Michael McCrary, Wake Forest

  
Should have been blue.
via JAMD

If people didn't like my last pick, they're going to hate this one, but I'm a man that likes to exploit angles and I think I've a pretty good one here.

Seattle drafted defensive end Michael McCrary out of Wake Forest with the 170th overall selection in 1993 NFL draft. McCrary was and is the all-time leader in career and single season sacks for the Demon Deacons. Perhaps it was his late round selection, or maybe McCrary just rubbed his coaches the wrong way, but to hear former Seahawks orthopedic surgeon Dr. Pierce E. Scranton Jr. tell it, it was probably his size.

''When I was with the Seahawks, we'd get guys like Mike McCrary who were 'undersized,' '' Scranton said. ''He was like 250 pounds, had incredible quickness, good football instincts. Basically, everyone wanted him bigger. You might as well have put a funnel over his mouth.''

McCrary couldn't crack the starting lineup. For 3 seasons, he languished behind veteran retreads like Natu Tuatagaloa and Brent Williams. +1,000 points if you remember Tuatagaloa. By 1996 Seattle had finally consigned their used defensive ends, but, naturally, found another wide body to block McCrary: Antonio Edwards. Edwards won the job out of camp, then strained his MCL during the preseason, but still managed to battle through Seattle's first 3 games of the season. Seattle went 0-3 and allowed 31.3 points per contest. That's 150% of the average points scored per game for those 3 opponents (SD, KC and DEN). For the rest of the season, Seattle went 7-6 and allowed only 21.7 points per contest. That's only 105% of the average points scored per game by the remaining 13 opponents. Was that all McCrary, well, yes, no, maybe. He did explode for 13.5 sacks in the remaining 13 games. He did knock down 35 sacks over the next three seasons. But there was a lot of fluctuation in who started for the 1996 Seahawks, so theories abound.

The point is, McCrary dominated the second he started. For the next four seasons he was among the top edge rushers in the entire NFL. Had a more enlightened coach started McCrary as a rookie, it's very likely he would have given Seattle 4 Pro Bowl-caliber seasons from the right defensive end position. At the very least, he'd have been pretty damn good. That's why, with little hesitation, I'm happy to take Michael McCrary to complete my Sliders front four.