Desperate For Tackle Help, Seahawks Keeping All Options on Table Evaluating Draft Prospects
Closing in on the 2022 NFL Draft with only eight days left until the festivities begin in Las Vegas, coming off a challenging last-place finish in the NFC West, the Seahawks have no shortage of positional needs to address on their roster.
During a transformational offseason for the franchise, Seattle shipped quarterback Russell Wilson to Denver for five draft picks and quarterback Drew Lock, defensive tackle Shelby Harris, and tight end Noah Fant. All-Pro linebacker Bobby Wagner was unceremoniously released to create $16 million in immediate cap relief and bolted to Los Angeles to join the Rams. In addition, while the team has stayed in touch with him, Pro Bowl left tackle Duane Brown remains unsigned.
As things stand, the Seahawks will enter next season with new faces replacing departed stars at three of the most pivotal positions in the sport, leaving the team with a huge leadership void on both sides of the football. Lock and Geno Smith will compete to replace Wilson and Cody Barton will get the first crack at supplanting Wagner, creating significant questions at each spot as the team moves forward without the pair of future Hall of Famers.
But while quarterback jumps out as Seattle's greatest concern long-term and it remains to be seen if Barton can handle every down duties at middle linebacker, no position may be in more dire straits in the present than the two tackle spots.
With Brown and Brandon Shell both still on the market as free agents, the Seahawks currently has only three tackles on the roster. Between 2020 sixth-round pick Stone Forsythe and former undrafted signees Jake Curhan and Greg Eiland, the trio has made a combined five NFL starts and only one of them - Curhan - has logged more than 20 regular season offensive snaps.
For obvious reasons, general manager John Schneider, coach Pete Carroll and his staff, and the scouting department have been hard at work evaluating this year's incoming tackle class over the past several months, keeping options open assessing players from a variety of offensive schemes.
"You study all these different offensive linemen, all these different systems, there are guys who are still running the football, there's teams that play slow spread and run the ball, there's teams that play up-tempo. You have to know exactly what these guys are doing," Schneider told reporters on Thursday. "There are a couple schools that have lighter offensive linemen because their tempo is so fast and they want to get as many series as they possibly can."
Armed with four picks in the top-75, including the No. 9 overall selection acquired from the Broncos as part of the Wilson trade, the Seahawks have the ammunition to potentially land a blue chip tackle later this month. This year's class features four tackles who have received consistent first-round buzz with each of those players carrying different strengths and coming from contrasting offenses stylistically.
Viewed by most experts as potential top-five picks, Alabama's Evan Neal and North Carolina State's Ikem Ekwonu both have ample experience firing out of a three-point stance and bullying defenders in the ground game. Each possesses the athletic traits, power, and nastiness to thrive in either gap and zone schemes while being proficient pass protectors with day-one starter upside.
On the flip side, Mississippi State's Charles Cross, a First-Team All-SEC selection who has been on the top-10 radar, played in coach Mike Leach's Air Raid offense and never had his hand in the dirt, spending 90 percent of his time protecting the quarterback. Still, he has enough solid reps on film as a run blocker to suggest he can adapt quickly to a pro-style offense - and in particular a pro-style run game - in the NFL.
Heralding from Northern Iowa, an FCS school, Trevor Penning also vaulted into first round discussion with a stellar performance at the Senior Bowl in February. Rough around the edges, he needs to work from a technique standpoint and has to learn to harness his aggression, but he plays with the physicality and toughness teams like Seattle covet in the trenches.
When considering the different backgrounds these prospects come from at the college level, Carroll believes the transition for players like Cross who haven't played with their hand in the dirt can present a much greater challenge. But that doesn't mean that player can't or won't be successful at the next level either.
"Depending on which programs they come from, you know, if they come from the heavy run programs, it's not as big of a deal," Carroll explained. "But there's some teams that throw the ball all over the yard and it's all gun runs and there's a difference to their style. There's some transitioning there, maybe even more so than the QBs even because you don't physically see them in a stance and roaring off the football... It depends on the emphasis of the program they come from really."
In the past with Schneider and Carroll calling the shots, Seattle has preferred athletic, mobile left tackles. Before Brown arrived via trade in 2017, Russell Okung started at left tackle for six seasons and the team briefly gave George Fant, a former college basketball player, as well as Rees Odhiambo a crack at the starting role. All three of those players were built with similar frames at 6-foot-4 or 6-foot-5 and between 310 and 325 pounds and had adequate mobility for a zone-heavy scheme.
As for the right side, the Seahawks have typically employed bigger-bodied maulers, starting with the 6-foot-7, 320-pound Breno Giacomini. After he departed in 2014, Justin Britt started their for a lone season and Garry Gilliam held the job for two years before ultimately being replaced by first-round pick Germain Ifedi. With Gilliam being an exception to the rule, Britt and Ifedi both weighed north of 320 pounds and like Giacomini, their greatest strengths lied in moving defenders in the run game.
In the case of both Forsythe and Curhan, the two players matched up well with Seattle's prior preferences. While the former stands 6-foot-8, he posted short shuttle and 3-cone drill times that compared favorably to Brown, while the latter arrived at close to 320 pounds and played at his best as a run blocker during his first extensive NFL action.
As for the top prospects in this year's class, Neal would be an outlier from a size standpoint at left tackle coming in at 6-foot-7, 337 pounds, but he moves quite well for his size and is fluid blocking in space. Both Ekwonu and Cross weigh in at 310 pounds and ran sub-5.00 40-yard dashes at the combine, showing plus-athleticism for the position.
Continuing to see his stock soar, Penning also impressed in Indianapolis, running a blazing 4.89-second 40 and 7.25-second 3-cone drill at 6-foot-7, 325 pounds. His biggest obstacle, of course, will be the dramatic jump in competition going from FCS play to the NFL, which could make him more of a long-term project for whoever decides to draft him to mold.
Not wanting to tip Seattle's hand at all, Carroll didn't delve into individual prospects specifically on Thursday. But even as more colleges adopt spread, up-tempo offenses with less emphasis on the run game, he downplayed the notion that linemen take longer to develop now than they did 10 to 15 years ago.
"I don't think that," Carroll replied. "That may be the case with people not coming off the rock as much as in the past, but we've kind of grown with it and kind of come along with them, so I don't feel like it's that big of a deal."
It remains to be seen what Schneider and Carroll will opt to do when the draft gets underway next Thursday. If the right tackle prospect falls to them at No. 9 or remains available after trading down, they easily could pull the trigger to bolster their offensive line. But with so many other needs and quality talent at other positions, it's far from a guarantee they will go that route and could wait to use one of their other selections inside the top 75.
When they do decide to pick one, it will be fascinating to see if they select one that fits the size/athletic parameters preferred in the past. Or if they take a departure from their approach with a new offensive line coach in Andy Dickerson at the helm.
Regardless, after the Seahawks failed to add a tackle to the mix during the first five weeks of the new league year in free agency, they will have to draft one next weekend, if not more, to at least compete against Forsythe or Curhan. After taking an extensive look at numerous prospects, with the team hoping to avoid a lengthy rebuild, it would be a stunner if they weren't aggressive addressing the position to protect whoever winds up under center in the early rounds.
