RENTON — When Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson was preparing for the 2012 draft at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida, he had an inkling that two of the linebackers training there would go on to do pretty good things in the NFL.

Wilson had known former Boston College linebacker Luke Kuechly for a while, dating back to their days as competitors in the ACC, and when he began to get to know Bobby Wagner and work out with him also, Wilson saw, “two of the best middle linebackers in the league when I was working out with those guys.”

Of course it's a lot easier for Wilson to say that now considering Kuechly and Wagner are the two first-team All-Pro selections at middle linebacker for the 2014 season. And now when Wilson thinks about his team's middle linebacker and the one he will see lined up across the line of scrimmage from him on Saturday, he sees players who are “going to be, in my opinion, some of the best linebackers ever to play the game.”

It might be a bit premature to call Carolina's Kuechly or Seattle's Wagner all-time greats just yet, but the two members of the 2012 draft class have quickly established themselves as two of the best linebackers currently playing the game. And when the Seahawks host the Panthers in a divisional-round playoff game Saturday night in a matchup that most expect to be a defensive battle — neither team has scored more than 16 points in three meetings dating back to 2012 — the two Pro-Bowl and All-Pro linebackers will likely play key roles in the game.

“They're both really good athletes, they run like crazy, they're right in the middle of the defense where they make a ton of plays,” said Seahawks coach Pete Carroll. “We love the way Bobby plays. We think he's a great football player and just getting to the height of his game. In the years to come he will continue to improve.

“But they are similar in that they're very active, they're very athletic, very good pass defenders, really good all-around athletes. They can run with any of the running backs, and it makes them very special.”

The Seahawks had a very high opinion on Kuechly before that draft, but even if they had wanted to take him instead of Wagner, he was gone before their first pick, going No. 9 overall to Carolina. Midway through the second round, the Seahawks picked Wagner with the 47th pick, filling their most obvious need in that year's draft.

In the draft and over the next couple of years, Wagner would live in Kuechly's shadow, at least from a national perspective. While Kuechly was a first-round pick who played in a major conference, Wagner was the second-round pick from Utah State. Kuechly won defensive rookie of the year in 2012, while Wagner finished second in the voting. Kuechly piled up All-Pro and Pro-Bowl honors the next year, winning NFL defensive player of the year, while Wagner went largely unnoticed outside of the Pacific Northwest despite being the middle linebacker on the league's best defense.

This season, however, Wagner elevated his game to the point that, despite missing five games, he earned his first Pro-Bowl nod as well as first-team All-Pro honors. His 104 tackles in just 11 games were, on a per-game basis, comparable to Kuechly's 153 over 16 games, and Wagner's return to the field following a serious toe and foot injury was the biggest single reason for Seattle's late-season defensive turnaround.

“Bobby's a great player,” fellow linebacker Bruce Irvin said. “I'm glad he's finally getting the recognition he deserves.”

Even if Kuechly has, for the most part, been the more lauded of the two middle linebackers from the 2012 draft class, Wagner doesn't mind being compared to him.
“I'm all right with that, as long as the outcome is the outcome I like,” he said with a grin. “I don't mind it; he's a great player and I consider myself a great player as well. It's always fun to watch two great players go at it.”

Trying to rate Wagner and Kuechly is about as useful as debating Wilson vs. Andrew Luck. Both are great players, both are big parts of their teams' success, and both do some things better than the other and some things worse. Rather than debate, it's better to just appreciate seeing two great players at the top of their game sharing a football field during the playoffs.

“Oh gosh, I tell you what; we're going to see some really good ones,” Panthers coach Ron Rivera said on a conference call with Seattle-area media. “I think you're going to see two really good defenses as well. It's a good group of guys; both teams are very active, and as far as I'm concerned, both teams start with their inside linebackers. I think Bobby Wagner and Luke Kuechly will be two of the better ones on the field in terms of middle linebacker.”