Tyler Ott is an underappreciated Seahawks superstar

Football has to be precise, of course. No position requires this more than long snapper. The Seattle Seahawks are lucky in that they have the best LS in the NFL in Tyler Ott.

In fact, did you know that long snappers can make the Pro Bowl? They can and they should. LS are like umpires in baseball. No one notices them until they make a bad call. Or in Ott’s case, a bad snap. But Ott doesn’t do that. And he made the Pro Bowl in 2020 because of his perfection.

Ott played at Harvard in college. Clearly, he is super smart. But also is self-aware enough to know how to keep his job and what he needs to do to be great. While he isn’t a small human, he is small for an offensive lineman. He is 6’3″ and 255 pounds. There is no way Ott would ever be a full-time long-term starter on the offensive line.

Tyler Ott should be the Seahawks Bobby Bonilla

But Seattle doesn’t need him to be either. The team needs him to be just what he is: Consistent and not noticed. Fans would only notice Ott if a snap goes wrong. But his snaps never go wrong.

Think of it this way, what truly makes a superstar? Someone who does their job to near-perfection every time they step on the field or court or office, right? This is what Ott does. Maybe his value doesn’t show up in raw statistics but my guess is if you would ask Michael Dickson or Jason Myers what they thought of Ott, you would hear nothing but great things.

Ott is also just 30 years old and doesn’t break the Seahawks cap budget and should be in Seattle for a long time. Bobby Bonilla was a baseball player who the Mets decided to give a 25-year contract. It was a terrible deal because of the price involved. Bonilla’s contract extended the value of the deal much further than the value of the player.

But maybe Seattle should give Ott the equivalent of the security that Bonilla received from New York and the Seahawks sign Ott to a five-year deal and sign him through 2027? The difference is that Ott is going to be valuable still by the end of the deal.

Ott is a free agent after 2022. And while long snapper isn’t the greatest position of need on a team, having a great one means not having to find a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist. The Seahawks have enough issues already without creating one at long snapper too.