ESPN ranks Seahawks OL (and 1 Browns player) as 32nd in the NFL

Do the Seahawks have the worst OL in the NFL, if we're accurately projecting who the actual players on the Seahawks are? Seaside Joe 1994

In his annual position rankings for ESPN, Mike Clay was generous with the Seahawks groups at IDL (2nd), WR (3rd), and RB (4th), but took the bold and familiar step of putting Seattle in last place (32nd) among the NFL’s offensive line units. My first thought is that I don’t take personal offense to any writer saying the Seahawks might be the worst at something—sometimes the Seahawks are the worst at things and certainly they’ve had the worst offensive line in the past—and my second thought is that Clay ranked the Rams having the worst offensive line going in 2023 and that didn’t hold up.

I wholeheartedly agreed with those rankings at the time, but then the Rams found that they actually had a really good offensive line (they’ve jumped to 17th this year) because of a) a rookie starter at left guard, Steve Avila, b) a surprising late trade addition at right guard, Kevin Dotson, and c) a smart gameplan by Sean McVay to help mitigate the OL’s potential issues.

Coincidentally, the Seahawks could be relying on a rookie guard (Christian Haynes, who showed the first signs of potentially winning the job on the right side by going with the 1s in practice this week), a late free agent signing at center, Connor Williams, and an all-new offensive coaching staff. I think adding Williams should probably help Seattle’s place in these rankings, except that for some reason Clay projects Nick Harris—not even Olu Oluwatimi—as the center in his write-up of the Seahawks as having “the shakiest” offensive line:

Seattle continues to throw darts at its line, but it has yet to pay off. Four of the team's five projected starters (LG Laken Tomlinson, C Nick Harris, RG Anthony Bradford and RT Abraham Lucas) posted poor Pro Football Focus grades in 2023, and LT Charles Cross hasn't lived up to his first-round pedigree. The Seahawks spent three draft picks on the line during April's draft, but only one was before the sixth round (third-rounder Christian Haynes). It's hard to imagine this group improving substantially on last season's below-average finishes in pass block win rate and run block win rate.

A) I don’t know where he got Harris from, as I think any Google search would have indicated that Oluwatimi was ahead of him for the entire offseason and b) Though Williams is a recent signing, Clay put the Vikings in 32nd place at quarterback because of J.J. McCarthy’s injury, which also happened this week, c) ESPN posted this article today, four days after Harris was traded to the Browns, but still let it get by all the editors to publish that Harris was Seattle’s projected starting center.

I’m not one to criticize a writer making a simple mistake. Is this a simple mistake though? The worldwide leader posts a new paid Insider-only article and Clay dings a team as “the worst offensive line in the NFL” in part because he projected a starting center who isn’t even on the team anymore and wasn’t the starting center to begin with. If nothing else, that’s odd and reminiscent of Bill Barnwell writing that the Seahawks had the worst offeason in the NFL in 2022 because Seattle chose Pete Carroll over trading Russell Wilson for two firsts, two seconds, and three players. In Barnwell’s defense, at least he didn’t write that the Seahawks chose Wilson and fired Carroll.

Did Clay intentionally make a mistake so I wouldn’t pick away at everything else he wrote?

Like that he couldn’t seem to have his own opinion about Abe Lucas because he was only going off of PFF grades, which I think, if you are going to project Lucas to be back as the starter, you’d know require the context that he was seriously injured last season. Offensive line analysts seem to universally agree that if he’s healthy, Lucas is an above-average right tackle, to say the least. For me reading the article, I could even get on board with the premise that Seattle has a 32nd-worthy OL but then the writer should add, “Because I don’t think Abe Lucas is going to be reliable due to his knee.”

And not that the reason is that PFF didn’t give Lucas a high enough grade over his six games last season.

The other thing about any article like this one where you have to declare a “best” and a “worst” is that now the writer feels as though it is necessary to only make points of why that unit is elite or terrible: Instead of Charles Cross being “a former top-10 pick who suffered from a toe injury in 2023 and has been getting positive reports all summer, not just from the Seahawks but multiple national writers who have visited camp”, he’s just a bust. Instead of Christian Haynes being essentially one of the first five or six guards picked in the entire 2024 draft, and a guy who has a ton of fans out there in the scouting community, he’s “the only OL that the Seahawks picked before the sixth round”.

