ET Named All-Pro For Third Time

A single defensive player controlling a game doesn’t happen often—but when a team game plans their passing attack against the Seattle Seahawks, they go out of their way to stay away from Area 29.

As Seattle free safety Earl Thomas roams the middle of the field, he renders entire route packages useless for an opposing offense, altering a team’s play calling as much as any player in the NFL.

NFL teams acknowledge Earl’s status as the NFL’s preeminent safety covertly, but AP voters do so more openly and on Friday they did so again by selecting ET III as an All-Pro for the third straight season.

“It just means I’m getting better,” Earl said. “I don’t let it get to my head when I get success. When I get success, or when I was holding that Steve Largent hardware, I was like, ‘Man, I want some more of this.’ So when you get success, you just want more success.”

Seattle cornerback Richard Sherman was also named first-team All-Pro for the second time and Hawks strong safety Kam Chancellor was named to the second team, giving Seattle’s Legion of Boom three of the 13 All-Pro defensive backs.

“It doesn’t happen very often,” Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said, referring to a team putting three members of one unit on the All-Pro team. “I think it’s a great tribute to those guys and who they are, how hard they’ve prepared and how hard they’ve work. I think it does demonstrate if you play really well with the guys around you it can help your play. These guys have fed off one another in the years they’ve been here. The challenge is to be the best and work the hardest, and to help each other and be at their best. It’s given them a chance to really do something unique.”

Congrats to my bros for the 2013 AP NFL All-Pro team CB @RSherman_25 and FS @Earl_Thomas selected to 1st team. “Hard Work, determination”

— Kameron (@Kam_Chancellor) January 3, 2014

Congrats to my Brother on making All-Pro! @Kam_Chancellor @Earl_Thomas we got more goals to accomplish but this is a blessing!

— Richard Sherman (@RSherman_25) January 3, 2014

Though teams try to avoid Area 29, players like Sherman and Chancellor complement Earl in a way that makes it simply impossible. That led to a banner year statistically for Earl as he posted a career-high with 105 tackles, — his first time eclipsing 100 — tied a career-high with five interceptions, forced two fumbles and had eight pass breakups.

But beyond the numbers, it’s Earl’s mere presence and what it does to an offense that is the biggest factor for the Seahawks, as Coach Carroll explained recently:

“One of the things that you don’t see, but that exists, is the factor that he plays just being back there,” Carroll said. “Think about over the last couple of years how many times you have seen a post route, which is one of the most common routes in football, thrown at our defense for a big play. It doesn’t happen very often. I can barely remember any of them. Any balls thrown down the seam or in the post, it’s a rare occurrence when it happens, and that’s a factor that a guy plays because they know he’s back there.”

NFLSavant.com broke down the Seattle passing defense, calculating that the opposition tries deep throws over the middle on just 1.56 percent of their plays. With just two completions in eight attempts deep over the middle, those who do take the risk and test Earl only succeed 25 percent of their tries.

With ETIII blanketing the back end of the defense, Seattle’s Legion of Boom ended the regular season at No. 1 in the league in passing defense and total defense, allowing just 172 passing and 273.6 total yards per game. No other defense allowed less than 300 total yards per contest.

The impact that Earl has on those numbers is undeniable, yet often times unseen. With that in mind, Seth Kolloen of Seattle Weekly recently drew an interesting comparison between ETIII and gravity:

“When you watch the Seahawks defense during the playoffs, keep your eye on the edge of the screen,” Kolloen wrote. “Just beyond it, free safety Earl Thomas is messing up the other team before they even snap the ball.

“Positioned 12 yards south of the line of scrimmage—so far away that he often doesn’t appear on your TV screen—Thomas is tasked with preventing long pass plays. But he’s so much more. Thomas is like gravity, an unseen force influencing every move opposing offenses make.”

As the most impactful player on the best defense in the league — always weighing down on opposing offenses whether seen or unseen — makes a prime candidate for Defensive Player of the Year. Carroll helped to boost that campaign by describing what makes ET so special.

“Also you have to watch him flash,” Carroll said of Earl. “He’s got such tremendous acceleration, and he’s so confident in what he sees now that when he goes he just flies. That’s what stands out when you evaluate his play over other guys.”

Teammate and fellow All-Pro defensive back Richard Sherman will be one of Earl’s biggest competitors for the honor. Sherman led the league with eight interceptions on the year and was third in the league with 24 pass defenses, but he agreed that it is ET III, not he, who deserves the Defensive Player of the Year honor.

“I would have to give it to Earl,” Sherman said. “I think Earl is having a fantastic year. He’s flying around, tackling everywhere, forcing fumbles, getting interceptions. I don’t think there’s anybody out there playing better defense and I think our defense is No. 1 in the league. So usually the best quarterback with the best receivers isn’t punished for that, so don’t punish one of the best players on the best defense.”

It’s a role Earl has evolved into over the years, evidenced by the fluctuation in his tackle numbers, an area he has worked on particularly hard. As Carroll recently revealed, Earl wasn’t always known for making all the right plays early on in his career. The Seahawks boss detailed a time when Earl, still used to flying around the field in college at Texas, struggled to adapt to the professional game.

“He won’t want to admit to this, but there was a time where I said, ‘you know what Earl, I’m going to have to sit you down, because it’s getting to the point where we don’t know what you’re going to do next,'” Carroll said. “Earl at the time thought that he needed to make plays, and I convinced him that we needed him to play the defense that we’re calling. He wanted to do the right thing, he just had a young man’s perception of it and he was flying all around, and he made tremendous plays, but he made some good ones for the other guys, too, at times.”

ET also analyzed that tendency, admitting that he’s has to fight the urge to step out of position and fly to the ball.

“I still kind of battle with that,” Thomas said. “I just always want to be around the ball. I want to be around the ball, plain and simple. My rookie year, that would take me out of position, because I wanted to be at the point of attack at all times. I just had to get adjusted to my role. Still today, I feel like I’m the best at all times and I want to always show what I’m about, I want to impact the game. You’ve just got to know how to do it within your role.”

There’s no question that ETIII makes an impact each time he steps on the field. Associated Press voters have taken notice, as evidenced by his All-Pro selection. The next honor could come on February 1st, the night before the Super Bowl, when Defensive Player of the Year is awarded at NFL Honors.

Only five safeties have won DPOY since the award’s inception in 1971. The most recent one was Pittsburgh’s Troy Polamalu, who claimed the award in 2010. Carroll, who coached Polamalu at USC believes the two are good comparison.

“He and Troy are very similar in their makeup and in their speed,” Carroll said. “They both are 4.3 (40-yard dash) guys, not the biggest guys, and really committed football players. I see them very similar in their makeup.”

Earl’s 2013 numbers stack up well against Polamalu’s from that 2010 season (7 INT, 11 pass breakups, 64 tackles) and his unseen impact may be even bigger, as Seattle sits as the top team in the NFC with the No. 1 pass defense and overall defense in the NFL, something Polamalu couldn’t say of his team. It’s no wonder why Earl is one of the preeminent candidates to be the sixth.

Chatter around No. 29’s campaign is sure to continue right up until the award is handed out and when asked who he believes should win the award, ET III has no problem showing the confidence that Carroll identified as one of his defining traits.