Seahawks and Broncos set for a rare uniform matchup in 2026: This almost never happens in the NFL

When the NFL calendar hits Week 6 this year, there will be a Throwback Thursday showdown in Denver, and that Seahawks-Broncos game will feature something rarely seen in the NFL: Both teams will be wearing colored jerseys.

If you regularly watch the NFL, you've probably noticed that at least one team wears white in almost every game, but that won't be the case when the Seahawks and Broncos get together on "Thursday Night Football" on Oct. 15.

The Broncos have announced that they'll wear their throwback Orange Crush uniforms for the game. The Broncos started wearing the orange throwbacks in 2024, and since then, they've worn them five times and gone 5-0.

On the Seahawks' end, they'll wear a royal blue uniform with a silver helmet that's a throwback to the 1990s. The Seahawks wore these throwbacks three times during their Super Bowl-winning season in 2025, and they'll make their 2026 debut in Denver.

These are two of the most iconic throwback uniforms in the NFL, and when the teams take the field, it will be color vs. color in what will easily be the best jersey matchup of the year.

The Seahawks will actually be rocking their throwback jerseys in back-to-back games because they'll also be wearing them in Week 7 against the Chiefs. But the Broncos game is the only one that will give us the rare color vs. color matchup.

Color vs. color games are rare

It's rare to see a color vs. color game in the NFL. Although the league embraced the theme during the Color Rush years from 2015-18 -- a span that featured multiple color vs. color games -- the Broncos-Seahawks game will mark just the fourth time since the start of the 2021 season that we've seen a color vs. color game in which neither team wore a Color Rush uniform.

In fact, this matchup will mark just the second time since the start of the 2024 season that the NFL has given us a color vs. color uniform game. The last time it happened came in Week 15 of last season when the Falcons wore black against the Buccaneers, who wore their iconic Creamsicle jerseys. 

Before that, the last color vs. color game came in Week 8 of the 2023 season, and that also involved the Falcons in a game where they wore black against the Titans, who wore their baby blue Oilers uniforms.

If you want to get technical, you could argue that black isn't a color (just ask Adobe). If that's the case, then Broncos-Seahawks will be the first true color vs. color game -- one that doesn't involve a black jersey -- in four years. The last time we got one came in Week 8 of the 2022 season, when the Chicago Bears wore orange against the Dallas Cowboys, who were suited up in their navy blue jerseys.

The fact that the Broncos and Seahawks will both wear their throwbacks against each other is fitting because these two teams used to be in the same division. From 1977 through 2001, the Seahawks played in the AFC West with the Broncos, so the teams will renew an old rivalry in the uniforms they wore when they shared a division.