The most prestigious honor in all of football is not the Most Valuable Player, or which All-Pro team one qualifies for. The best award a player can end the year with is the illustrious Walter Payton Man of the Year award, highlighting a player’s excellence on and off the field as an upstanding member of his community.
Nominees for all 32 teams in the league have been announced, including the Seattle Seahawks. Representing the Hawks, the 12th Man and the City of Seattle is none other than linebacker Uchenna Nwosu.
An inspiration.@UchennaN_42 | #WPMOYChallenge pic.twitter.com/71OAP7mudP
— Seattle Seahawks (@Seahawks) December 5, 2024
This is the second time Nwosu has been nominated for Man of the Year honors, the first being his second season in the league. Now, he once again is up for the biggest award in football. Nwosu founded the Uchenna Nwosu Foundation in 2023, and the impact is evident. Recently, Nwosu traveled to his father’s home village in Nigeria to restore electricity and rebuild roads. His donations also helped pay for an athletic trainer at his former high school.
To date, there have been only two Seahawks to win the Walter Payton Man of the Year award: Steve Largent in 1988 and Russell Wilson in 2020. Should Nwosu take home these honors, he will forever wear a Walter Payton silhouette patch on his jersey, no matter the team he plays for.
Nwosu has not been able to make much of an impact on the field this year due to unfortunate injuries, but that has clearly not prevented him from making an impact off it.
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