You can't blame Seahawks for draft's center problem

3rd 'timi's a charm?

The Seattle Seahawks expect to end the draft still having a competition at center between incumbent Olu Oluwatimi and backup Jalen Sundell. This is according to GM John Schneider, who told the media on Monday that the centers of the 2025 draft class aren’t good enough to expect an upgrade next month.

As much as Schneider has taken heat for Seattle’s lack of talent in the middle of the offensive line recently, it’s difficult to blame him if colleges aren’t developing high-quality, ready-made center prospects to pick in the draft. And Schneider isn’t alone in this thinking: Nobody seems to believe that there’s a good, NFL-ready center in the draft this year.

The top-ranked center at NFL Draft Buzz is Georgia’s Jared Wilson, and Wilson also had the top-ranked scores at the 2025 NFL Combine, ranking FIRST in athleticism AND in production among ALL centers.

Yet his projection by Lance Zierlein and NFL.com is “backup/special teamer”.

According to Zierlein, Wilson “lacks the size and power to hold his own against an NFL nose tackle” and that he doesn’t have a “finisher’s mentality”. At most, Zierlein says that Wilson — again, the TOP center in the draft — only has a shot to make a roster.

PFF ranks Wilson 83rd among all draft prospects and the next closest is Seth McLaughlin of Ohio State at 167th.

Of McLaughlin, Zierlein notes that he tore his Achilles in 2024 and his lack of length (31” arms) makes him a liabiity in protecting the A-gaps. Those would be the gaps…to the left and the right of the center.

NFL Draft Buzz’s second-ranked center, between Wilson and McLaughlin, is Jake Majors of Texas, a 6’3, 315 prospect who “passes the eyes test in pass protection”. Yet PFF ranks Majors 211th overall and they haven’t even made a scouting report on him.

Maybe nobody sees the point and there’s just an expectation of him going in the 7th round/UDFA area. A top-3 center in the class.

Zierlein calls Majors “short-armed” at 30 and 3/8” and though he’s praised as a “coach’s best friend” possessing a “high football IQ”, he’s just not expected to have the size or athleticism to hold up against NFL defensive tackles. Consider for a second just what practice might look like if Majors is going up against Leonard Williams, Byron Murphy, and Jarran Reed.

To recap the best three centers in the 2025 draft class:

• #1 - Great athlete who is too small and weak

• #2 - Coming off of torn Achilles, short armed

• #3 - Short arms, overpowered by good college players, all pass/no run

Virtually no analyst has anything better than a third round grade on any center in the draft, with Wilson leading the pack and falling somewhere in the 80-120 range, while the next crop of centers could go between rounds 5-7 and undrafted free agency.

In other words:

There is no center in the draft who is a better “prospect” than Olu Oluwatimi is right now.

A fifth round pick in 2023, Oluwatimi at least had eight starts against NFL competition last season. At 6’3, 309 lbs with 32 3/4” arms, Oluwatimi also has a more ideal frame for the pros than most — or all — of the centers in the 2025 draft class.

Sundell’s profile could work even better:

In Zierlein’s profile of Sundell, he specifically said that Sundell “will need at least a year to attempt to gain the strength necessary to face off against NFL power at a functional level.”

So the question is:

Would you have accepted a one-year wait for Sundell to add strength/power to his game? If no, then okay, you never wanted Sundell. If yes, then why get rid of Sundell one year into his “one year” waiting plan?

Schneider first mentions in that quote above that Sundell plays multiple positions, so maybe there’s some thought to see how he would do in a competition at guard, if Oluwatimi is the frontrunner at center. Or maybe Sundell will simply be the center.

The Seahawks made wholesale changes to their offensive coaching staff this offseason, not just bringing in Klint Kubiak as offensive coordinator, but also replacing OL coach Scott Huff with John Benton, hiring offensive line veteran Rick Dennison as a consultant, and adding Justin Outten as an assistant offensive line coach.

Seattle has drafted five offensive linemen in the last two years:

• G Christian Haynes

• G Sataoa Laumea

• G/T Michael Jerrell

• G Anthony Bradford

• C Olu Oluwatimi

And Sundell makes six. The youngest of those players is Bradford, who doesn’t turn 24 until next month and he has now put 21 starts under his belt. He’s also the team’s stoutest interior lineman at 6’5, 332 lbs.

