Why the Seahawks' offensive line feels the pressure — and is ready to meet it

New York Times

05-08-2025

RENTON, Wash. — In the words of right tackle Abe Lucas, the Seattle Seahawks' offensive line 'has to be' better in 2025. The front office knows it. The coaches know it. The fans know it. And, most importantly, the players know it.
That is why, Lucas said, the players are holding each other accountable every day while working to be a dominant, high-powered offensive line.
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'It's going to be different,' the fourth-year right tackle said after Seattle's first padded practice of training camp. 'We've got to be different. We've got to be better.'
The Seahawks' offensive linemen say they do not concern themselves with external opinions about their performance. But there is, of course, no shortage of pundits and analysts with harsh words for the unit, which was not good last season and hasn't been dominant in quite some time. This offseason, general manager John Schneider spent nearly every episode of his weekly radio show addressing the offensive line, his past moves and his plan for improving it. In February, he intimated that the offensive line was one of the team's deficiencies.
But, Lucas said, outside opinions don't compare to how the linemen talk amongst each other.
'We're our own hardest critics,' Lucas said. 'People should hear what we say to each other in the film room and stuff. There's purpose this year, and there's extreme effort to change. So, we're getting after it.'
Seattle struggled to run the ball last season and did not adequately keep pressure out of the quarterback's face. Instead of overhauling the personnel, coach Mike Macdonald replaced offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb with Klint Kubiak, who brought in offensive line coach John Benton, run game coordinator Rick Dennison and run game specialist Justin Outten.
Their new emphasis couldn't be more obvious.
'Run the damn ball,' first-round rookie Grey Zabel said. 'That's what I've learned. That's what we're going to hang our hat on this year. It starts up front, then you have to be able to move the line of scrimmage and protect the guy behind us, who's slinging the rock pretty well right now.'
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Zabel, selected 18th out of FCS powerhouse North Dakota State, is the only new face in Seattle's starting lineup. Olu Oluwatimi, the starting center for the final eight games of the 2024 season, is competing with Jalen Sundell, undrafted out of North Dakota State last year, for the first-team job in the middle of the line. The loser of that battle might have a chance to start at right guard if he proves himself a better option than 2024 third-round pick Christian Haynes, who has also gotten work at center, or 2023 fourth-round pick Anthony Bradford. Preseason performance will likely determine the winners in those position battles.
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The starter at right tackle since joining the team as a 2022 third-round pick, Lucas is a familiar name in the 2025 starting lineup, but he's playing with new life, finally healthy for the first time since his rookie year. Lucas suffered a knee injury in the 2023 season opener and spent most of the past two seasons out of the lineup or playing below his 2022 level when active.
There's a 'night and day' difference between the 2023-24 version of Lucas and the present-day right tackle, whose athleticism and anchor when dealing with powerful pass rushers is evident in reps against DeMarcus Lawrence and Derick Hall in training camp. Like the rest of his 2022 draft classmates, Lucas is eligible for a contract extension. But the tumultuous nature of the past two seasons has the 26-year-old less focused on the future and more locked in on the now.
And right now, Lucas and the offensive line have a high standard for the upcoming season.
'We're going to be as good as we want to be as a unit and as an offense,' Oluwatimi said.
The scheme, which Seattle has dealt with often in the NFC West, is an important piece of the puzzle. An offense built around movement and athleticism plays to the personnel's strengths better than a gap scheme, which requires guys up front to consistently win with power. Veteran tight end Eric Saubert played for Kubiak in 2022 in Denver, and he was in the same offense with former Texans offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik — a Kyle Shanahan disciple — in 2023 and with the 49ers last season. He's seen the perimeter-based attack create problems for the defense by stretching them horizontally.
'Defenses are all about containing the ball, but if you can stress defense on their edges and … get them to move and flow and create misdirection, you can set so many different things up in play-action,' Saubert said. 'Receivers, they're running to cut off a guy, and it looks just the same as certain routes we're running. Violent football — if they're worried about that, it's going to set up a lot of other things for our playmakers to make plays.'
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Just as important as the scheme are the voices tasked with teaching it. There's already a notable difference there, according to the players.
'There's more clarity in the scheme,' Oluwatimi said. 'We're going to have more rules. (Benton's) and Klint's expertise in this scheme, they've been running it for their whole career. … There's just rules to everything. It closes the line of communication from coach to player. So, when we turn on the film, they have something black and white to hold us accountable to.'
Clarity in this context is tied to identity, which Seattle has been severely lacking for years. The Seahawks lost their way offensively following Marshawn Lynch's first retirement. Brian Schottenheimer replaced Darrell Bevell in 2018 and re-established that identity, then veered away in 2019 and 2020, leaving him philosophically at odds with the head coach. In 2021, Pete Carroll chased the Sean McVay-style offense by hiring Shane Waldron, who couldn't replicate the Rams' success in Seattle.
Grubb supposedly began his first team meeting by declaring he'd implement a run-first scheme. By Week 5, he was lamenting his lack of called runs for Ken Walker III. It was never clear what Grubb's offense was supposed to be. Walker said he's buying what Kubiak is selling regarding a run-first identity because he's already seeing that the new play caller is a man of his word.
'I believe him because that's what we work on in practice,' said Walker, who's on his third coordinator in four years. 'You can say the past years, we didn't practice it as much, so you know you're not going to go out to the game and do it. But we've been practicing it a lot, and we're real detailed with the run game. So, I believe it wholeheartedly that we're going to go out and run the ball.'
This scheme, Kubiak said, allows the coaches to give the players 'clear, concise, consistent coaching points.'
'We can call one run probably seven different ways, but it's always the same coaching point for the (running) back, it's the same way the line's blocking a certain front,' Kubiak said in a KIRO-AM radio interview. 'We can give them cumulative reps to start building confidence. That's what is cool about the scheme: There's plenty of different play calls, but at the end of the da,y our tracks are similar, our targets are similar, how we teach the quarterback to boot away is similar, and how the keepers should match those and how our play-action should match the inside zone.
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'This is something we preach all the time: If it's all looking the same, we'll be hard to defend. If we start giving tells away, we're going to be in trouble.'
Seattle still needs several things to fall in its favor to make the leap required to achieve its goal of being a contender. The Seahawks ranked 21st in points per drive last year; six of the eight divisional-round participants were top-10 teams by the same metric (the Rams and Texans were the exceptions). Even if the defense is among the best in the league, a league-average scoring offense won't get the job done.
Charles Cross, with a heavily wrapped right hand, working on the side as OL goes thru drills pic.twitter.com/rHtanFbHyD
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For Seattle to have an elite offense, left tackle Charles Cross must hit the ground running despite missing most of camp and the preseason because of finger surgery. Zabel will have to come out hot and avoid hitting a rookie wall late in the year. The center and right guard jobs need to be settled quickly, and the winners must be consistent enough to keep those jobs throughout the year. Lucas' knee needs to hold up all season, and he needs to return to his rookie year form.
Success lies with the offensive line and its ability to carry the lessons from those clear and concise coaching points to the field. They know that, and it's why they're coming into this season with a high standard and a clear vision for how to uphold it.
(Photo of Grey Zabel, 76: Lindsey Wasson / Associated Press)