Seahawks 25 best players, #23 Ahtyba Rubin
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 3 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 23rd Best Player On The Seahawks Roster Is….
#23: Ahtyba Rubin, DT
The Seahawks have a knack for finding undervalued defensive linemen. Rubin followed the example set earlier by Michael Bennett and Cliff Avril, signing a modest one year deal prior to the 2015 season. All he did after that is go out and prove his worth, just like those two teammates, earning a 3 year, $12 million dollar deal in the process.
What Rubin does best is stuff the run, clog up the middle, and take up blockers to clear free lanes for the Seahawks outstanding back 7.
But that’s not all. Head coach Pete Carroll calls Rubin unique in his ability to try and chase plays down from the backside as well.
“I think it really stands out, because he’s a big, strong, tough football player that he’s just got the mentality to take off and run. Most guys don’t run like that. We pride ourselves on pursuit, as everybody does, but when you see your biggest guys inside running like that, it fires everybody up,” Carroll said.
The Seahawks were so high on the 6’2″ 310 pound Rubin, in fact, that they felt comfortable letting veteran DT Brandon Mebane walk away via free agency. Then they went and added Alabama’s Jarran Reed in the 2nd round of the draft. Like Rubin, Reed has built a reputation as an elite run stopper.
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Next to our #23 best Seahawks player Rubin, that’s quite a formidable duo lining up on the interior for this team in 2016.