Good morning, 12s.
Here's a look at what's "out there" for today—Wednesday, July 22—about your Seattle Seahawks:
Beast is the best according to popular video game
Seahawks fans have believed for a while that Marshawn Lynch is the best running back in football, and now EA Sports' Madden 16 agrees. The popular video game released its player ranking Tuesday—even players pay attention to these rankings and have been known to get upset if they disagree—and Lynch is top rated running back with a 96 overall rating, putting him just ahead of Minnesota's Adrian Peterson.
Tweet of the day
Today's tweet of the day comes from EA Sports' Madden NFL account, which offers a humorous "reaction" from Lynch on his ranking.
Special delivery
Season ticket holders began receiving their tickets Tuesday. This year's gift is a customized flag that includes the year that person became a season ticket holder.
Another top 100
The NFL Network's Top 100 wrapped up earlier this month with the Seahawks placing a league-high eight players on the list. Now comes another top 100, this one from Grantland.com’s Bill Barnwell.
Barnwell reveals player 100-61 on his list today, with tight end Jimmy Graham checking in at No. 63. That's a bit lower than on the NFL Network's list, which ranked Graham 31st. Here's Barnwell's explanation:
Graham had six catches of 30 yards or more in 2011. After posting just one 30-yarder in 2012, he bounced back with eight more in 2013. And last year? Graham failed to pick up a single 30-yard catch. He was thrown shorter passes, with the average pass in the air toward Graham falling from 10.0 yards in 2013 to 8.5 yards last year, but the bigger concern was what Graham did with the ball in his hands, as he fell from 4.8 yards after catch in 2013 (above the tight end average of 4.5 yards after catch) to a lowly 3.3 yards after catch in 2014, just behind noted speedster … Owen Daniels. Given that YAC tends to be very inconsistent from year to year, it seems fair to bet on Graham for what amounts to a comeback season.
Since no Seahawks are among the 22 players on the NFL Network list who Barnwell said missed the cut on his, that means the top 60, which comes out Friday, will include at least seven Seahawks: Marshawn Lynch, Richard Sherman, Earl Thomas, Russell Wilson, Kam Chancellor, Bobby Wagner and Michael Bennett.
More from around the web
Here at Seahawks.com, Part 2 of this week's series on past training camp surprises looks at the 2011 emergence of Brandon Browner. Bob Condotta of the Seattle Times continues his training camp countdown looking at whether or not the Seahawks and Bobby Wagner will agree on a contract extension before camp begins. The News Tribune's Gregg Bell provides a first-person account of what it was like waiting in line Sunday night for Monday’s single-game ticket event. The Seattle PI continues its All-Time Seahawks series with linebacker voting. Current middle linebacker Bobby Wagner has the lead over one of his position coaches, Lofa Tatupu. USA Today has a story on the idea of players negotiating contracts without agents, something that has become a topic of discussion this week after Russell Okung wrote for the Players’ Tribune that he plans on doing that when his contract it up. Q13 Fox has Part 2 of its interview with new defensive coordinator Kris Richard.
