Early in his NFL career, Seahawks receiver Doug Baldwin got a chance take part in offseason workouts in Minnesota with a group of players that included Arizona Cardinals great Larry Fitzgerald.

Years later, as Baldwin has developed into a Pro Bowler and one of the game's best at his position, he looks back on those interactions with a player who is almost certainly a future Hall of Famer as key moments in his development as an NFL receiver.

"It just changed my perspective on the game of football," Baldwin said. "Before, I was just getting by on my athleticism, but talking to Larry and some other guys across the league, they really taught me the chess match that's within the game of football. I think, personally, Larry is probably the best body language and mannerism manipulator at the receiver position. He does an excellent job of just not giving anything away and also telling people that he's going one way when he's actually going the other way, so it's incredible to watch. It's really artwork on the football field to me."

Fitzgerald, 34, has not yet said if he will play in 2018, so it's possible Sunday's game could be not just his last at CenturyLink Field, but the last of a remarkable career that has seen him catch the third most passes (1,226) for the third-most receiving yards (15,490) in NFL history. And if this is Fitzgerald's last game, he will have made his mark on the Seahawks, not just because of his production against Seattle—he has 1,903 yards and 11 touchdowns in 26 games against the Seahawks—but also in the influence he has had on current Seahawks like Baldwin and cornerback Richard Sherman.

Asked earlier this season to name his biggest learning moment early in his NFL career, Sherman immediately pointed to a receiver against whom he has had many memorable battles.

"It was probably playing against Larry," Sherman said prior to Seattle's Week 10 game at Arizona. "I think it was my last game of my rookie year. It was less to do with athleticism and body position and things like that, than it was just being crafty and being smart and understanding places on the field—where quarterbacks like to put the ball, because he would be running the same routes as these other guys but he would be getting to different places on the field. You are watching all these guys on film and you are like, 'Man, he's running the same route, but how is he getting to these different places?' It's more of mental game. It's more of an understanding of his and the quarterback's relationship, his veteran-ness, than it is route combinations and things like that in the rhythm of the game. Once I realized that, I figured out that once you find your own rhythm to the game and your own style and your own way of affecting the game, then you will be fine regardless of the circumstances regardless if you feel like the sky is falling, you can still stand up. You can still make plays because your technique shouldn't waiver or falter."

Baldwin and Fitzgerald are very different players from a physical standpoint—the 6-foot-3, 218-pound Fitzgerald was the No. 3 overall pick in the 2004 draft for a reason—but as Baldwin has developed as a receiver, he has shown plenty of the same traits that have made Fitzgerald an all-time great, ranging from toughness to big-play ability to great hands to crafty route running.