Seahawks PFF grades: Much-maligned offensive line shines against Raiders

The Seattle Seahawks made a ton of changes to their offensive personnel this offseason. While they look to be in better shape to compete now than they were before, that improvement is contingent on one key element going their way. Specifically, their long-suffering offensive line has to take a big step forward this season.

Good news: while it was only one preseason game against a pretty bad Las Vegas Raiders defensive front-seven, the unit passed the first test of the year with flying colors. Collectively, their run blocking was better than it's been in years and they also managed to keep Drew Lock and Jalen Milroe relatively clean in the pocket.

The Pro Football Focus grades for the game seem to support what we saw on the field. Here are a few takeaways fro this week's grades from PFF.

Seahawks OL shines

The highest-graded player on offense for Seattle was tight end Nick Kallerup (no idea), but the real story was the number of quality grades earned by the Seahawks offensive line.

Right tackle Abe Lucas came in second on offense at 81.5 overall, boosted by an 83.6 run blocking mark. Left guard Grey Zabel earned the fourth-highest grade at 81.2 overall. Mike Jerrell, Luke Felix-Fualalo and Josh Jones also landed in the top-10 highest grades on offense.

There were exceptions to the rule, though. Right guard Anthony Bradford, center Jalen Sundell, left guard Christian Haynes and right guard Sataoa Laumea all earned grades of 53.8 or lower.

QBs get mediocre marks

Further down the list it appears that PFF was unimpressed by both Drew Lock and Jalen Milroe. Lock earned a mediocre 63.2 overall grade despite a 70.4 in passing. Meanwhile, Milroe came in at 55.3 overall, only earning a 64.4 for his rushing efforts and a 50.7 in passing.

Mike Morris tops defense

The highest-graded player for the Seahawks on defense Mike Morris, who earned an 87.2 overall grade on the strength of good marks in run defense, tackling and pass rushing. Rookie edge rusher Jared Ivey came in second on this side of the ball, posting an 84.4 overall grade. Cornerback Nehemiah Pritchett (82.7), Connor O'Toole (81.6) and Tyler Hall (72.9) round out the top five.

At the other end of the defensive grades were three DBs: Keydrain Calligan, Ty Okada and Kam Alexander all earned low marks in coverage (43.0 or lower), bringing down their overall grades to the bottom.