Interior Big Guys on Offense: Seahawks must find 3 they can trust
Interior Big Guys on Offense: Seahawks must find 3 they can trust
Out of 7 interior OL options, do the Seahawks have 3 big men they can trust? Seaside Joe 2016
I haven’t found a trio of big guys that I can trust with my life since I played the infant in the movie Three Men and a Baby. Those mens names? Tom Selleck, Steve Guttenberg, and Ted Danson. Unfortunately, what the Seahawks really need is not babysitters, but three big men on their offensive line who can soak up every defensive player attempting to get to Geno Smith…
After an offseason of searching for new solutions to Seattle’s long-running issues on the offensive line, John Schneider has added five new big men on the interior to join second-year players Anthony Bradford and Olu Oluwatimi. Will it work this time?
Today I’m continuing the “Close Your Eyes” test with the Seahawks seven listed options on the interior offensive line. It occured to me yesterday that I should re-iterate what I mean by the Close Your Eyes test in case it was very unclear:
The “close your eyes” test is an exam created by Daniel Kahneman to help employers increase their odds of hiring the best job candidates. The point of the test is to get the people doing the hiring to use data in conjunction with intuition: First they rate each candidate on a 1-5 point scale in six different categories. Second they close their eyes and then decide whether the prospective employee is or isn’t the best available hire.
Nothing will be perfect, but the results showed that the “close your eyes” test had a higher rate of successful hires than the control group.
So far in our version of the experiment, I would say that a score of 4+ is your team’s best players—foundational pieces—while a score of 3.5 or better is highly encouraging and a score of 3.0 or better is your team’s “good” players. As I wrote this week, should the Seahawks be worried about their Week 1 offensive line? The scores below indicate that most of Seattle’s interior linemen fall well below a 3.0, but that is mostly due to a lack of experience, meaning that a good start to the season could immediately rectify and change our expectations.
Part I: Running backs
Part II: Wide receivers
Part III: Defensive Bigs
Part IV: Linebackers
Part V: Tight Ends
Here is a sneak peek at the seven interior offensive linemen’s close your eyes scores.
Final Scores:
Connor Williams: 3.3/5
Laken Tomlinson: 2.6/5
Christian Haynes: 2.6/5
Olu Oluwatimi: 2.5/5
Anthony Bradford: 2.5/5
Sataoa Laumea: 2.1/5
Jalen Sundell: 2/5
Here are the rundowns for all seven players that got me to those scores, so if you have any disagreements here read ahead and let me know in the comments!
LG Laken Tomlinson
History: 3/5
Health: 5/5
Athleticism: 2.5/5
Consistency: 2/5
Supply and Demand: 2/5
Versatility: 1/5
It’s a tricky grade for Tomlinson because I can’t really use his draft numbers from 2015 as a reliable indicator of how athletic he is now at age 32, but a score of 2.5/5 is generous and you’ll see reports below that his athleticism has been an issue and it wasn't his strength at draft time:
With context clues, we know that the Jets cut him this year to save $8 million and the Seahawks were able to lure him to Seattle with the promise of a left guard competition (that he’d surely win) and only $1.2 million. So Tomlinson wasn’t really in demand. His run blocking has been far ahead of his pass blocking, and if he repeated his 2023 season on the Seahawks, fans could be screaming to try out other options by the middle of the year. Versatility? He’s played all 146 games of his career at left guard. Tomlinson ends up with a total of 15.5 points.