Seattle Seahawks: 15 best first-round draft picks of all-time
By Lee Vowell
. Left Tackle. 1997-08. Walter Jones. 1. player. 36
Few Seahawks could truly be considered the best player at their position to ever play the game. This changes with Walter Jones. Jones might be the best left tackle in the history of the NFL. He began his career on some terrible Seattle teams and helped transform the franchise into a championship caliber one.
Jones played 12 NFL seasons in Seattle. He was taken, along with defensive back Shawn Springs, in the first round of the 1997 NFL Draft.
Jones was taken No. 6 overall. Four times, he was named First-Team All-Pro by the Associated Press. Twice, he made the Second-Team. He was named to the NFL 2000s All-Decade Team. Jones played in 180 games with Seattle and started them all.
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In those 180 games, Seattle attempted a bit over 5,500 passes and Jones allowed just 23 sacks in those pass attempts. Again, that was just 23 sacks. That translates into Jones’ quarterback being sacked on an inefficient block by Jones just .004 percent of the time. He was called for only nine holding penalties in his career. That’s less than one holding call a season!
Jones, along with the aforementioned Steve Hutchinson, also made the Seahawks offensive line into one of the best in the NFL for nearly half a decade. Behind Jones, Shaun Alexander rushed for 1,880 yards in 2005 and won NFL MVP, as Seattle made its first trip to the Super Bowl in franchise history.
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Jones was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2014. The Seahawks have had two other first-round picks go into the Pro Football Hall of Fame as well in Kenny Easley an Cortez Kennedy. To put it simply, Jones isn’t just the best first-round choice Seattle ever made, he is probably the greatest player in franchise history.