5 Seahawks named to NFL All-Decade Team, but a pair gets snubbed

Monday was a banner day for the Seahawks, at least when to comes to the Pete Carroll era of the team being recognized.

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The NFL released its 2010s All-Decade team in the morning, and five people who spent all or the majority of the decade with the Seahawks made the list. They are:

• Carroll, joining New England’s Bill Belichick as the only two coaches on the team.

• Linebacker Bobby Wagner, who was named to six Pro Bowls and a first-team All-Pro five times in the decade.

• Cornerback Richard Sherman, a five-time Pro Bowler (four with Seattle) and three-time All-Pro (all with Seattle).

• Free safety Earl Thomas, a seven-time Pro Bowler (six with Seattle) and three-time All-Pro (all with Seattle).

• Running back Marshawn Lynch, whose four Pro Bowls and one All-Pro selection in the decade all came with the Seahawks.

As is likely to happen with any list like this, there were two Seahawks players who didn’t make the cut who very well could have. The most obvious is Russell Wilson, but that may be the most reasonable considering only two quarterbacks were picked and they were Tom Brady (no argument there) and Aaron Rodgers (maybe a little bit of an argument).

Then there’s safety position, where Kam Chancellor was left off in favor of Thomas, Eric Berry and Eric Weddle.

On Monday afternoon, 710 ESPN Seattle’s Tom, Jake and Stacy discussed the snubs to determine if Wilson and Chancellor should have made the All-Decade team. Let’s look at what they had to say.

Russell Wilson

Jake Heaps: “I would say that Russell Wilson is up there with Aaron Rodgers in terms of wins, Super Bowls, Super Bowl appearances and what he brought to the table. I don’t think Aaron Rodgers stood out above some of the other quarterbacks the way that Tom Brady did and even the way a guy like Drew Brees did. I think Aaron Rodgers, in the first five years of that decade, was widely regarded as the great quarterback talent, so I think that’s where he probably gets the nod on this list.”

Stacy Rost: “It’s almost a shame for Russell Wilson that the decade can’t be from 2015 to 2025. I think you really started to see a different side of him in 2015 when he eclipsed 4,000 passing yards for the first time, set the franchise record for touchdown passes in back-to-back years… That’s when I think he started to break that mold and that label that had been placed on him of, ‘Oh, he’s just a game manager and he’s just a running quarterback.’ I wonder if you could isolate Wilson’s 2015 to say 2025, what that decade will look like for him.”

Tom Wassell: “What we’re saying here is that Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady, their careers spanned the entirety of the decade whereas Russell Wilson really became that elite quarterback in the middle of the decade, so it’s a little tougher to give him the nod there.”

Kam Chancellor

Wassell: “Do people underrate him? Do people in Seattle overrate him? I mean, safety is a very, very tough position to judge because there really isn’t one stat that ties it all together.”

Rost: “For Chancellor, I would look just as much at stats as I would his presence on the field, and that’s where you get into that weird realm of you kinda had to see it to realize how great he was.”

Jake: “Kam Chancellor to me without question is a Hall of Famer. Now the unfortunate thing is I don’t think Kam Chancellor will make the Hall of Fame because of his career being cut short and obviously that’s the reason why he didn’t make this All-Decade team. But you talk about the years in which he played, he certainly had an unbelievable impact on not only the Seahawks but also on the entire league. I mean, this was a player in a decade in which defensive pass interference was changed. The decade in which the way you could hit and what was deemed an illegal hit was changed. This was still a player that was laying the absolute boom on players and was a player widely feared. Any offensive player, didn’t matter if it was receiver, running back, even offensive linemen, they did not want to go up against Kam Chancellor, and those types of players (are) very few and far between. I don’t think there really was even a guy like that in this decade outside of Kam Chancellor. If Kam didn’t get hurt and his career wasn’t get cut short, to me he is without question on this list, and I think a little bit of recency bias, the fact that he hasn’t played in recent years, is the reason why he’s not on this list and Eric Weddle is.”

Follow 710 ESPN Seattle’s Tom Wassell, Jake Heaps and Stacy Rost on Twitter.

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