If the Seahawks are supposed to give up on players after two bad seasons, what’s the point to drafting any offensive linemen?

Haynes is about to turn 25 and he had just 167 snaps as a rookie. Though his experience as a four-year starter at UConn made him appear NFL-ready, Haynes’ own management of size concerns (25th percentile height, 58th percentile weight, 9th percentile hands) may have had him overwhelmed in his first season of competition above UConn’s schedule.

That might never get better, or a different coaching staff/new blocking assignments/better strength+conditioning/experience through failure could vault Haynes into a starting role next season.

Laumea recently turned 24 and he’s already overcome the odds by starting six games as a sixth round rookie. He may have not been consistent in those six games, but he showed promising moves along the way and Laumea had played more tackle than guard while at Utah so it could be a lack of experience.

Jerrell is the oldest of this group, turning 26 in August, but there was a (short) period of time when people were saying he should start at right tackle for the entire season!

This was less than a year after he finished his college career at FINDLAY.

In the history of pro football, Findlay has produced two players who spent a season in the NFL as a starter and each of them had one year. Jerrell has already beaten the odds, so perhaps he should get one offseason with Benton, Dennison, and Outten before we write him off.

And the Seahawks will STILL probably draft a guard in the top-90, if not top-50.

So couldn’t the Seahawks just draft a player and move him to center?

Of course they “COULD” do something like that. Does that mean that Seattle’s best option at center is someone … who does not currently play center?

Schneider’s point is that if Oluwatimi and Sundell are not better than someone who needs to learn how to play center this offseason, the Seahawks have much bigger problems than their personnel and scouting departments.

There is talk of the probably-too-popular-now Grey Zabel playing center in the NFL and being drafted in the first round, sometimes mocked as early to Seattle at 18, but this is entirely a projection: He played 14 snaps at center in 2022, and exclusively played tackle in 2023 and 2024. He also took those snaps for North Dakota State, a school somewhere in between Findlay and UConn in terms of competition.

Yes, I find it slightly disheartening that fans are talking about Zabel as if he’s Creed Humphrey (not a top-50 pick) even though Humphrey was a three-year starting All-American CENTER at Oklahoma who was considered the best player on the best o-line in the country.

There is no CENTER in this draft worth a day one pick, there probably isn’t one worth a day two pick, and that makes them all worse prospects than Oluwatimi and Sundell.

So Schneider screwed up free agency again, right?

Maybe that is the case, it’s far too early to tell. To say that Drew Dalman will be worth the $14 million AAV he got from the Bears (second-highest paid C in the NFL was a former 4th round pick who missed 11 games in the last 2 seasons) or that he would have been just as successful in Seattle requires evaluation tools that don’t exist right now.

Other centers who changed teams — the Jaguars signed Robert Hainsey for $7m AAV, the Vikings signed Ryan Kelly for $9m AAV, the Patriots signed Garrett Bradbury for $4.75m AAV — were able to change locations for a reason. Hainsey was not even a starter in 2024. Kelly had knee surgery in 2024 and at 32 might never rebound into being a Pro Bowl player again.

Should Schneider have attempted to sign Dalman instead of Cooper Kupp? Maybe he should have, assuming that Dalman was even open to giving the Seahawks a chance to sign him. Kupp was eager to play for Seattle and his contract is far more favorable over the next two seasons than Dalman’s is with Chicago: Seattle saves $9.5 million if they release Kupp after 2025, whereas Dalman is totally locked in with a $14m cap hit in 2026 no matter what.

Now the Bears find out if Dalman will be healthy for a full season, if he’s a good fit for their system, and if he’s actually as good as the contract indicates.

The Seahawks could have taken on this risk, but it’s because they DON’T take on this risk with outside free agents that Seattle’s 2024 free agency whiffs are almost entirely off the books: The team has less than $4.5m of dead money on the books in 2025 due to 2024 free agency, which is $2.5m for Rayshawn Jenkins and $1.85m for George Fant.

Schneider might say “I won’t draft a center” but in reality he’s saying “We can’t draft a center”, at least not one who will outplay the current crop. Free agency offered little in terms of upgrades, so improvement has to come from coaching changes made two months ago, development from within, and waiting out the next round of waiver claims. Oh O.O., it’s magic? We hope.

Seaside Joe 2219