A Football Life: Steve Largent (NFL Network)

[Hawkstorian]

Someone was slicing onions while I was watching.

 

[Anonymous]

Watched it, and loved it.

One of the better ones they've done too.

Fun fact: My wife had several classes with Jim Caviesel at Mt. Vernon High before he transferred to a Seattle school. Watched him drain threes at numerous basketball games back in the day. Great B-ball player.

 

[SeahawksBMX]

DVR'd it last night and watched it this morning. Awesome to finally have my 10-year old son see the Great Seahawk that he's heard me praise for several years.
As mentioned, it was interesting hearing about the awkward Zorn to Krieg transition and very cool to see a grown-up Kramer.

Lastly, loved revisiting the playoff upset in Miami; especially with my son. I went with my own parents to greet them at SeaTac that night. It truly is a shame that run ended in L.A. the following week and that Largent never got to play in a SB.

 

[RiverDog]

I think Largent would have thrived in today's NFL. When he was playing, DBs got away with much more contact then they do now, plus the hits he took are now outlawed. I think in a pass-first offense (Remember, he played for Ground Chuck most of his career) he would be a guy like Wes Welker or Julian Edleman with 100-plus catches a year. People say he was slow, but he had football speed. His 4.6 in the 40 didn't account for his quickness off the line or coming out of cuts. Plus, yes, he was probably the greatest route runner ever.

I really do believe he would own a lot of records today if he was retiring after a 14-year career this season.

Largent wasn't big or fast enough to be a #1 receiver and not an elusive open field runner for all the bubble screens and jet sweeps that all teams tend to run nowadays. I don't think he would have ran up the numbers he did in the 80's if he were playing in today's game

But as I said earlier, he would have been a fantastic slot receiver. I always thought that Bobby Engram was the type of receiver that Largent would have been had he played in this era.

 

[Blitzer88]

That was a fantastic piece!

 

[Sports Hernia]

I love so much about this man as a father and human being. Like Wilson, these guys make you want to be better people and what better compliment is there in this world?

As far as football goes, I think the most telling aspect of why he was the player he was despite his size and speed was when he said, and I paraphrase...

"Everybody talked about looking the football in (to catch it). I took it a bit farther than that and thought about focusing in on the very tip of the football. I feel that helped me tremendously."

A small detail you would think but is one of the reasons he has a wonderful show about his career and SO well deserved.

I remember him saying that in the past about focusing on "the point" of the ball.

Best advice I got as a baseball player was to focus on the threads of the ball when hitting. I went from being an ok hitter to a really good hitter. When I would start to slump it was usually because I got away from watching the threads on the baseball.

Edgar Martinez did something similar he had tennis balls with different numbers written on them, and he'd have someone fire them from a pitching machine and he'd try and read the numbers as the balls were coming at him from 90+ mph.

Same philosophy, if you focus on one aspect of the ball it forces you to watch the ball thru the entire action of the ball getting to you. Its a simple but yet effective tool.

Focus throughout the play or action is what makes good players HOF level players.

 

[Zebulon Dak]

These shows are not directed towards fans that followed the guy week in and week out. For Largent, just think how many other NFL fans know nothing about him and what he did? I would like to watch it, but I know most of the story. I would like my kids to watch to enrich their Hawk fandom though. It's one thing to tell them stories but to see his career play out on NFL network it's more impactful.

Largent was THE MAN for a long time in Seattle. He was the first sports hero for WA kids.

And when he retired he was without question the greatest WR of all time. That's big.

I love Steve as much as the next guy, but that's subjective. Lance Alworth, Don Hutson et.al. agree with me.

Ok yeah, it's all subjective obviously when talking about who was the best at something, but statistically it's not. Steve had more games, catches, yards and touchdowns than either of those guys, quite considerably in some categories. He owned virtually all major receiving records at the time he retired. Those things aren't subjective and they're why he's no longer the greatest of all time unfortunately, though he once was. :mrgreen:

 

[Zebulon Dak]

Btw I haven't got to watch this yet because my dumbass roommate unplugged the DirecTV yesterday for some dumbass reason so it didn't dumbass record the show and now the dumbass guide won't let me look for the next dumbass time it's gonna be on.

 

[Rocket]

Zeb,

Wed 10/28 @ 5:00p on 212, of course.

 

[Zebulon Dak]

Zeb,

Wed 10/28 @ 5:00p on 212, of course.

My dog!

 

[253hawk]

I think Largent at the height of his career only made like 700-800k a year? So it's not like those guys back then had 10M in bank to hang out for a year while the players went on strike not worrying about their bills.

And he was the highest paid WR at the time. Even after inflation, that's 10% of what WR's are making today.

(1986)

 

[Hawk-Lock]

That was a great show, I learned so much about him as he was beyond my time.

And yoda....that has got to be one of the best nicknames ever.

 

[Seahawkfan80]

That was a great show, I learned so much about him as he was beyond my time.

one of the best nicknames ever, yoda is.

Fixed it for you.


(had to put it in grammatically yoda speak.)

 

[JSeahawks]

He's the reason I became a Seahawks fan. Steve Largent and the cool helmets.

 

[AROS]

Would like to see one on Easley...

You and me both my friend.

 

[RiverDog]

I liked Kenny Easley's comment, noting Odell Beckham's much celebrated one handed catch last year, noting that had Largent been wearing gloves like Beckham was, "he would have caught it with one finger."

 

[seaNOmercy]

Zeb,

Wed 10/28 @ 5:00p on 212, of course.

I know that wasn't intended for me but thank you! I had it set to record after the game ended Thursday and the receiver got unplugged at some point.. So bummed out, I've been piecing together clips off nfl.com (which have been absolutely phenomenal) but now I'm guna wait till Wednesday to see it in its entirety. THANK YOU!

 

[Zebulon Dak]

Zeb,

Wed 10/28 @ 5:00p on 212, of course.

I know that wasn't intended for me but thank you! I had it set to record after the game ended Thursday and the receiver got unplugged at some point.. So bummed out, I've been piecing together clips off nfl.com (which have been absolutely phenomenal) but now I'm guna wait till Wednesday to see it in its entirety. THANK YOU!

We are all same same.

 

[FormerEvil]

It was a great show. Brought back a lot of memories for me. Growing up in Kirkland, Steve lived in the same condo complex as my family next to Juanita Beach (interestingly the same condo Edgar lived in afterwards) and his son Kyle and I were good friends at the time. He was one of the only other kids in the complex (along with the other Largent kids) so when football season rolled around and he and his family came back into town it was always a good time for me to have someone to play with close by.

Steve was a very nice guy and a great father. His wife was a super friendly, down to earth lady that was engaging and so grounded. I still remember seeing Kramer and the hole in his back and having her explain what spina bifida was for the first time.

I was always super envious of his son Kyle because they had a sponsorship deal with Nike and he could get any pair of shoes he wanted, anytime he wanted. He got a lot of flack from me after he did his Hanes underwear commercial too. Being on national tv in your underwear as a little kid must have been a little embarrassing.

I remember when Steve would return home from road games and he would walk around the house with his shirt off just banged up to all hell. I had never seen someone's body so battered and bruised with the deepest shades of purple. He was a warrior but he never complained. Terry always seemed to be good loving wife that adored her husband and took good care of him. They were the American dream of a family. Seeing video footage of the place I used to play and live 25+ years ago was a trip.

 

[SuperFreak]

Hawk-Lock thanks for the thread, glad I didn't miss out on seeing this. He is the reason I became and am a Seahawks fan.