The Seahawks recently assigned jersey numbers to rookies and other newcomers, which, combined with the fact that we're all stuck at home with nothing else to do, makes this a great time to take a trip down memory lane and determine who is the best player in Seahawks history to wear every number from 1 to 99.
Some choices were really easy, such as Seattle's four numbers retired for the Hall of Fame players who wore them: Steve Largent (80), Walter Jones (71), Cortez Kennedy (96) and Kenny Easley (45). Other numbers were less obvious—while 11 is an iconic number for the neighboring Mariners, no Seahawk past or present has exactly put his stamp on it. And one number, 79, even has a fun familial tie to it.
Is this a particularly original idea? Hardly. But what else do we have to do these days? With that ringing endorsement out of the way, we've come up with the far-from-definitive definitive list of the best Seahawks by number that we'll be putting on Seahawks.com this week. Monday, we started out with numbers 1-20, Tuesday we looked at the best players to wear 21-40, and today we tackle 41-60. Check back Thursday for numbers 61-80.
Seahawks.com's John Boyle takes a look at the best player in Seahawks history to wear uniform numbers 41-60.
41: S Eugene Robinson
Robinson started 152 games in 11 seasons with the Seahawks, recording 984 tackles, a total that stood as the franchise record until Bobby Wagner broke it last season. Robinson also ranks No. 2 in career interceptions with 42, including 16 picks in his two Pro-Bowl seasons with the Seahawks from 1992-1993.
42: RB Chris Warren
Warren sometimes gets overlooked in the discussion of great Seahawks running backs because he didn't play on as successful of teams as did Lynch, Alexander and Warner, but Warren's Seahawks career was outstanding even if the team never made the playoffs during his eight seasons. Warren was a three-time Pro-Bowler, rushed for 6,706 yards, the second most in team history, and had four straight 1,000-yard seasons from 1992-1995, including 1,545 yards in 1994.
43: FB Jim Jodat
Jodat played only two seasons in Seattle, but his 632 rushing yards and six total touchdowns in 1980 push him just ahead of Leonard Weaver and Randall Morris at a number without a lot of history in Seattle.
44: S John Harris
Harris piled up 41 interceptions in his eight seasons with the Seahawks, including 10 in 1981, a single-season franchise record that would later be matched Kenny Easley. A seventh-round pick in 1978, Harris started 149 games for Seattle and was probably not as highly regarded as he should have been because he spent most of his career playing next to a Hall of Famer.
45: S Kenny Easley
Seeing as Easley's number is retired by the Seahawks and he is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, this one's a no-brainer. Easley's career was cut short due to kidney disease, but "The Enforcer" was a dominant player in the 80s on some of the best teams in the franchise's early history. Easley was a three-time first-team All-Pro and five-time Pro-Bowler, and earned Defensive Player of the Year honors in 1984 when he had 10 interceptions, two of which were returned for touchdowns.
46: RB David Hughes
Hughes was a backup running back/fullback for five seasons in Seattle, rushing for a career-best 327 yards in 1984, which is enough to make this list at a number worn by only seven other players.
47: RB Sherman Smith
A member of Seattle's first draft class, Smith rushed for 3,429 yards and 28 touchdowns in seven seasons with the Seahawks, including three straight seasons with more than 750 yards from 1977-1979. Smith returned to the Seahawks as the team's running backs coach under Pete Carroll and won a Super Bowl ring with the team that drafted him 37 years earlier.
48: TE Jacob Hollister
Yes, Hollister was a bright spot last season after being promoted off the practice squad. And no, the Seahawks don't exactly have a rich history with this number. Well, at least not with players wearing No. 48. That number has plenty of significance for the franchise, especially when you write it out in Roman numerals: XLVIII.
49: LS Clint Gresham
Shaquem Griffin has the most popular 49 jersey in franchise history, but for the time being at least, Gresham, the team's long snapper for six seasons, including two Super Bowls, gets the nod here.
50: LB K.J. Wright
In another decade, Wright might have been a bigger star, but on a defense so loaded with talent throughout the decade, he has been somewhat overlooked. And that's a shame, because when all is said and done, the former fourth-round pick will go down as an all-time Seahawks great—a versatile, playmaking linebacker who played a big role in the most successful era in franchise history. With 848 tackles, Wright ranks third all time in franchise history behind Bobby Wagner and Eugene Robinson.
