Seahawks Offensive Line Jumps from Bottom-3 to Top-10

The media has caught up to those of us who saw what Seattle was building a year ago

The Seattle Seahawks have consistently ranked among the worst offensive lines in football, and rarely did fans even disagree. Arguing against a poor rating (similar to Wednesday’s article about Seattle’s offseason grade) would be at best pointless, and at worst disingenuous. You might be called a homer for such opinions.

Now there’s nothing to argue against. Top-10 Seahawks offensive line?

Those years of criticizing the Seahawks for how they drafted, who they drafted, and how they developed offensive lineman, which was not slander, turned a corner between the 2022 and 2025 classes.

Of course, I did forecast that this would change how people talk about Seattle’s offensive line—a year BEFORE Mike Clay or anybody else at ESPN, PFF, or any other NFL website did it:

What I can’t understand is how there is such a consistency with the Seahawks being a bottom-3 offensive line — rarely mentioning the coaching/scheme changes, the potential for a healthy Lucas, and the monumental differences between Tomlinson and Zabel — while so many teams ranked above them, even 20 spots higher, seem to be in the same boat or sinking.

That’s what I wrote last July when the Seahawks were ranked between 30th and 32nd. Clay was a bit more optimistic, ranking them 27th.

My argument was not that I knew Seattle’s offensive line was being underrated (again, could be construed as “homerism”), but that I could tell nobody was actually doing their research on how much work the Seahawks had done on the offensive line. The most anyone would say was that Seattle drafted Grey Zabel in the first-round, which was the obvious thing to say.

• Nobody talked about how wide the gap is between new offensive line coach John Benton and inexperienced predecessor, Scott Huff.

• Rankers rarely mentioned just how bad Laken Tomlinson was, making the improvement with Zabel even more significant.

• Or the fact that Abraham Lucas ended the previous season healthy, not injured.

Should we have hesitated to anoint the Seahawks as improved? Absolutely. There was no clear starter at center and plenty of “ifs” at the other four spots.

But I didn’t see many people talk about the reasons why Seattle could be better. I saw: “Seahawks offensive line??? Say no more! I can’t be bothered to explore—it’s the Seahawks! 32nd!”

The problem for me was a lack of research and independent thinking, not a lack of actual football knowledge.

Here’s what Clay wrote about Seattle’s “biggest weakness” going into 2025:

Biggest weakness: Offensive line. Seattle’s offensive line outlook is better than it was a year ago, but this unit still has plenty of uncertainty outside of star LT Charles Cross. Left guard could be solid if first-round rookie Grey Zabel works out, but the rest of the projected starting line (C Olu Oluwatimi, RG Anthony Bradford, RT Abraham Lucas) posted shaky/poor PFF grades and run block win rates a year ago. None of them has played a full season as a starter in the past two seasons. -- Clay

One year later, Clay and others—still toeing the same line—are as high on Seattle’s offensive line as some of us were a year ago. It’s the same offensive line! Just a new narrative.

Here were Mike Clay’s grades for each of the Seahawks five projected starters: