The 50 best players in the history of the Seattle Seahawks include four with Alabama football roots.
The Seahawks have selected their all-time team in celebration of their 50th season in 2025. Seattle played its first NFL regular-season game on Sept. 12, 1976, when the Seahawks lost to the St. Louis Cardinals 30-24.
Seattle’s top 50 players included:
- Running back Shaun Alexander (Alabama)
- Linebacker Keith Butler (Lee High School in Huntsville)
- Center/guard Chris Gray (Homewood High School, Auburn)
- Offensive tackle Walter Jones (Aliceville High School)
The 50 players were chosen through votes by fans, media members and team officials.
Alexander played for Seattle from 2000, when he joined the team as the 19th pick in the NFL Draft, through 2008. He’s the only player in franchise history to win the NFL MVP Award, which Alexander did in 2005, when he led the league with 1,880 rushing yards and set an NFL single-season record with 27 rushing touchdowns. Alexander’s 9,429 career rushing yards with Seattle are 2,723 more than other Seahawks ball-carrier has had.
The Seahawks won seven games across their first two seasons. After adding Butler from Memphis State in the second round of the 1978 NFL Draft, Seattle went 9-7, and the Seahawks made their first three playoff appearances in the final five seasons of Butler’s career. Butler spent all 10 of his NFL seasons with Seattle, started 132 regular-season and five playoff games and retired as the franchise’s career leader in tackles.
Gray already had played five NFL seasons when he signed with Seattle as a free agent in 1998. He played 10 more with the Seahawks, starting at center for the first three before moving to guard. From the seventh game of the 1999 season through the final contest of the offensive lineman’s career on Jan. 12, 2008, Seattle played one game without Gray in the starting lineup, and he set a franchise record for consecutive games started with 121.
The Seahawks traded up to acquire Jones with the sixth selection in the 1997 NFL Draft, and he started all 180 games of his career at left offensive tackle for Seattle before an injury brought an abrupt end to his playing days 12 games into the 2008 season. A nine-time Pro Bowler and a four-time first-team All-Pro, Jones entered the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2014 in his first year of eligibility.
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Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on X at @AMarkG1.
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