Seahawks 25 best players, #12 Cliff Avril
By Dan Viens
The Seattle Seahawks roster is generally regarded as one of the best in the NFL top to bottom, but what about the talent level within the roster? Our co-editor Dan Viens takes a shot at ranking the team’s Top 25 players in order.
(PART 14 OF 25 IN A SERIES)
NFL Network does their Top 100 NFL players list every year, and this off season we’ve seen our share of analysts taking a crack at ranking the best rosters in the league. As we enter into the dog days of the off season, with the start of training camp still over a month away, I wanted to see what it would look like if I tried to rank the best 25 players the Seahawks have.
It was harder than I thought.
The top 10 was pretty easy. I would suspect most would end up with the same 10-12 names in some order or another. After that it gets dicey.
Among the challenges, how do you figure in the rookies and players who have never played a down in Seattle?
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My criteria was wide-ranging. Sometimes I went with pure talent, and other times I gave more weight to the players importance to the team. And in certain cases the players role…….played a role in my ranking. When in doubt, however, I would just ask myself “who’s the better player?”
So here we go……
The 12th Best Player On The Seahawks Roster is….
#12: Cliff Avril, DE
Avril can fly under the radar a bit, overshadowed by some of the bigger names and personalities on the Seahawks defense, but he’s an integral part of the defensive line. He’s also one of the ultimate Seattle free agent success stories. Not finding the free agent market to his liking in 2013 as he sought to move on after 5 seasons in Detroit, Avril signed a one year deal with Seattle. Eight sacks and a Super Bowl ring later, he earned a 4 year, $28.5 million contract.
Avril is one of the quieter Seahawk players, but his production on the field speaks for itself. 22 sacks in three seasons.
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And if you ever question his value to the team, just remember the impact it had on Super Bowl XLIX when he left the game against New England in the third quarter. His injury, with the Hawks up 10 points at the time, might have been more crucial to the outcome of that game than anything, as the Seattle pass rush completely dried up in his absence.