When considering the best players in Seahawks history, naturally, the franchise’s four enshrined members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame – Walter Jones, Steve Largent, Kenny Easley, and Cortez Kennedy – come to mind first.
Thanks to nearly 30 years of research, Pro Football Reference unveiled unofficial sack totals for players who suited up before 1982, the season in which the NFL began recording sacks as an official statistic.
According to their decades of extensive research, Green unofficially amassed a whopping 115.5 sacks in his 13-year NFL career, which ranks first in Seahawks franchise history and 31st all-time.
Drafted in the first round in the 1980 NFL Draft out of Texas A&M, the 6-foot-3, 255-pound Green served as a model of consistency over 12 seasons in Seattle, starring alongside Joe Nash and Jeff Bryant to form one of the league’s most formidable defensive lines.
On six different occasions, despite playing in a 3-4 defense for much of his career, Green posted at least 12.0 sacks, including accomplishing the feat in four consecutive seasons from 1983 to 1986.
For his career, including the new data from Pro Football Reference’s research for his first two seasons in 1980 and 1981, Green averaged 9.6 sacks per season with the Seahawks, narrowly missing out on double-digits.
Being stuck in the shadow of other stars such as Easley didn’t help either, as he never received the attention he deserved playing in a smaller market in the Pacific Northwest.
Still, while he hasn’t been able to earn a gold jacket to this point, Green was one of the first Seahawks to be enshrined into the organization’s Ring of Honor and have his number hoisted into the rafters in 1995.
While the likelihood of Green ever joining the likes of Jones, Easley, Largent, and Kennedy in the Hall of Fame remains slim, younger fans will now be able to hold a greater appreciation for one of the best and most underrated pass rushers of his era.