ESPN names 'trimmer-looking' offensive lineman Seahawks' biggest offseason surprise

All of the offseason debates surrounding the Seattle Seahawks may end up being pointless if they haven't legitimately improved their offensive line. At the end of the 2024 season this group looked a lot like the worst unit in the NFL, and PFF didn't have them far off from that in their final rankings.

The Seahawks do have a solid left tackle with Charles Cross and appear to have a big upgrade at left guard with Grey Zabel. However, the rest of the offensive line has been a liability more often than not over the last couple of seasons. At right tackle, the issue is Abe Lucas' knee and his inability to stay on the field. At center there's a serious lack of experience between Olu Oluwatimi and Jalen Sundell and at right guard there just aren't any proven options to start.

At this point Seattle has to hope that either Anthony Bradford or Christian Haynes takes a huge leap forward in 2025 compared to last season. Otherwise, you can pencil in right guard as being a major problem once again. On this front there might be a slim reason for hope, though.

According to Brady Henderson at ESPN, the biggest surprise player of the offseason for the Seahawks was a noticeably slimmer Anthony Bradford.

"When the Seahawks hired offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak, a popular reaction was that Bradford may have a hard time winning back the starting job at right guard. After all, he's a big, powerful blocker who doesn't seem like an ideal fit for an outside zone scheme that suits more athletic linemen. It's time to press pause on that notion after a trimmer-looking Bradford shared first-team reps with Christian Haynes during OTAs and minicamp."

This sounds like great news, and being able to move better will be critical for all of Seattle's linemen in Kubiak's scheme. It also could be totally irrelevant.

If Bradford is legitimately slimmer and moves quicker it will in theory help him at his job - but it's definitely far from guaranteed that it'll be enough to help Bradford keep his job. He has been PFF's lowest graded starting lineman for the Seahawks each of the last two seasons - and he had some seriously bad competition.

The Seahawks wouldn't need to lean so much on a long-shot break-through right guard if they had been more aggressive addressing this spot (or the other problematic positions up front) early this offseason. Unfortunately, after another lackluster effort to sign an impact-making lineman in free agency, John Schneider only invested one high draft pick into this unit, when it needed at least two - and you could have argued for three.

Bradford and the other question marks could always surprise us and collectively take a huge leap this year, but odds are we're in for more of the same issues that kept a low ceiling on what Geno Smith, DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett were able to accomplish. Hopefully the front office does better by Sam Darnold, JSN, Cooper Kupp and company.

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