Russell Wilson, Seattle Seahawks. (Photo by Football Schedule, via Flickr)
Bruce Irvin, Seattle Seahawks. (Photo by Brandon Schulte via Flickr)
2020 represents the 45th season of Seattle Seahawks football. The franchise sure has come a long way from its humble beginnings in 1976. Along the way, there were heroes, All-Pros, and record setters. There are some exciting milestones Seattle Seahawks players can reach. Some of them are personal, most are team-related, and a few have to do with all-time NFL success.
Here is a look at some of the interesting plateaus that can be reached by Seahawks players in 2020.
Josh Gordon needs:
Carlos Hyde needs:
Bruce Irvin needs:
Bruce Irvin is in his second stint with the Seahawks. Of his 52 career sacks, 22 happened in a Seattle uniform between 20012-15. This year the team desperately needs his pass-rushing abilities to help the defense. With eight more sacks, Irvin becomes the tenth player in franchise history to hit 30.
Jason Myers needs:
It seems crazy that Myers can be in the conversation for anything related to the Seattle Seahawks and all-time lists. But another 100-point season likely has him in the top 20 for scoring.
Chris Carson needs:
Carson is ninth on the Seattle Seahawks all-time rushing list. He passes Maurice Morris with 24 more yards and Sherman Smith with 841 additional yards. If he can gain another 1,411 yards on the ground, it will make him the seventh player in team history to reach 4,000. That would be a difficult task but not impossible.
Tyler Lockett, Seattle Seahawks.
Tyler Lockett needs:
Over just five seasons, Lockett is in eighth place on the Seahawks all-time list with 276 receptions. With eight more, he will pass Joey Galloway for seventh. He is also 124 catches short of becoming the sixth player in franchise history with 400.
Lockett has 3,838 receiving yards, which is also eight best. He has a chance to become only the fifth Seattle Seahawks player with 5,000 or more receiving yards. Lockett needs 314 yards to move up to seventh, 620 yards for sixth, and 1,022 yards places him ahead of Gallaway for fifth.
With 388 more all-purpose yards, Locket will move up to fourth on the team’s all-time list.
As his role on offense has increased, Lockett has been on the field for fewer punt and kick returns. However, with 152 combined return yards this year, he will become the Seahawks all-time leader.
Greg Olsen needs:
Greg Olsen is one of the all-time great tight ends and a likely member of the NFL Hall of Fame. If he can get to 9,000 receiving yards, it will make him the 60th man in NFL history, and only fifth tight end to do so. Currently fifth all-time among tight ends in receptions, it would be a Herculean task for him to surpass Shannon Sharp’s fourth-ranked 815.
Olsen’s next touchdown catch will make him the 10th NFL tight end to reach 60. He also has a chance to move from tenth place to seventh if he can catch five more scores than Vernon Davis. If not, four more puts him in eighth place.
Bobby Wagner and K.J. Wright, Seattle Seahawks.
Bobby Wagner needs:
Wagner has just about every team record for a Seattle linebacker. He needs one more pick to break the tie between him and Lofa Tatupu.
Another future Hall of Famer, Bobby Wagner, has been the anchor of the Seattle Seahawks defense at middle linebacker since the team selected him 47th overall in 2012. Recording tackles as a statistic started in 1987. Even taking the first 11 years of the franchise into consideration, he is the unquestioned franchise leader with 1,075.
Wagner can reach 20th among all NFL linebackers with an additional 157 stops. Every linebacker ahead of him on that list played at least 11 NFL seasons; this year will be Wagner’s ninth. In 2021, things could get very interesting at the team’s weekly defense meetings. Wagner trails Seattle Seahawks Defensive Coordinator Ken Norton Jr. (17th) by 197 tackles.
K.J. Wright needs
If Wagner is Batman, then Wright is Robin protecting Emerald City from evil opposing offenses.
Wright is third in Seattle Seahawks history with 855 stops, 139 more are needed to pass Eugene Robinson for second place. He can also move from ninth place to fourth with 39 solo tackles. A dozen more games played makes him the fourth Seahawks defensive player with 140. Wright only needs another two starts to reach fourth in that category.
Russell Wilson, Seattle Seahawks. (Photo by Brook Ward, via Flickr)
Russell Wilson needs:
Believe it or not, there are still some big Seattle Seahawks career passing records that Russell Wilson doesn’t own yet. RW3 needs 11 games played, and four starts to go ahead of Matt Hasselbeck for number one in team history. The signal-caller also has to have 484 passing attempts and 124 completions to pass Hasselbeck for the top spot in those categories as well.
12s know that Wilson is just as dangerous with his feet as he is with his arm. He is seven yards shy of becoming the seventh player in team history with 4,000 yards on the ground. Add another 10 yards, and Wilson passes Ricky Waters for sixth all-time. Wilson will also pass Waters for sixth in rushing touchdown with four more.
2020 could be huge for Wilson in terms of where he stacks up among the all-time passers. Wilson becomes the 46th quarterback who has 2,500 or more completions with another 64 connections. If he hits his career average of 304 pass completions per season, Wilson will pass Steve McNair for 37th place all-time.
With 266 yards through the air, RW3 will also be the 46th QB to hit the 30,000 mark. Again, if he matches his career average, Wilson moves to 35th on that list just ahead of Steve Young and Troy Aikman.
Wilson enters the season with 227 passing touchdowns, good for 28th place. He can reach the top 20 with another 28. Also, 14 more wins make him just the 18th quarterback with 100. But wait, there’s more.
On 6.0 percent of all his passes thrown, Wilson has connected for a TD. He is in a three-way tie for second (including Aaron Rodgers), but only 0.2 percent behind “Slingin’ Sammy Baugh for the best rate ever.
Finally, Wilson is third all-time in interception percentage. He’s been intercepted on a miserly 1.80 percent of his passes. That’s the third-best rate in NFL history. Tom Brady is just ahead of him at 1.79 percent, while Rodgers occupies the top spot with a rate of 1.39 percent.
It’s conceivable (if Rodgers has the worst year of his career) that Russell Wilson could finish 2020 as the passer with both the best touchdown and interception percentages in NFL history. If that doesn’t scream Hall of Fame, nothing does.
As mentioned above, RW3 will easily hit 4,000 career rushing yards. Only four other NFL quarterbacks have done it. He trails Steve Young by 237 yards for fourth all-time. Four more rushing touchdowns puts him in the top 20 among NFL quarterbacks.
There are two interesting side notes. First, due to COVID-19, there won’t be any 12s at CenturyLink Field for the home opener on September 20. That will end a streak of 146 consecutive sellouts. Second, when the ball gets kicked off in Atlanta on September 13, it will be Pete Carroll’s 161st game as the Seattle Seahawks Head Coach. That is the most in team history breaking a tie with Mike Holmgren.