RENTON — Truth be told, Chris Stoll would rather this story not be written.

“Nobody should know my name,” says Stoll, the Seahawks’ rookie long snapper. “Because if they know my name, I did something bad.”

But after Sunday, when his coaches and teammates felt Stoll had actually done something really good, they just couldn’t help it.

Both coach Pete Carroll and kicker Jason Myers gave him unsolicited shoutouts during their news conferences following Sunday’s 29-26 win over Washington, clinched on Myers’ 43-yard field goal as time ran out.

That was one of five field goals Myers made on the day, all of which came following flawless snaps from Stoll.

It was a performance for which Myers won honors as the NFC’s special teams player of the week.

But as he sat in front of his locker talking to a few reporters earlier this week, Myers made clear that it couldn’t have happened without Stoll and punter/holder Michael Dickson doing their jobs well.

They are jobs that usually go unnoticed. But this time, he felt they deserved some public praise.

“From snap to kick, we get 1.3 seconds,” Myers said. “It seems a bit longer maybe [to those watching]. But from when he starts moving to when I have to be kicking the ball, it’s literally 1.3 seconds. If it’s 1.35, it’s too slow, and it can be blocked.”

As Myers adds, “When you have that much movement going on in such a quick, short amount of time,” the synchronization between the three has to be basically perfect.

“It’s second-nature now,” Myers said. “That’s just the importance of our [practice] reps together.”

Modern field-goal success rates might lead most to take it for granted, but 50 years ago, making 67% of your kicks was enough to finish among the top 10 in field-goal percentage.

Myers has made 86.8% in his Seahawks career, and when he began this season 3 of 6 — one of those misses on a 56-yarder — some wondered what was going on.

Myers has made 17 of 18 since, and Seattle’s kicking battery has been nearly flawless.

It’s a battery that starts with the snap from Stoll.

So who is Chris Stoll, anyway?

He’s a native of Westerville, Ohio, located about 16 miles from Columbus and the Ohio State University.

He grew up playing hockey — the NHL’s Blue Jackets had their inaugural season in 2000 when Stoll was 2 — and considered that his main sport until high school. That’s when his father, Ken, who played at Division III Wittenberg University, asked him if he wanted to keep playing travel hockey — with all of its long trips and early practices — or give football try.

Stoll decided to give football a shot and volunteered for the long-snapping job when it became available as a sophomore.

He took to it quickly, leading to his coach, Ryan Wiggins, telling him he might have a college future at it. 

That led to Stoll attending Rubio Long Snapping Camp in Las Vegas, where his college aspirations blossomed. After attending a camp at Penn State, the Nittany Lions offered him an invited walk-on spot.

He’d hoped Ohio State might do the same. “I grew up a fan [of the Buckeyes],” he says. “They did not offer me, so, no longer a fan.”

Stoll earned a scholarship at Penn State before his sophomore year, and as a senior, he won the Patrick Mannelly Award as the best long snapper in the country.

Along the way, he also earned a degree in kinesiology and says he is close to another in health policy and administration. He plans to someday work at the administrative level at a hospital.

But first, he figured he’d give the NFL a try. 

He knew he was unlikely to get drafted since snappers rarely do — eight have been taken since 2015. But watching the draft with his family, the phone rang with a call from his agent late in the seventh round telling him the Seahawks might be an option.

“He was like, ‘Hey, Seattle is a great opportunity and they are interested. Let’s make a deal,’” Stoll recalled during training camp. “I said, ‘OK, let’s go.’”

The Seahawks had ended the 2022 season with two snappers on their roster: Tyler Ott and Carson Tinker. Seattle signed Tinker after Ott went on injured reserve early in the year with a shoulder injury. 

But both were free agents and older (Ott, who eventually signed with Baltimore, is 31 this year, and Tinker is 34). Seattle, wanting to get younger and cheaper, didn’t re-sign either after the season.

That left the 25-year-old Stoll as the only snapper on the roster when camp began.

“You always kind of expect to find some competition,” Stoll said. 

That not only spoke to the confidence Seattle had in Stoll, but it also meant he got all of the reps to develop the needed timing and chemistry with Myers and Dickson.

“The special-teams guys and [Seahawks general manager] Johnny [Schneider] and those guys were all on him,” Carroll said. “[They] really were convinced that he would have a great chance to do it. We’ve just watched him since the day he got here, and he’s been absolutely consistent and accountable throughout. He’s been a great kid for us.”

Along the way, he earned a reputation for keeping his head down and doing his job — literally and figuratively.

“He doesn’t talk too much,” said special teams captain Nick Bellore. “When he needs to, he does. When not, he stays out of the way. But he’s been awesome. That’s a tough position, especially as a rookie. He’s done a great job.”

That all led to Sunday, when Stoll and the kicking unit took the field with 3 seconds left. 

With no timeouts remaining and after quarterback Geno Smith spiked the ball, they hurried on. But then Washington, as most teams tend to do in these situations, took a timeout to try to ice Myers and the kicking unit before a 43-yard attempt with the game tied 26-26.

That allowed Stoll — who said he’d never snapped for a potential game-winner on the final play — a chance to get one last practice snap. 

“It always helps to get a little warmup right before,” he said. “But I was still trying to keep to the same routine.”

When the real thing happened a few seconds later, it all went to plan.

“Pretty cool,” Stoll said in his typically understated fashion.

He came back to the locker room to a few congratulatory texts from family and friends.

He got some more congratulations from Carroll after the game, then again later in the week after Myers’ award was announced.

And Stoll allowed that, at least, to be a moment he was OK with his name being known.

“It’s always good to get recognition from my teammates, especially,” he said. “I don’t really care about anything else besides that.”