If we believe...

The Seahawks have one of the youngest offensive lines in the NFL, how is that not in some way a positive?

If we believe that Derick Hall and Boye Mafe are going to be better in their third and fourth seasons, then why shouldn’t we believe that Anthony Bradford and Charles Cross will be better in their third and fourth?

Or for that matter, Olu Oluwatimi in his third and Christian Haynes in his second?

As posted on Monday, the Seahawks may have no other choice than to rely on their current crop of offensive linemen to build a starting five. And for those who are still disappointed that Seattle didn’t sign Will Fries for $18 million per season and Drew Dalman for $15 million per season, what exactly are these players if not younger versions of them:

• Going into his third season, Fries, a former 7th round pick, had appeared in three games as a rookie (22 snaps) and had started nine games in year two (645 snaps).

• Going into his second season, Dalman, a former 4th round pick, had played 68 snaps as a rookie with the Falcons.

Despite limited action, The Falcoholic still posted a grade for Dalman’s rookie season (which was a C-) and said the results were “…mixed” with a lot of work needed before he can be an NFL starter. Same as the 2024 reports on Jalen Sundell, the reports on Dalman’s rookie season were that he needed to sit for a year to bulk up. There was no indication that Dalman would even start over Matt Hennessy in year two, but he eventually did win the competition.

He was ranked around the 11th to 15th best center in the NFL in 2023 and he had the fourth-most penalties of any player in the league. He allowed the fifth-most pressures among centers. Two years later, Dalman is the second-highest paid center in the NFL.

Is it really out of the question that Oluwatimi, who had a higher prospect grade in 2023 than Dalman had in 2021 (6.19 to 5.88) and is roughly the same age going into year three and has arguably accomplished more in his first two seasons than Dalman, could end up being a comparable center this season?

At a cost of $1.1 million.

Fries had even less acclaim as a prospect, cited as having the potential to at best win a backup guard job one day due to his poor athleticism, then getting drafted 11 picks ahead of Mr. Irrelevant in 2021.

There was virtually nothing to say about Fries after his rookie season, but nine starts in 2022 made him slightly more of a topic going into year three with the Colts. Still, those opportunities did not come easily to Fries: Essentially, three other players had to fail before the team would even give him a chance.

Credit to Fries for taking advantage of the opportunity when it came to him in Week 10 of the 2022 season, but it still wasn’t entirely set in stone that he would keep the job in 2023 as some Colts bloggers were still mulling over getting an upgrade at right guard in free agency or the draft.

If Will Fries was allowed to prove himself in year three (with a new offensive coaching staff by the way, as Indianapolis hired Shane Steichen that year) and is now all of a sudden this mythical creature who would have “saved the Seahawks” as an $18 million free agent guard who broke his leg last year, then are we really supposed to believe that those improvement opportunities do NOT exist for Christian Haynes, Anthony Bradford, Sataoa Laumea, Michael Jerrell, and Sundell?

With the Seahawks also bringing in a new offensive coaching staff led by Klint Kubiak?

Why does there seem to be so much patience for Seattle’s other draft picks, but the offensive linemen seem to rarely get a second or third chance? The players who the team should have allegedly replaced with free agents who would have been given bigger contracts than all but two players on the entire roster (Leonard Williams, Sam Darnold) and were in no better position after 2-3 years than the Seahawks guards and centers who have barely seen the field compared to other veterans.

There was pushback on Seattle getting rid of Darrell Taylor before his fifth season because he was “still going to become a dominant pass rusher”. You could have said the same of Tre Brown going into his fourth season with the team in 2024 despite barely doing anything for the first three.

Suggesting that Mafe and Hall need to improve before they are extended (Mafe turns 27 this year, by the way) is an argument that is often met with pleas that they are young and “only going to get better with experience”.

Why not the same optimism for players on the other side of the trenches?

Average age: 25ish

Charles Cross is 24. Bradford is turning 24 this month. Haynes turns 25. Abe Lucas is 26. Laumea is 24 and Oluwatimi is 25. Other units are praised for being “teeming with potential” when they’re that young. On the offensive line, it’s treated as a detriment.

And yes, the offensive line needs to perform better, as do the coaches who are replacing the coaches who were heavily criticized for being in over their heads last season. If last season’s coaches were part of the problem, could Kubiak, John Benton, Rick Dennison, and Justin Outten contribute to a solution?

Hiring this staff doesn’t preclude John Schneider from drafting a tackle or guard in the first round if he sees that player as the best available (the Saints 2024 offensive line has three former first round picks, as well as one of the highest-drafted centers in the league) but two probabilities seem clear now:

• The Seahawks likely have at least 4 of their 5 OL starters already on the roster

• If the Seahawks draft a guard or tackle, even in the first round, that player must compete for a starting job and will not be guaranteed anything

Plenty of the supposed “best” guards and centers in the NFL were a) not highly drafted and b) not highly regarded even after 1-3 years in the league. There are odds that a rookie could become a star guard next season, and there are odds that someone like Olu, Sundell, Haynes, Bradford, or Laumea could become a super starter…and those odds are not that far apart.

Seaside Joe 2220