Seattle Seahawks: 15 best first-round draft picks of all-time

Jacob Green joined the Seahawks when Seattle professional football was not very good. But Green and some other players helped turn Seahawks football into a respectable group that could make the playoffs and possibly even make the Super Bowl. He was drafted No. 10 overall in 1980 out of Texas A&M University.

Of course, Seattle never did make the Super Bowl during Green’s time with the Seahawks, but that wasn’t his fault. Seattle made the playoffs four times after Green joined the franchise, beginning in 1983. Green, as I mentioned before with Jeff Bryant, become an AFC power because of their defensive line. And Green was the standout.

Let’s think about how the Pro Bowl voting, for instance. Nowadays, if a player gets 16 sacks, he would probably be a Pro Bowl player. Green, though, had that many sacks in 1983 and wasn’t even in the Pro Bowl. The bias against the Pacific Northwest was and remains true, 12s.

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Green did make the Pro Bowl in 1986 and 1987, however. And between 1983 and 1986, Green accumulated 54.5 sacks. That’s impressive then and it would be more impressive now. If Green were up in free agency in 2019, he would make lots of money. But times have changed and he was always underpaid during his career compared to now.

Green is still far and away the Seahawks’ franchise sacks leader. He finished his career with 97.5 in a Seattle uniform. The next closest player is Michael Sinclair with 73.5. Pro Football Hall of Famer Cortez Kennedy played the same amount of years in a Seahawks uniform – 11 – and has 38.5 fewer sacks. Just think about that for a second.