Great post as usual Doc. Dare I say EPIC. The comparison to Darrell Green seals it for me. You ask ANY Skins fan about Darrell and they will rave on and on about him for a long time. If you say something negative about Darrell you'll get your butt kicked, whether it be by an actual boot to the ass, or with a string of awards and statistics. Darrell is even very very well known to me, and I have never been to DC, don't watch a tremendous amount of Skins games, and am fairly Seahawk and college-centric in my viewing. But I know through our chance meetings over the years that Darrell Green was one of (if not the) best DB's to ever play. It's easy to see why. He was fast. He got the ball. He did the very things that Sherman does, in baiting QB's. He may not get you today, but Darrell would always end up ahead. Even if it was a season later. He remembered everything and played on that stuff.
So your comparison is beautiful. Darrell was blessed with being extremely fast. Fastest guy I ever saw except for maybe Devin Hester. He was lightning quick, and even in his 20th season was step for step with any receiver they put him on. But what made him great? His brain. He was so ridiculously smart. He knew tendencies on everybody. I'd say the Hawks had a very similar player in Dave Brown. Skins fans won't remember Dave, but we all will, for the very same reasons. If you burned Dave somehow in the first quarter, then he was picking you off for six points in the third, because he knew as a QB you just could NOT resist trying it again. You had to.... and Dave was right there waiting for the ball in the spot he knew it would be. For us as Hawks fans this is the best defensive backfield we've had since Dave Brown, Kenny Easley, Eugene Robinson, and Terry Taylor. I'd put those 4 guys up against any foursome at DB in NFL history and feel pretty darned confident that we were going to be alright. 2 of the greatest safeties to ever play the game were roaming the middle, a true amazing shutdown genius in Dave, and Terry was the young guy that could fly like he had wings on his feet. Too bad they didn't play together that long, but when they did.... we knew that we had a distinct advantage, especially with Green and Nash and I believe Bryant too up front. That was a defense that this team is looking like, and for old-timers like us, this is something we have EARNED as diehard fans, and you're darn right we're going to enjoy every great moment and watching them grow and learn and hopefully do something like bring us the trophy the 86 defense rightfully deserved. If they were in the NFC that year, they'd have made the playoffs and no doubt in my mind won the Superbowl.
I saw several writers who had the end of year power rankings with the Seahawks at #1 in 1986 and they didn't even make the playoffs. They were that good, but hit a stinker of a run on offense at the absolute worst time. They proved it head to head that they were better than the Giants though and everybody knew it. Unfortunately, Easley got sick, Taylor started using drugs (at least that was the rumor), and DB got old in a hurry and that was that. Let us relish our good fortune now. We've earned it as a fanbase.
One moment that really just brought a lot of emotion up in me was due to one of these players. Eugene Robinson won a Superbowl in Green Bay and they asked him for his thoughts right after the game, and it still chokes me up a bit even now. But he literally held that trophy up and said to the announcer that "This is for all of the fans in Seattle and in Green Bay too!" Yeah, he said Seattle before Green Bay. I loved that. Eugene went out there and played for a few teams, but his heart was always in Seattle and he wanted to thank US and tell us that this Lombardi that he was holding was as much ours as anybody elses. Sure it belonged to the Packers, but for him to even say that meant a lot. He knew we needed something and he offered it. It was one of the classiest things I've ever seen, and yet I'm afraid many never saw it. I did, and I had to get up and leave the room as I was watching it with all of my roommates in college and I had to just go sit in my room and dry my eyes, because it meant a lot. Now we have guys like that again putting us on the map, and I know that Eugene will be the first one cheering if we get that trophy and I hope like crazy it happens, and if it doesn't... oh well. It won't be because I short sold my team or said anything bad about them. I LOVE these guys and will hype them until I'm dead. Richard Sherman is better than Revis. There I said it. Why? Because I think it's true. If Richard Sherman were on the Jets he'd be the spokesperson for Nike, Gatorade, McDonalds, and Amazon.com right now. He's good. He's great. He's ours. We love him.