51: LB Lofa Tatupu
A second-round pick in 2005, Tatupu made the Pro Bowl in each of his first three seasons, including as a rookie when he was part of Seattle's first Super Bowl team. Tatupu was a first-team All-Pro in 2007 when he had 109 tackles, 10 tackles for loss, four interceptions, three forced fumbles and 10 passes defensed.
52: G/C Kevin Mawae
Yes, the best years of Mawae's Hall of Fame career came after he left Seattle, but the second-round pick out of LSU was still awfully good in his four seasons as a Seahawk. Mawae began his career as a right guard, starting 11 games in a rookie season that saw him earn All-Rookie Team honors from the Pro Football Writer's Association. After two seasons at guard, Mawae moved to center, the position he would play for 14 seasons, earning Pro-Bowl honors eight times as a member of the Jets and Titans.
53: LB Keith Butler
Malcolm Smith was part of two of the most famous plays in franchise history—intercepting the Colin Kaepernick pass that Richard Sherman tipped at the end of the 2013 NFC championship game, and returning an interception for a touchdown to help earn Super Bowl MVP honors two weeks later—but Butler is the linebacker who had the best Seahawks career in No. 53. An accomplished NFL coach—Butler has been the defensive coordinator for Pittsburgh since 2015—Butler was also a heck of a player in his day, starting 132 games for the Seahawks over 10 seasons.
54: LB Bobby Wagner
The leading tackler in franchise history and a five-time first-team All-Pro, Wagner was the starting middle linebacker for a team that led the NFL in scoring defense for four straight seasons, a first in the Super Bowl era. Wagner also won the Steve Largent Award in 2017 and last year was the team's nominee for the Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year Award, and having accomplished so much before his 30th birthday, Wagner is very much on a Hall of Fame track that could make him not just the best No. 54 in team history, but the last Seahawks player to wear it.
55: LB Michael Jackson
A Pasco native and Rose Bowl champion at the University of Washington, Jackson stayed in state for his NFL career as a third-round pick of the Seahawks in 1979. Jackson started 78 games over eight seasons, and definitely established himself as the most famous Michael Jackson to come out of the 1980s. OK, maybe not that last part.
56: DE Cliff Avril
Leroy Hill had a strong career with the Seahawks, starting 89 games over eight seasons, but Avril is the choice here for what he meant to two Super Bowl teams. Avril and Michael Bennett signed with the Seahawks on consecutive days in March of 2013, and were two of the best free agent signings in team history considering the way they contributed to the best defenses in team history. Avril recorded 34.5 sacks and 14 forced fumbles in five seasons in Seattle before a neck injury ended his career four games into the 2017 season. Avril also had 6.5 sacks and two forced fumbles in Seahawks postseason games, and applied the pressure and quarterback hit that led to the errant Peyton Manning throw that Malcolm Smith intercepted and returned for a touchdown.
57: DE/LB Tony Woods
David Hawthorne's three-year run as a starter in Seattle is somewhat overlooked—he had 338 tackles, seven interceptions and six sacks from 2009-2011—probably because he had the misfortune of being the middle linebacker who played after Lofa Tatupu and before Bobby Wagner, but as good as "Heater" was, Woods is the call for his six-year run in Seattle that included 79 starts, and a 1988 season in which he recorded 141 tackles.
58: LB Bruce Scholtz
Linebacker Terry Beason set a franchise record—later broken by Wagner—with 153 tackles in 1978, but Scholtz is the pick for a career that saw him start 95 games in a Seahawks uniform, including all 32 games as the Seahawks made the playoffs in consecutive seasons in 1983 and 1984, the first postseason berths in franchise history.
59: C Blair Bush
A tough choice between longevity vs. peak performance, but we'll give the slight edge to Bush, a six-year starter during a stretch when Seattle made the playoffs four times, over Julian Peterson who recorded 19.5 sacks and went to two Pro Bowls in his two seasons wearing this number—he switched to 98 for his third and final season in Seattle.
60: C Max Unger
The Seahawks traded away their second-round pick in 2009 for a 2010 first-rounder they'd later use on Earl Thomas—that worked out pretty well—but later that day they made a trade to move back into the second so they could select Unger. That trade gave the Seahawks one of their best offensive linemen of the past decade, a player who would go on to earn first-team All-Pro honors in 2012 and Pro-Bowl honors three times, and who would be the starting center on two Super Bowl teams.