Seahawks 25 best players, #21 Jeremy Lane
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 5 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 21st Best Player On The Seahawks Roster Is….
#21: Jeremy Lane, CB
Lane isn’t the first player you think of when discussing the Seahawks league-leading defense, but in 2016 he may just be the most important. When he was finally healthy and stepped onto the field last year, he made an immediate difference. Lane played so well (in a near platoon situation with Deshawn Shead) that the Seahawks were comfortable enough to end the Cary Williams experiment and release the veteran CB after only 10 games.
This year, Lane would seem to be the presumptive starter opposite All Pro Richard Sherman. With a full, healthy offseason to prepare, look for him to make it a lot harder for opposing defenses to completely ignore the side Sherman is playing on. Clearly, the Seahawks have the confidence that Lane can be a full-time starter, giving him a 4 year, $23 million dollar contract to keep him from leaving as a free agent.
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If Lane can stay healthy, he’s got a chance to emerge as a legitimate member of the Legion Of Boom, and make the Seahawks already-formidable defense even more dominant.