It was an amazing ride to the top of the NFL as a Seattle Seahawks fan last season.

Getting back there this year, however, will be a bumpy ride.

LAST WEEK, one of the biggest days of the offseason unfolded as the NFL announced its schedule for the 2014 season.

And like some coaches say, it's going be a grind.

Like in recent years, the Super Bowl champion - this year being the Seahawks - will open the season at home, with the Seahawks playing the Green Bay Packers on Sept. 4.

The last time these two teams played, it was anything less than entertaining.

With an officials lockout going through the first three weeks of the season, a play at the end of the game - now known as the "Fail Mary" - got the NFL and officials back together and that was the final game with the reserve officials.

From there, Seattle will face the Denver Broncos on Sept. 21, the third week of the season. In a matchup that most have wanted to see again since last year's Super Bowl, they'll get it again, kind of, when the teams face off in the first week of the preseason in August.

Seattle will also host San Diego, who they'll play a month earlier in the second week of the preseason.

I'm sure that the starters won't play much of that August matchup, a majority of those plays on the offensive side of the ball will be a lot alike for the rematch in early September.

FOR THOSE fans starving for a rematch of the NFC Championship game between Seattle and San Francisco, hopefully you won't be by the time they kick that game off.

The game, the first of two in three weeks, will be the final game of the Thanksgiving Day tripleheader, with a second game in Seattle in early December.

To me, that doesn't do any favors to either team in that game.

On one hand, you've got what could be the top two teams in the NFC battling in prime time, with the rest of the league watching.

The downside is that it doesn't give either team much time to rest after what could be a 60-minute battle.

Sandwiched in between for Seattle is a trip to Philadelphia, which also advanced to the playoffs last season. San Francisco, meanwhile, is at Oakland the following weekend.

THERE ARE reasons why a lot of teams that have won the Super Bowl the previous year don't make it back to the championship game.

Among them - injuries causing the team to lose games, or facing a tougher schedule than the previous year or just not having the right pieces in place to make a long run in the playoffs.

The Seahawks will need to replace a couple of missing pieces - Golden Tate leaving to Detroit and Walter Thurmond going to the New York Giants - but they've had to do that before.

We'll find out starting in September if they can do it again.

Jason Elliott is a sports writer for the Coeur d'Alene Press. He can be reached by telephone at 664-8176, Ext. 2020 or via email at jelliott@cdapress.com. Follow him on Twitter at JEPressSports.