Next Sunday’s matchup between the 8-5 Seattle Seahawks and the 9-4 Green Bay Packers looks to be the tastiest clash on Week 15’s docket for pure football reasons: the game features two of the best teams in the NFC jostling for playoff positioning.
Remarkably, Seahawks-Packers also has a dash of basketball flair. Why? On Monday, the Packers signed guard Michael Jordan to sure up their offensive line depth.
He will be opposed by third-year Seahawks defensive back Coby Bryant – named after for Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant – in one of the more unique sports naming coincidences in recent memory. Bryant and Chicago Bulls legend Michael Jordan are in the inner-circle of those to ever to touch an NBA court.
Jordan’s accolades speak for themselves: the six-time NBA Champion was undefeated in his NBA Finals appearances (winning MVP in all of them) while taking home five regular-season MVP awards and cracking 14 All-Star rosters.
Many accused Bryant of trying too hard to emulate his idol’s footsteps. Either way, he ended up with a glistening career: “the Black Mamba” won five NBA titles of his own while making an impressive 18 All-Star teams.
The pair overlapped for the tail-end of Jordan’s career and faced each other eight times (not including All-Star games).
How about their NFL counterparts? The Packers’ Jordan was originally a fourth-round pick by the Cincinnati Bengals in the 2019 NFL Draft. He started 11 games last season for the New England Patriots.
The Seahawks selected Coby Bryant in the fourth round of the 2022 Draft. He earned his first NFC Defensive Player of the Year in November after his pick-six against the Arizona Cardinals.
“I was named after him for a reason,” Bryant once told Seattle radio station WCPO in an interview. “I just try to represent him as well as I can.”
Bryant even dons the number eight after a rather serendipitous circumstance. “That was the plan [to wear the number eight], to ask for it when Im here. They kind of just offered it to me it was just Gods plan from the jump.”
The 8-5 Seahawks hold a one-game lead in a tightly-contested NFC West over the Los Angeles Rams. The 9-4 Packers currently hold the NFC’s second Wild Card.
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