each conference four balanced divisions of four teams each. This was done after the Houston Texans were added as the thirty-second team. This realignment restored the AFC West to its initial post-merger roster of original AFL teams Denver, San Diego, Kansas City and Oakland.

Seattle has won six division titles in their franchise history: the 1988 and 1999 AFC West titles, and the 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007 NFC West titles. They have won the NFC Championship Game once in 2005, and lost the AFC Championship Game once in 1983. Before 2005, Seattle had the longest drought of playoff victories of any NFL team, dating back to the 1984 season. That drought was ended with a 20-10 win over the Washington Redskins in the 2005 playoffs. The all-time Seahawks playoff record is (7-10).

The team's use of the phrase "12th Man" was in a legal limbo for a while between the 2005 and 2006 season when Texas A&M University sued the team for trademark infringement. Before going to trial, both parties settled out of court with Seattle agreeing to acknowledge ownership rights to the 12th Man slogan to A&M. In return the Seahawks were allowed to continue to use the phrase.

Starting in the 1998 season, Blitz has been the Seahawks' official mascot. In the 2003 and 2004 seasons, a hawk named Faith would fly around the stadium just before the team came out of the tunnel. However, because of her relative small size and an inability to be trained to lead the team out of a tunnel, Faith was replaced by an augur hawk named Taima before the start of the 2005 season. Taima started leading the team out of the tunnel in September 2006.

The divisional schedule this season includes the November 15 game at 1:15pm PST at Arizona Cardinals University of Phoenix Stadium, November 29 at 10am PST at St. Louis Rams Edward Jones Dome, December 6 at 1:15pm PST with the San Francisco 49ers at home in Qwest Field. Matt Hasselbeck is back and healthy, get your Seattle Seahawks tickets to see if he can lead them back into the playoffs.