Seahawks position battles preview: OTAs start on Monday

Seaside Bonus: A preview of each position and how much "competition" to expect

The Seattle Seahawks may have been the only NFL team to have a true quarterback competition in training camp last year, and it seems as though we’ve seen fewer such battles at that position as the league has evolved in the last decade. Teams like competition at almost every spot, but there could be more hesitancy than ever to start a quarterback who hasn’t gotten every rep and snap he could possibly get with the 1s going into the season.

That was just as true for the Seahawks last year, as Pete Carroll tried as hard as he could to inject his “Always Compete” philosophy into the battle between Geno Smith and Drew Lock, yet as far as I can remember it was Geno who got virtually every snap with the starters in practice and Lock was fighting from behind the entire time. Naturally, Geno was deemed the safer option when the third and final preseason game was concluded, even though there wasn’t a balanced amount of time given to Lock to find out what he could do if he had been given the offseason lead.

Geno Smith won the training camp competition and then was one of only two quarterbacks in the league to take every snap in the regular season and then earned a new contract with $27.3 million fully guaranteed. Although Lock won a sort of competition of his own, signing a $4 million contract (worth up to $7.5 million with incentives) to be one of the highest-paid backups in the league.

So every rep during a competition matters, whether that’s when you’re with the starters and what you’re doing when you’re not.

The Seahawks do not have a quarterback competition this year and that gives Geno more comfort in the fact that he’s got the full support of the organization behind him when he’s calling plays and giving orders to the other offensive starters. It’s the first time he’s really had that since 2014 as a second-year pro on the New York Jets.

How much has he learned from that experience in the nine seasons since?

Seattle will need Geno to be dominant in his role as a veteran leader (last season’s team captain on offense was Tyler Lockett) at the game’s most important position because there are now competitions that he’s partly responsible for instead of him being directly involved in the position battle like he was in 2022. The Seahawks are sorting out their offensive line and their depth at receiver, running back, and tight end.

And that’s just the offense, there is plenty to sort out with Seattle’s defensive starters and rotations as well since the Seahawks have added six high-profile free agent signings and five draft picks on that side of the ball. These competitions won’t come into focus for the media until training camp in late July, but the battles are already underway and will be a part of OTAs that start on Monday.

This is a preview of what position battles to expect from the Seahawks between now and Week 1 against the Los Angeles Rams.

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