I’m glad this happened now, frankly, because I would have hated to see another awful season out of 37, which would have led to more boos, which might have tarnished further what was one hell of a career in Seahawks blue.

I’ll wear my old 37 jersey tomorrow as a tribute. I hadn’t worn it in a while anyway – bought a Tatupu jersey this year. Passing of the torch and all that.

2005 was one of my happiest memories as a sports fan, and always will be. Yeah, the end was ugly, but five, ten, twenty years down the line, I suspect that when all of us think of Shaun we’ll have that same smile on our face that 37 always did after reaching the bench once he’d cruised into the end zone to cap off another Seahawk drive.

Thanks for the piece, John – it didn’t disappoint as I continue to enjoy your writing as much as anyone’s on the internet.

(Oh, yeah – I used to post here (infrequently) but since I post more often on the SBN Rockies blog, that’s where the user name comes from. I was Power of 12 – wrote a blog by that name once upon a time.)

Thanks for the memories Shaun. I’m glad I never booed you and instead just horrifically screamed whenever you got the ball last year. Good luck in the future.

Well said, sir. I’ve spent many a Sunday screaming at Shaun, in excitement when he found the endzone, in frustration when he hesitated and lurched straight into a pile of defenders. Sundays won’t be the same…. but hopefully there’ll be more of the good kind of screaming.

And what a guy for his commitment to the Seattle community—it is great to see that his bond with the Northwest transcends the end of his days with the Hawks.

As we will do the same. You were part of one of the greatest teams in Seattle sports history and gave millions of starving fans something to stand up and take pride in. Shaun Alexander’s name will always be spoken with the words “Greatness” and “Legend” to me.

Good luck, man. May you fulfill the remainder of your desires wherever you go, but be sure to come back here one more time so we can send you off when you retire.

I know he got a lot of flak from a lot of ‘Net rats, but SA was definitely a fave of mine. His letter to Seattle shows his class and his grace.

I’ll miss the hell outta him.

Beautiful work here, John. I mostly lurk, reading occasionally, but you do a fantastic job.

This pretty much sums it up.

I guess I better say it: We gave Shaun a lot of lumps on this space the last couple of years. For me, at least, it wasn’t an easy thing to do. On the one hand, statistics and his stutter-step did not lie. On the other hand, it hurt more to see those stats than any other player I can recall.

I was at Qwest Field when the catcall campaigns began in 2007, and I saw the point of them, but I couldn’t bring myself to boo him once. Towards the end of the season Shaun broke free for a big gain, and except for late game-clinching or -winning plays that year, the resultant cheer was the biggest one at Qwest all season. Everyone in that crowd wanted desperately to cheer Shaun one more time before what they (correctly) suspected might be his curtain call in Seattle. It was almost as if all those boos weren’t really for Shaun, but for the reduced expectations we were all forcing ourselves to have of him.

I can’t speak for John, but for me at least, coming home, crunching the numbers, and projecting what might come next from Shaun was, well, heartbreaking. Because nobody wanted to contribute more than he did. I don’t think his drive was selfishness or egotism, I think it was wanting to contribute at the level he was used to.

I wasn’t feeling sad about this development until I thought about Shaun coming out of the tunnel, every game he was activated, about a half-hour before kickoff—before the introductions, Taima, the explosions, and all that. He pumped his fist, skipped out into the South end zone, and tried to work up a stadium that was only half-full at that point. Everybody’s on the field stretching and this guy’s trying to jump start the 12th Man. The Seagals hadn’t even tied their shoelaces yet. And even if they were booing Shaun later that afternoon, they were doing the exact opposite then.

I sincerely hope Shaun does the exact same thing at whatever NFL town he’s playing next, because that’s pretty much why we love the game, and everyone should feel that youthful love on a Sunday afternoon. At the end of his time, it sounds like he’ll be back here doing it again for the Seahawks. I can hear the MVP chants now.

Thanks Shaun.

’’It was almost as if all those boos weren’t really for Shaun, but for the reduced expectations we were all forcing ourselves to have of him.’‘

I couldn’t agree more.

Everytime I heard a boo toward Alexander’s direction, I would get that feeling of confusion and not really understanding why this person deserved this criticism. But at the same time, It’s easy to grow frustrated due to the expectations you had built from his previous years.

I just hope that he gets recognition for what he did accomplish in Seattle. Not many Seattle players have really been able to get over that hump of being a national star, and Alexander was on that level for at least a little while.

I’ll always be one of the supporters, coming here to read about Shaun’s decline with negativity was a hard pill to swallow, mainly due to the fact that I felt he was a respectable person, and hadn’t deserved anything to warrant any excessive criticism. But the hard reality was he had obviously either physically declined, or was not able to get that motivation I’m sure he likely still has, and transfer it into production.

Anyways, Every time someone brings up an argument from the past about running backs, or Shaun’s impact on the Seahawks, I will be in his corner defending him. I’m glad he was able to be a part of such a great offensive line, and you know, there’s plenty of people who could have done LESS than he did with such a great line. All I can say is fantastic job to the Seattle organization to build such a great offensive running machine, and I couldn’t have been happier seeing Alexander at the front of that. There’s alot I could say about my time watching Shaun, I grew up watching him, from age 15-20 he was my favorite player in the NFL, I don’t know if that was because my love for Seattle and its sports teams, or because of his natural ability. But I do know that I definitely grew attached to watching him, every carry he would get through the 2003-2005 years I would watch, and hope that he would succeed. The fact that he is such a great character in the Seattle community is something that makes me respect him more and more. I have never faced any odds like any NFL player has in terms of being so accepted, to hearing your own fans boo you through your hardest struggles, but his class throughout that situation, even through all the times in where he was considered a cry baby, or soft, he still stood stronger than I imagine alot of people would be able to, and took all those boo’s right on the chin, all the way up until his release.

I’m glad through all this that people still are able to realize what an important figurehead he was to the organization, and to the fans. I’ll never forget when he went through that touchdown celebration phase, as if almost to fit in with the national audience even more. Some of the celebrations were hilarious, but I’ll never forget him pointing to the sky 112 times. I hope Seattle sports and the city embrace him, because I can’t imagine another running back being such a productive member to the team than he had been. He deserves the respect.

I could write forever on why I like Shaun, but mostly, congratulations to him on having such a successful career, and I couldn’t have been more grateful than to be able to watch him play for my favorite team.