Now just a week away from their season opener against the Denver Broncos at Lumen Field, Seattle Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald isn't about to give his team's upcoming opponent any early advantages, including announcing unknown starters ahead of time.
Specifically, when asked about whether he and his staff had determined a starter at right guard between incumbent Anthony Bradford and rookie Christian Haynes, Macdonald opted for gamesmanship, admitting Seattle knows who will start between the two players while choosing to keep that state secret private until kickoff.
"We have a pretty good feel for how we're going to line up next week at this point," Macdonald responded. "Let's just kind of keep it under wraps and let them figure it out first snap of the game."
Leading up to next Sunday, Bradford would seem to be the favorite to start for the Seahawks if competitions are purely chosen off of reps. The second-year blocker out of LSU has spent the vast majority of training camp and the preseason working with the first-team offense instead of Haynes, and he didn't do anything to cost himself a starting job with stellar performance in exhibition games this month.
Per Pro Football Focus charting, Bradford only allowed one pressure and no sacks on 48 pass blocking reps in Seattle's three preseason dress rehearsals. He also excelled as a run blocker, consistently dominating at the line of scrimmage and creating extra running room with second level blocks, including helping spring Kenny McIntosh for a pair of explosive runs in a road loss to Tennessee.
But while Bradford did nothing to hurt his case as a returning starter playing for new line coach Scott Huff, Haynes has been building momentum as of late in part due to his strong play at left guard playing at the same time as his teammate. The third round pick out of UConn has looked quite comfortable on both sides of the line despite exclusively playing on the right side in college, especially in pass protection.
In his first three NFL games, per PFF, Haynes equaled Bradford for proficiency in pass protection, yielding a single pressure on 53 pass blocking snaps while logging a near dead-even split between left and right guard. He also held his own in the run game, receiving a respectable 73.8 grade for his efforts in the preseason.
From Macdonald's perspective, while fans would love to know whether Bradford or Haynes starts in Week 1 opposite of veteran Laken Tomlinson, there's no reason why he should feel compelled to announce a winner ahead of time. Doing so would only help Denver from a planning perspective, as they could zero in on one player or the other while assessing game film from the past month, thus providing no real benefits.
As the majority of NFL head coaches would do under similar circumstances, Macdonald has decided to keep the decision close to the vest even if the Seahawks already know internally who will start on September 8. With just seven days until his team takes the field in his regular season coaching debut, fans will simply have to stay patient and wait a little bit longer to see if Bradford maintains the job out of the gate or Haynes jumps into the lineup as an immediate starter.
