Sometimes it's amazing to look at a player's body of work in the National Football League and realize anew just how valuable they were to the franchise. Sometimes a player's steady play is their own undoing. They become so predictable in their production that they can actually become overlooked.
When it comes to the Seattle Seahawks franchise, there are a few players who have truly been overlooked and underappreciated over the ages. The team's history isn't nearly as extensive as some of the league's most notable franchises, but that doesn't mean that Seattle is not without some history of players glossed over all the same.
Let's look at four Seahawks who deserve far more credit from the franchise's early days to the present.
Doug Baldwin
It's hard to start any conversation about underrated Seahawks players with the current generation of fans without Doug Baldwin's name immediately being thrown out there for discussion—and rightfully so.
Baldwin is one of the best stories in the NFL from the last decade or more in terms of player grit and determination. He was a well-coached receiver under Jim Harbaugh at Stanford and was the team's leader in receiving yards and touchdowns, but he went undrafted in the 2011 NFL Draft due to being undersized (5'9") yet without the elite athleticism or top speed that generally accompanies smaller prospects at the position.
The Seahawks landed Baldwin as a rookie free agent and the dividends were immediate. In his first game, a Week 1 road loss to the San Francisco 49ers, Baldwin caught 4 passes for 83 yards and his first NFL touchdown. He would go on to catch 51 total passes for 788 receiving yards in his rookie campaign.
Over the next eight years, Baldwin would go on to catch a remarkable 493 catches for 6,563 receiving yards and 49 touchdowns. Baldwin would make the Pro Bowl in 2016-17 and also won Super Bowl XLVIII—a 43-8 drubbing of John Fox and the Denver Broncos.
Baldwin was not only a great player on the field but he was civic hero off of it. The entire NFL looked past him several times to start his career, but Baldwin had the last laugh in the end as the fourth leading receiver in Seahawks team history. Just ask Russ Wilson if Baldwin is underrated.
— Russell Wilson (@DangeRussWilson) May 16, 2023
Tyler Lockett
Since we're already talking about the all-time receiving yards list for the Seahawks, we might as well move one spot above and admit that Tyler Lockett should receive far more accolades than he does even as an active player who is still so productive year after year.
Lockett's story doesn't begin with the sort of egregious oversight that Baldwin's tale does, but Lockett himself remains a confusing case of a player often ignored despite a remarkable record of consistency for the last eight years.
Consider this: Over the last five seasons, Lockett has averaged 1,057 receiving yards and 9 touchdowns per year despite some questionable quarterback play for part of that span and after turning 30 years of age in 2022. During that stretch, however, Lockett has failed to generate a single Pro Bowl mention.
Even in conversations about the top playmakers on his own team, Lockett is overlooked when compared with the excitement of watching DK Metcalf catch passes from Geno Smith. And now that the team has drafted the most heralded wideout in the 2023 NFL Draft in Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Lockett's share of the spotlight is likely to fade even more.
Not that Lockett is used to anything else. Despite being one of the most consistent players in the game and sitting at No. 2 (and counting) on the Seahawks' all-time receiving touchdowns list, Lockett has been underappreciated for quite some time.
Curt Warner
Imagine being named Mikal Jordan or Mike Trowt. Those names are a bit sillier than Curt Warner, but just imagine how it feels being a former NFL running back with the resume of Warner and yet having Google ask people if they mean "Kurt Warner" instead.
Let's be real: even if Kurt Warner didn't exist in the same universe of notoriety as Curt Warner, the former Seahawks running back would still be overlooked. Warner was an exceptional player in the 1980s and was a significant spark for a team that went from losing records to winning ones after he'd arrived.
For those too young to remember, Warren was a former top three NFL Draft pick out of Penn State, one of many great running backs to play for the Nittany Lions, and he made good on his potential with the Seahawks from the word go. He finished his rookie season with 1,774 yards from scrimmage and 14 touchdowns.
Here's the thing: even in his rookie season, after putting up such incredible numbers, Warner was already overlooked. It just so happens that the '83 draft class also included Eric Dickerson who set rookie records that same exact season. Oh yeah, there were also eight total Hall of Famers from that same class with potentially more on the way if the likes of Henry Ellard, Roger Craig, Albert Lewis, or Karl Mecklenburg are ever enshrined.
Back to Warner. A torn ACL robbed him of his sophomore season, but Warner bounced back impressively to average 1,146 rushing yards and 10 touchdowns per season for the next four years for the Seahawks as they took flight in the standings, putting up their first four playoff appearances in franchise history during Warner's tenure.
When he retired, Warren sat atop the franchise's all-time rushing yards and rushing touchdowns list and he remains third overall to this day. As a member of the Seahawks Ring of Honor, Warner will always stand among those honored by the franchise but it just feels as if he's never fully received the spotlight he deserved for one reason or another—and now even in retirement, he's still known as the other Warner.
Jacob Green
Let's stay here in the 1980s because just as Warren was an offensive spark for the team as they entered their first seasons of double-digit victories and franchise-defining seasons, Jacob Green was providing the defensive push as an early leader through the '80s (and then some).
Looking back at Green's body of work, it's incredible that he's not more of a household name among NFL fans. Those who know will undoubtedly remember Green's ability to get after the passer, but for a guy who is still No. 32 all-time on the NFL sack list with 115.5, he's hardly a known commodity outside of Seattle.
Even when Green put up a career-high 16 sacks back in 1983, he failed to make the Pro Bowl. In fact, the same could be said of when he turned in 12 sacks in 1981, 10 sacks in '84, and 10 more in '85. Yes, that's right, Green put up 63.5 sacks in his first six seasons without a single Pro Bowl nod coming his way. It wasn't until back-to-back showings in '86 and '87 that he finally received his due from the league.
Overall, Green averaged nearly 10 sacks per year for 12 seasons with the Seahawks—an incredible return even on a first-round pick from the 1980 NFL Draft. For a guy who has 42 more sacks than the next fella on the Seahawks' all-time sack list (Michael Sinclair), Green should be a regularly referenced pass rusher.