Seahawks 25 best players, #4 Earl Thomas

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 22 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 4th Best Player On The Seahawks Roster is….

#4: Earl Thomas, FS

Thomas wasn’t himself for much of last year. He was coming off offseason shoulder surgery, playing with a brace, and for the early part of the season having to try and compensate for the absence of Kam Chancellor (due to holdout and injury).

But he was still one of the best free safeties in the league. That’s how good he is.

Actually, once he was fully healed Thomas looked as prolific and dangerous as ever, pulling in 5 interceptions and forcing a fumble. His tackling numbers were down significantly, from 88 in 2014 to 42 last year. A fluke, or a product of trying to protect his shoulder? He only produced 42 tackles in 2012 as well so it could just have been how the flow of the game fell.

Regardless, we’re watching a premier player in his prime. Thomas has 5 Pro Bowl selections and 3 All Pro teams to his credit, yet he’s still only 27 years old. He has three years remaining on his contract, but after this season his $8.5 million salary isn’t guaranteed.

Next: With Baldwin now signed, who's next?

That’s irrelevant. Seahawk fans can look forward to watching Thomas’ prime years in a Seahawk uniform well into the foreseeable future.