Will Anthony Bradford start as a rookie?

A brief history on mid-round guards in Seahawks and NFL history: Seaside Joe 1544

The question of whether guard Anthony Bradford will start for the Seahawks as a rookie is impossible to answer with certainty and instead requires looking at a series of probabilities based on different points of view.

Anthony Bradford is a guard drafted in the 4th round, 108th overall, out of LSU

Every draft class is different. Last year, there were not any good quarterback prospects, with only one player selected in the top-70. This year, three of the top-four picks were quarterbacks and five went in the top-70. All positions go through ebbs and flows like this, not just quarterbacks, and I don’t want to presume that all mid-round offensive line prospects are created equal.

However, history has done an adequate job of making assessments on how the league views certain prospects and positions based on their draft status. It’s important to always grade on a curve solve for year—a running back picked 25th overall today might have a higher grade than a running back picked in the top-10 in a previous era—but the Seahawks have had a fairly consistent draft valuation for positions in the 14 years with Pete Carroll and John Schneider.

But let’s start with some general early returns on investments as it relates to mid-round guards and centers.

The NFL has drafted 16 full-time rookie starting interior offensive linemen between rounds 3-5 since 2000

On a search at Pro-Football-Reference for every player listed at guard or center who was drafted between rounds 3-5 going back to 2000, I found 198 names that qualified. Of those 198, only 16 started 16 games as a rookie.

And of those 16, eight were centers. That means that there were only eight guards in a 23-year sample size between 2000-2022.

Notably, or probably coincidentally, two of those eight guards played for the Seattle Seahawks: Floyd Wedderburn in 2000 and Damien Lewis in 2020. Wedderburn’s placement here also requires an asterisk.

A fifth round pick out of Penn State in 1999, Wedderburn fell for injury concerns and wasn’t on the roster his first year in the league. He did start a full season in 2000, but reverted to a backup position in 2001, started 10 games in 2002, and then never played in another NFL game again.

But of the seven other guards, Lewis is one of the names, as is Joe Thuney in 2016, and Jonah Jackson, a Pro Bowl player for the Lions in 2021 who helped push Evan Brown out of a job and onto Seattle’s roster.

Of course, apart from guys who started 16 games there are also other players. You know, like the ones who started, I don’t know 15 games. 14 games. There are other numbers to consider! Like 13 games.

Gabe Jackson was the 81st pick in the 2014 draft and started 12 games for the Oakland Raiders in 2014. Some other recent examples of mid-round guards to play considerable time as a rookie would be John Miller, Nate Davis, Larry Warford, Shaq Mason, A.J. Cann, and Graham Glasgow, all of whom have continued their careers as interior starters. Not all players who start right away end up starting for long.

Not only Wedderburn, but also names like Solomon Kindley, Michael Deiter, Royce Newman, and Hugh Thornton.

The Seahawks have picked 8 OL between rounds 3-5 under Pete and John

And the list isn’t very encouraging: John Moffitt, Terry Poole, Mark Glowinski, Rees Odhiambo, Jamarco Jones, Phil Haynes, Lewis, and Abe Lucas.

On one hand, there is DEFINITELY an optimistic angle to take here: The last three players drafted by Pete and John in this range are set to start in 2023. Lucas appears to have been a great third round pick in 2022, Lewis is only 26 and could have a promising career ahead, Haynes has at least been good enough in limited reps to give the organization reason to give him $4 million to stay this year.

Haynes, the 124th overall pick in 2019, played in just one snap over his first two seasons in the NFL. He then played in 136 snaps in 2021 and 485 snaps in 2022. Seattle finally parted with Gabe Jackson and they seem ready to give Haynes an opportunity to win a job, but nothing will be handed to him, hence signing Brown and then drafting both Bradford and Olu Oluwatimi.

Even if Oluwatimi is competing at center, winning the job could push Brown back to guard.

Prior to Haynes, Pete and John’s only good OL pick in the middle rounds was Glowinski, but the team pushed him out of a job after three seasons. He immediately became a starter on the Colts, which is where he spent four seasons of his career prior to signing with the Giants in 2022.

Even if we expand are search to the 2nd and 6th round, the returns don’t get much better. You can add a few mid-level starters like Ethan Pocic and Justin Britt, but then we also have to talk about Garrett Scott, Kristjan Sokoli, Joey Hunt, Justin Senior, and Stone Forsythe.

Trying to answer the question of Bradford’s immediate future is twofold: The long-term history is working against him but recent history with Lewis and Lucas (as well as Charles Cross) suggests that Pete is more than open to giving Bradford an important role in year one.

Who is Anthony Bradford?

I briefly covered Bradford’s resume after the Seahawks drafted him on day three last month, so I would re-read that for a refresher.

Dane Brugler’s The Beast report:

SUMMARY: A two-year starter at LSU, Bradford played primarily at right guard in offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock’s zone-based scheme. The first recruit out of Michigan to sign with the Tigers in over 10 years, he played sparingly his first two seasons and became a starter as a sophomore and junior, moving around as LSU played musical chairs on its offensive line because of injuries. Bradford is a heavy player, but he isn’t a slug and explodes off the snap with the core strength and girth to control defenders in the run game. However, he is fundamentally a work in progress and needs to play with better balance and lower-body bend to adjust to moving targets in his pass sets (spends too much time on the ground). Overall, Bradford offers tackle experience, but he is at his best in confined quarters, where he can trust his wide frame and move bodies with sheer force. Although he might not be ready from the get-go, he offers intriguing NFL potential that can be cultivated.

With Seattle’s two tackle spots manned for the near future, Bradford profiles as someone who should be able to compete at right guard against Haynes, with versatility to serve at right tackle in a pinch and to insure the left guard position in case anything happens to Lewis.

Wednesday Bonus Article:

Much of Bradford’s future may depend on Haynes’ durability and endurance. He has never played 500 snaps in an NFL season before, so the Seahawks may have to continue their unusual rotation at right guard and that could give Bradford a chance to improve the weaknesses in his game that kept him available into day three. I think it is safest to have low expectations and to remember that it’s not how you start that matters…

In this case, it’s how you rotate.