None of my issues with this article have anything to do with Seattle being 32nd and I think it’s JUST AS EGREGIOUS for a writer with a Seahawks bias to only tell you why the unit is going to be “great”. I will be surprised if Seattle’s offensive line is great, and I think most fans would be elated if the unit was able to crack the top-20. Clay just happens to be on the extreme end with the Seahawks offensive line and when you factor in the embarassing error of slotting a player who is on the Browns as a starter in Seattle, it calls into question everything else he did in the article.

Because it’s one thing to make the error between 2-31 where nobody is able to see why you came to that conclusion. It’s another when Clay is required to do a write-up of the teams ranked 1st and 32nd and then doesn’t double-check his homework or dive any deeper than PFF grades and pass rush win rate. Where are the editors at ESPN?

As things pertain to the Seahawks projected starting offensive line (which could still be the hardest starting five to project in the NFL right now), I’m actually all for skepticism given health status for the center and right tackle, the ongoing competition at right guard, and even kind of a silence about Laken Tomlinson, as was brought up in our comments section recently. I would also, like everyone else, prefer to see Cross prove it in the games before I crown him as a player even worthy of the fifth-year option.

In fact, as the old adage goes, “Don’t give me problems, give me solutions”, so if Seaside Joe were to rank the Seahawks as having the worst offensive line in the NFL, I’d write it like this:

“Kudos to the Seahawks for at least attempting to cancel one of the NFL’s longest-running storylines (“The Seahawks have a terrible offensive line”) by hiring offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb and o-line coach Scott Huff to fix Seattle’s front after they helped the Washington Huskies dominate opposing college teams with an offense that produced six top-100 picks, including two tackles. But we have yet to see any signs that the Seahawks are any better—or any luckier—than we are accustomed to as both their projected starting center (recently-signed Connor Williams) and right tackle (Abe Lucas) have yet to participate in even one practice this year due to injuries. As Seattle carries a right guard competition down to the wire between Anthony Bradford, oft cited as one of the NFL’s worst pass protectors in 2023, and untested third round pick Christian Haynes, the Seahawks are putting a lot of pressure on the left side to carry the unit any higher than an all-too-comfortable 32nd. Unfortunately, left guard Laken Tomlinson was cut by the Jets, probably the last team any offensive lineman wants to be considered “not good enough” by, and tackle Charles Cross has to prove that his sophomore slump was a fluke caused partly by turf toe and not that he’s the next German Ifedi.”

(To be fair, this is about 165 words too long for ESPN’s write-ups but that’s why you’re a Seaside Joe Insider instead.)

I think this is a pretty fair way to explain why the Seahawks might have the most room to improve on the offensive line—which is by no means a controversial opinion—and you’ll notice that I compared a player TO Ifedi. I didn’t say Ifedi was a projected starter still on the Seahawks.

Today is the 1,994th day in a row that I have posted at least one article about the Seattle Seahawks. Got memories of the 1994 Seahawks or were you born in 1994 or have anything else related to 1994 that you want to share? We’re less than a week away from Seaside Joe 2000 and coming close passing by 2024, so make sure you are subscribed to not miss an episode!

Johnathan Hankins merch: Confirmed

You may remember that a few weeks ago I wrote that Hankins sold merch on his website and that I felt it was my duty to test out some Seahawks player merch for the newsletter. Well, the shirt arrived at least a couple of weeks ago and I forgot to mention it! I have to give credit to Hankins, the shirt came as advertised and I’d say that the material is pretty high quality for merch. Here is an image of the shirt with Bonus elephant painting:

(sorry for the wrinkles, I have not actually umm, worn it for more than a few seconds.)

The only issue I have with the shirt is a personal one and not Hankins’ fault: When I bought it, I completely forgot that I actually don’t wear “motivational” t-shirts. It’s also not athletic wear, so it’s not like you can wear it to the gym or on a run. But that’s just my personal opinion, not wearing motivational shirts, and it could be a great thing to own for somebody else. In fact, I’ll be giving this shirt away in a future Seaside Joe giveaway, whenever that happens. “Like New”.

I still have some new articles I owe you, like the conclusion of the three-part Seahawks fan survey, so stay tuned. Those might have to wait until next week, as Seaside Jay and I continue to complete all of our wedding and post-marriage obligations.