The Seattle Seahawks' defending champions shift from practice reps to game action on Saturday, Aug. 15, when they host the Dallas Cowboys at Lumen Field in their only home preseason game.

For Bellevue families who packed Football Fest on Aug. 8, the next chance to see this roster live is just a week away.

Training camp at the Virginia Mason Athletic Center in Renton has already surfaced players worth watching. At a padded practice on Wednesday, Aug. 5, safety Julian Love looked like the player Seattle missed for nine games last season. He looked sharp.

Love covered tight ends, got downhill against the run and blew up screen passes during team drills, according to the Kirkland Reporter. He has been working with a weighted sprint cable machine between sessions to rebuild his mobility and change of direction.

Wide receiver Montorie Foster Jr. made the strongest case of any roster-bubble player that day. Foster Jr., signed to the practice squad in December, did not drop a single pass and hauled in an impressive sideline grab from quarterback Jalen Milroe. He is competing behind Jaxson Smith-Njigba, Cooper Kupp and Rasheed Shaheed on a depth chart that has an opening with Jake Bobo sidelined and Tory Horton returning from injury.

Cody White, a 6-foot-3, 225-pound receiver in his third Seattle season, also showed separation in red-zone and 11-on-11 work. White has just five career receptions with the Seahawks entering 2026.

Off the field, the team's HBO debut gave fans a look inside the locker room. "Hard Knocks: Training Camp with the Seattle Seahawks" premiered Tuesday, Aug. 4, making Seattle the first defending Super Bowl champion featured in the show's 25-year history.

Episode 1 captured an on-field altercation between fullback Brady Russell and edge rusher Derick Hall, then showed the two reconciling.

Hall, 25, who signed a three-year, $42 million extension in June after recording two sacks in the Super Bowl, said the moment reflected the team's culture. "At the end of the day, if it happens out here, we go in the locker room, we hug it out. … That's what we do really well here, and I think that's a part to our advantage," Hall told the Seattle Times after the Aug. 5 practice.

Head coach Mike Macdonald called the Hard Knocks experience "a gift from the football gods" and praised HBO's crew after the same practice.

The preseason opener against Dallas on Saturday, Aug. 15 will be the first live test for Love, Foster Jr. and the rest of the roster hopefuls trying to prove they belong on a team that retained roughly 70 percent of its championship core.