The Seahawks’ 1981 draft class is best known for producing Hall of Fame and Ring of Honor safety Kenny Easley, who was selected with the fourth overall pick, but there was another member of that class, selected four rounds later, who also had a big impact on the franchise in the 1980s.
Guard Edwin Bailey, the 114th overall pick out of South Carolina State, wasted no time making a name for himself in Seattle, winning the starting job at left guard as a rookie and starting 15 of 16 games played.
Bailey would go on to be a key member of the Chuck Knox era teams that saw the franchise reach new heights in the 80s. He was part of the first playoff team in franchise history, the 1983 squad that reached the AFC championship game, and he played on four playoff teams, including the 1984 team that went 12-4, and the 1988 team that won the first division title in franchise history.
Over the course of an 11-year NFL career, all of which was spent in Seattle, Bailey started 120 games and appeared in 139 overall. Bailey’s career approximate value (a stat created by Pro Football reference that attempts to assign a statistical value to individual player seasons) of 62 ranks 27th in franchise history, and third among offensive linemen behind only Walter Jones and Chris Gray.
Bailey might not have been a household name, given the position he played, but he was very well respected. John Nordstrom, part of the Nordstrom family group that owned the team from 1976-1988, referred to Bailey as his favorite player in his 2015 biography, “Mr. John”, writing, “So many of the Seahawks players through the years have been wonderful guys, and a lot of them real characters. If I had to point to a favorite, I’d say it would be guard Edwin Bailey. He was such a great, humble and down-to-earth man. In those days, we didn’t have one of those nice lunchrooms at the headquarters, and guys would bring their own lunches. Edwin would show up with a brown bag. One day I asked him about his car, and he told me he had no car, he took the bus to work every day. He had me in his pocket after that.”
Bailey, who briefly coached in the XFL, later returned to Seattle in his post-playing days, making an impact as an educator in the Highline School District, putting to good use the early childhood development degree he earned at South Carolina State.
In addition to his status as one of the top Seahawks players in franchise history, Bailey is also a member of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference Hall of Fame, as well as the South Carolina State University Athletic Hall of Fame.
