Projecting the Seattle Seahawks 2017 Offensive Line

It’s no small secret that the Seahawk’s Offensive line was a steaming hot pile of faeces last year, it ranked last in the league according to ProFootballFocus.com. The best player on that line was Center Justin Britt who ranked 16^th at the position via PFF’s rankings, this is exactly middle of the pack for the league. To be honest if the whole line ranked in that range ‘Hawks fans would have nothing to complain about. However, that wasn’t the case. The second best ranked player was Left Guard Mark Glowinski who was 63^rd at his position. That means that out of 64 available starting slots as Guard in the league he missed being the worst by one. You don’t have to be an expert (and I am definitely not) to realise that this is not a good situation for one of the most important units on a team.

Last year’s unit was young and incredibly raw, of the starting unit Britt was the most experienced and he was only a third-year pro. The starting left tackle was George Fant, who I don’t know if you heard from the commentary team every week was a basketball standout at Western Kentucky and barely played a snap of football in his college career. The Left Guard was Glowinski, a 4^th rounder in 2015 who, whilst being a good athlete and Seattle’s second best lineman, probably would just about scrape a starting job around the rest of the league. The Right Guard was 1^st round rookie Germain Ifedi, who was drafted as a tackle but wasn’t ready to play there year one. The Right Tackle spot was a battle between Garry Gilliam, a college Tight End, and Bradley Sowell who actually lost the Left Tackle job to Fant early in the year.

I could dive further into last year’s woes but quite frankly it is too depressing and I don’t want to ruin my evening. Also, there is only so far a ‘casual’ fan can actually critique and analyse line play. It’s an incredibly technical position that even some Pro scouts profess to struggling with the finer details of scouting the position so I wouldn’t want to do it a disservice by attempting to do so at such an early stage in my film watching days. With that all being said we’re going to look at the early signs for how next year’s line may look.

For this exercise, I’ll start at the left side of the line and work across. So, without further ado, the projected week one Left Tackle is: Luke Joeckel. You will notice this name didn’t feature in the run-down of last year’s line and that is because he was the Seahawk’s ‘marquee’ free agent signing with a one year $7 million contract. He is a former second overall pick of the Jaguars and actually played last year at Left Guard due to struggles at Tackle. But Tom Cable, the Seahawks O-line coach and universal source of scorn from fans, thought he was one of the best guards in the league last year and he obviously has Tackle experience. He gets the nod here for the starting role because, although he has gained 15-17 pounds this off season, Fant is still too raw to start in the league at this point. Also, quite frankly on a line that is the lowest paid in the league you don’t drop $7 million on a back-up. This is almost a no lose from the Seahawks, he can’t realistically be worse than Fant last year and if he is exceptional (ideally) and he prices himself out of the Seahawks’ market then they let him walk for a compensatory pick in the draft and hope Fant is ready to start as a third-year pro. I believe Fant will be the back-up here and still the future of the position for the Hawks.

Moving on to Left Guard now, I believe the starter here will be Oday Aboushi. Aboushi is another free agent addition from the Texans, he has also played for the Jets and has experience in zone schemes at Guard and Tackle. He has spent his career on the right side but ends up here in my prediction due to a couple of dominoes falling a certain way. That is one noticeable thing about this year’s line even more than normal, that depending on a couple of pieces falling one way or another it could move certain others. Aboushi would have graded as our second best lineman last year by some margin, he’s a solid if not spectacular player but at this point that is what the Seahawks need. What he should bring is intelligence and competence in the scheme that was lacking at times last year. With Aboushi we should see a player reaching the second level and actually blocking somebody rather than whiffing and a player getting detonated like they did so often last year due to the inexperienced linemen reaching the second level and not knowing who to block. Backing up Aboushi will be, in my opinion, Undrafted Free Agent Jordan Roos. Roos was the pick of this year’s UDFA crop, getting a $20,000 signing bonus, and was targeted by the Hawks in the draft. He’s a big strong dude who was a rare shining light on a bad Purdue team. Interestingly, he put on a good show against fellow Seahawks’ draftees Naz Jones and Malik McDowell who clearly the Seahawks like so that may well have contributed to their fondness of him.

Center is a pretty tied up position here, Britt was our best lineman last year and projects to do the same this year. He struggled at tackle and guard in his first two years but clearly responded well to the responsibility of being the leader of the O-Line. Backing him up should be last year’s back up Joey Hunt. Hunt was a late round pick last year who saw some game action in brief stints and projects as probably the third best Center on the roster but the Seahawks view the second best as a Guard/Tackle prospect. Hopefully, Britt continues his upwards trajectory from last year and has another decent season and this could provide the bedrock for an improved season for this unit.

At Right Guard I project, last year’s starter Germain Ifedi to return. He is slated to have a camp battle for the starting Right Tackle job with second round draft pick, LSU’s Ethan Pocic. As you can see from my projection here I believe Ifedi loses this battle. Ifedi is bordering on bust territory, the Hawks spent a first-round pick on him last year and hoped he would start at Right Tackle but he was clearly not ready for that role last year. He played most of last year hurt and that may well have contributed to his struggles but I see the Seahawks giving him another year at the position to find his feet. He is an aggressive blocker who is much better in the run game than pass protection, however that describes most Tom Cable linemen. He clearly has the athleticism to succeed as an NFL blocker but his flaws last year were mostly mental. A common sight was Ifedi successfully making a chip block on the way to the second level and then finding nobody to block, this led to either our running back getting killed or Russell Wilson running for his life to avoid a sack. Hopefully this year he can show that he can learn his assignments a bit more and elevate his game to more of a pro level.

As stated I see Pocic starting at Right Tackle. He was a Center for most of his college career but, most importantly, for the Seahawks he played at several positions on the line. He has good size, 6’6” 310 lbs, and showed that he was a polished blocker at the college level. Watching any run from the fourth overall pick Leonard Fournette you’ll see Pocic blowing people up, this proficiency in the run game is a key for the ‘Hawks. He also showed some skills as a pass protector which he can hopefully develop at the next level. Overall, he looks to have the mental smarts to succeed in a zone scheme and the size and athleticism to play at tackle and I see him beating out Ifedi for this role, certainly to start the season. However, if Pocic loses the camp battle then I foresee him and Ifedi flipping roles from this projection. In either scenario, hopefully they both do well and the young core the Seahawks are building at this position continues to grow. To be honest for this season if the Seahawks can field even the 16^th-20^th best unit in the league then that marks progress and gives this team even half a chance to hopefully make the next step compared to the last couple of seasons and make it to the Super Bowl once more.