Seahawks won't name a starter at RG

The winner of the training camp competition won't be revealed until Week 1, 8/9/2024

The winner of the Seahawks right guard competition is…those who love mysteries.

Given that the Seahawks have not had a player win the starting right guard position since 2021, perhaps Mike Macdonald just wants to keep the streak alive. Macdonald told reporters on Thursday that the down-to-the-wire competition between Anthony Bradford and Christian Haynes is en route to finding out “what’s below wire?”

“We have a pretty good feel for how we’re going to line up this week. At this point we’ll kind of keep it under wraps and let (the Broncos) figure it out the first snap of the game.”

I can’t recall any time in Seahawks history that a starting offensive line wasn’t named prior to week one, but to be fair I don’t have that good of a memory and I wouldn’t know all of the examples anyway.

I do know that a lot of teams actually know who all five of their starters are on the first day of training camp and not many have already had to replace three offensive linemen who they expected to start. The competition between Olu Oluwatimi and Nick Harris was won by Connor Williams and Jalen Sundell; Albert Breer’s report that Abe Lucas would be ready by Week 1 turned out to be a bald-faced lie as he spit in my face and compromised my passwords.

So the potential “Cross-Tomlinson-Olu-Haynes-Lucas” starting five could actually be the “Cross-Tomlinson-Williams-Bradford-Fant” starting five instead. But even then, Connor Williams has not been fully cleared to start in Week 1 (though being on the active roster means that the team believes he won’t miss more than a few games).

Be careful what you wish for: Seahawks fans were begging for the team to get a new offensive line, but they didn’t mean every week.

When I say that the Seahawks haven’t had a starting right guard in three years, I really mean it.

Since Gabe Jackson played in 93% of the snaps in 2021, Seattle’s been rotating between Jackson, Phil Haynes, and Bradford. Last season, Bradford led the way with 63% of the snaps, followed by Haynes at 42% (over 100% because they had to move around a bit but this is almost all at right guard).

This year, the Seahawks hired a new offensive line coach (and a few other ones), then signed George Fant in free agency as a tackle who could play guard if needed, Nick Harris as a center who could play guard, drafted Christian Haynes with their second pick, and selected two more linemen in the sixth round, Sataoa Laumea and Michael Jerrell. Then in OTAs, McClendon Curtis was playing right guard with the starters and at times continued to fill in with the ones in training camp.

That’s two guards expected to lead the race, plus FIVE other options behind them, and the end result was this:

• Neither Bradford nor Haynes were impressive enough to convincingly win the job by final cuts

• Harris was traded to the Browns

• Curtis was cut and re-signed to the practice squad

• Laumea and Jerrell may have made the final roster by the skin of their teeth (not as lucky: Raiqwon O’Neal and Tremayne Anchrum)

• Fant’s going to be needed at right tackle for the first four games, at least

As always, you can take the offensive line coach out of the Seahawks, but you can’t take “the Seahawks” out of the offensive line.

This sounds like more of a panic post than I intend it to and that’s probably because all I meant to do was reort the update on the right guard competition, which inevitably led to having research and recall how Seattle got here. What else would a journey down “Seahawks offensive line memory lane” result in other than a little bit of panic?

I have a lot of faith in the new coaching staff, including Scott Huff, so not naming a right guard by the end of training camp is actually not that big of a deal to me. We’ve known since at least the start of camp, because nobody seemed to run away with it before then, that even if Bradford or Haynes had won the job, the competition would go into the season. It’s not like the player who wins the job is allowed to play poorly for as long as he wants. This isn’t like the Supreme Court, it’s not a lifetime position.

If Cross, Tomlinson, and Williams all play as well as they’ve proven they can play in the past, if not better (Cross and Williams could still get better), the Seahawks might even have a good offensive line. Better when Lucas returns from PUP.

So there’s probably an even higher ceiling for the Seahawks offensive line than most think there is—the ceiling for five of these players specifically is really high—and Ryan Grubb’s offensive system could make them better. If Geno Smith has a good season, that will make the offensive line better. If Kenneth Walker III continues to create yards after contact at one of the highest rates in the NFL, that will at least make Seattle’s offensive line seem better.

The Seahawks could at least have the kernels of a top-10 offensive, if not the full pop.

I just found it interesting, and the kind of funny that brings a tear to your eye, that for the third year in a row the starting right guard job has been won by…nobody.

I will post more thoughts in the comments section under “SEA MORE COMMENTS”.