RENTON, Wash. — Rest assured, all is well with Seattle Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold’s Super Bowl ring.During the Seahawks’ ring ceremony in June, Darnold dropped his, but it emerged from the short fall unscathed.“Of course this would happen to me, dropping the ring,” Darnold said Monday. “But I will say in my defense. … I opened the box, and the ring was already falling out. It wasn’t like I made the ring fall out of the box. I just wanted to clear that up.”Likewise, the Seahawks want to make it abundantly obvious that they have no intention of living in the past. Seattle begins its title defense on Wednesday with a Super Bowl rematch against the New England Patriots in both teams’ season opener at Lumen Field.Thanks to a family member with plenty of expertise on the matter, veteran defensive lineman Leonard Williams knows a tough task awaits the Seahawks. They hope to become the ninth franchise in NFL history to win back-to-back Super Bowls.Williams’ father-in-law is Hall of Fame safety Ronnie Lott, who secured consecutive Super Bowl titles (plus two others) with the San Francisco 49ers in 1989 and 1990.“He talked about how hard it is to repeat,” Williams said. “That was part of what he told me that’s hard about it: Guys look to the last season instead of looking forward, and we’re not doing that around here.”Nor are the Seahawks getting googly-eyed about all the hype surrounding the Los Angeles Rams, either. Los Angeles is the clear favorite to win the Super Bowl with +500 odds. This year features the largest preseason gap between the top two teams in Super Bowl odds since the 2017 Patriots (+275) opened as favorites over the Seahawks, Green Bay Packers and Las Vegas Raiders (all +800). Seattle is tied for fourth in preseason odds at +1200, behind the Rams, Buffalo Bills and Baltimore Ravens (both +1000).Power Rankings: Why the Seahawks aren't No. 1Chad GraffThe Rams, who finished runner-up to the Seahawks in the NFC last year, added reigning Defensive Player of the Year Myles Garrett, cornerbacks Trent McDuffie and Jaylen Watson and coaxed three-time DPOY Aaron Donald out of retirement. Seahawks safety Julian Love admitted it would be naive to say he has not paid attention to the Rams’ latest additions.“But at the same time, I feel like, ‘How can we let that affect anything we do right now?’ is kind of the mindset,” Love said of the Rams. “We play those guys in December at some point. It’s September. It’s that mindset of, ‘We have more things to worry about.’ The biggest fish to fry is the one that’s right in front of us, and that’s New England.”To Love’s point, the Seahawks won’t see the Rams until Christmas Day in Seattle. The teams will meet again two weeks later for the regular-season finale in Los Angeles. In the meantime, the Seahawks have been busy getting adjusted to first-year offensive coordinator Brian Fleury’s system ahead of Wednesday’s season opener.Backup quarterback Drew Lock said the praise for the high-flying Rams hasn’t come up a lot in Seattle’s locker room. That’s not because the team is seeking to avoid the topic; rather, there just isn’t much time for those kinds of discussions.“If I was in Sam’s shoes, I wouldn’t be going home thinking about what people are necessarily saying,” Lock said of Darnold. “I’d be thinking about what my kid’s eating for dinner, and is he actually going to eat it, or is he going to throw it on the ground?”It helps, too, that the Seahawks would like to avoid being satisfied. Linebacker Ernest Jones IV said complacency would be Seattle’s pitfall, should the team fall short of expectations in 2026, a sentiment Williams echoed.“You can win it all and just think you’ve got it all figured out,” Jones said. “The other 31 teams are evolving, and they’re trying to get better. They’re trying to get to where you are.”With the way the Rams retooled their roster, they might have a deeper squad on paper than Seattle. But the Seahawks return reigning Offensive Player of the Year Jaxon Smith-Njigba, all five starting offensive linemen and many key contributors from the “Dark Side,” Seattle’s vaunted defense that allowed the fewest points per game in the league last season.Having a sparkling recent track record doesn’t hurt Seattle’s cause, either, especially when it comes to winning over players like Love. The first three years of the safety’s career were spent on New York Giants teams that posted sub-.500 records.Can the Seahawks fend off the Rams in the NFC West?Andrew Destin“Success accelerates trusting the process,” Love said. “I’ve been in some places where you lose some games or some things go left, and you’re like, ‘Man, this process isn’t working.’ And so, it’s very easy for us to trust the process because we had success last year. We just feel good about how we go about work each day. We know nobody’s short-cutting anything.”Still, it will be a challenge for Seattle to defend its crown, and not simply because one of its division rivals is the favorite to win it all. Williams expects the Seahawks to receive their opponents’ best each week.In the process, Williams hopes Seattle can forge a new identity. The Seahawks will have their first opportunity to do so Wednesday.Then, in due time, they can shift their attention to the Rams — regardless of whether they’re duking it out for a spot in the Super Bowl.“Coming off of a successful year, we’re not trying to chase the previous team that we once were,” Williams said. “Even though that was just a year ago or months ago, we understand that it’s a whole new season and whole new team.”