Seahawks Offensive Line Critiqued by NFL Analyst Brian Baldinger

The Seattle Seahawks offensive line has been subject to heavy criticism this season, and it’s not like it’s undeserved. In another brutal showing against the Los Angeles Rams, Geno Smith was sacked seven times and pressured on 60 percent of his dropbacks. Nothing epitomized Seattle’s season more than an inability to get a yard on 3rd and 4th in 1 in overtime, which turned a potential winning touchdown drive into a turnover on downs and eventual loss.

Former NFL offensive lineman and current NFL Network analyst Brian Baldinger was on Seattle Sports to discuss the Seahawks line, and he did not sugarcoat things whatsoever.

“They’re not a strong group,” Baldinger said. “I mean, outside of Charles (Cross), who’s struggled also at times this year, they look like backups. That’s what they look like right now. I know Laken’s a longtime player in this league, starts every game, never gets hurt. He’s a quality player but he’s on his fourth team right now.

“They’ve got backups in there right now and Ryan Grubb is a deep-ball thrower. He wants to push the ball down the field, and those guys aren’t holding up in order to run that style of offense right now.”

The concerning part for the Seahawks is that outside of right tackle, where they’ve literally only played backups and backups to the backups this season, the other four spots have all been occupied by the same starters. The only wrinkle has been rotating rookie Christian Haynes in at right guard with Anthony Bradford, and even that has seemingly stopped.

Seattle ranks 25th in ESPN’s pass block win rate, 29th in run block win rate, and perhaps the most damning stat is the frequency in which this offensive line gives up “quick pressures,” which are defined as pressures within 2.5 seconds.

And yet, Baldinger doesn’t see Seattle’s struggles as just an issue of bad offensive line blocking. He points to the performance of the remade tight end group.

“It’s more than the offensive line,” Baldinger said. “I don’t want to go backward and turn a page here, but one thing Pete Carroll did was those three tight ends they had last year and for the years before that: they were excellent on the edges. They’re all good receivers—Colby Parkinson, Will Dissly—they were all really good run blockers and they took a great deal of pride in it. And I can’t really say that the tight end group is a strong group.

“[Noah] Fant is still a receiver first but when he was with that three and they played a lot of three tight ends (last year)—probably more than any other team in the league— it really helped Kenneth Walker just avoid the penetration that they’re getting right now, where you’re trying to avoid somebody before you even get to the line of scrimmage.

“And so, the movement isn’t there the way you need it to be there to be a consistent running team. I think everybody thinks Kenneth Walker is a hell of a back. He’s not getting the big runs that he’s gotten in the last couple of seasons. To get him going you’ve got to get some movement, you’ve got to find runs that work—whether that’s power, counters, stretch—you’ve got to find some runs by Week 10 that you know you can count on and I don’t know that they’ve found those yet.”

Fant has not graded well as a run blocker this year and he’s out injured. Pharaoh Brown has scarcely played and generally ceded his snaps to rookie AJ Barner, who’s been a better receiving tight end than perhaps expected, but not necessarily as good a blocker as advertised coming out of college.”

You can listen to the full interview below.