As preseason ends, 3 Seahawks rookies, another new addition seem to have won starting jobs
Just about everyone remains focused on Geno Smith versus Drew Lock in the competition to succeed Russell Wilson at quarterback.
(Nothing new on that Wednesday, by the way. They both split series with the starting offense in practice again, for the third consecutive day).
But three rookies plus another newcomer appear to have won the “other” Seahawks starting jobs that were fully open at the start of training camp a month ago.
Third-round draft choice Abe Lucas has asserted himself in the first two preseason games plus practices over the last week as the number-one right tackle. Lucas is likely to start there in Seattle’s final preseason game Friday at Dallas.
Rookie first-round pick Charles Cross has been the starting left tackle since day one. Cross is known as “Sweet Feet.”
But coach Pete Carroll says Lucas’ athleticism and quickness make him perfectly suited to block NFL edge pass rushers, too.
Lucas has even wowed the guy he’s beating out for the job.
“Abe has done a really good job. He moves better than any offensive lineman I feel like I have ever seen,” fellow tackle Jake Curhan said.
“So his ceiling is through the roof.”
The former Air Raid, stand-up blocker at Washington State for coach Mike Leach wasn’t supposed to be able to run block in the NFL. Yet Lucas has flattened four different Steelers and Bears with pancake blocks entering in the second quarter for Curhan with the starting offense in the two preseason games.
“Abe has shown in the running game, one of the big questions coming off of the team that he came from and the philosophy that he came from,” Carroll said. “He’s getting off of the ball and playing the running game well. He has been particularly effective on the backside and he has some really stellar blocks.
“He is not having any trouble making this transition. He’s deep into the competition of it, so I’m really fired up about that.”
Lucas’ pancake block against the Bears last week was on his second play. Lucas drove defensive end Trevis Gipson 7 yards off the ball on a running play away from him. Then he flattened Gipson into the turf.
Lucas did that in front of his entire, large family. His mom, dad and siblings were in the stands from his native Everett.
He’s one of seven children.
“It was awesome,” he said of having them there.
Asked after Seattle’s preseason game last week against Chicago about his pancakes that are becoming highlights in Seahawks’ team and position film sessions, the typically understated Lucas shrugged.
He wants to do it again Friday at Dallas. He wants to do it Sept. 12 in the opener against Wilson’s Denver Broncos at Lumen Field.
He wants to do it months into his first NFL season.
It appears he’s going to get that chance.
“To me, it’s less about showing people up or anything like that, and more — I mean, certainly it’s nice to be able to do stuff right to help the team out, you know what I mean?” Lucas said.
“Anybody can do it one game. Anybody can do it two games. I’d for it to be as consistent as possible.
“That’s just another part of my game I keep working with.”
Cross is anchored at left tackle. He has been since Seattle used its highest draft pick in 12 years (ninth overall) on him in April.
So it appears the Seahawks will become the third team in the last 50 years to begin a season with rookies starting a season opener at both offensive tackles.
Crowded corners
Fill-in cornerback Michael Jackson got attention last week for being one of the only Seahawks who tackled well and consistently against the Bears.
Jackson was playing left corner while Artie Burns, Sidney Jones and Tre Brown remained out injured. Jones and Brown started at left cornerback for Seattle last season.
But the day Burns returned to practice this week, he immediately resumed being the starting left cornerback. That’s what he was in the first weeks of camp.
Jones remains out indefinitely following a serious concussion early this month. Brown was on the physically-unable-to-perform list to begin training camp. Knee surgery ended his rookie season last November. Brown is a candidate to be on the PUP list to begin the season. That would mean he misses the first four games.
Burns has thrived because he knows the Seahawks’ new 3-4 scheme with varied coverages better than anyone else in camp. He played last season for Chicago — and new Seahawks top defensive assistant coach Sean Desai. Desai was the Bears’ defensive coordinator in 2021. He and new secondary coach Karl Scott in from the Minnesota Vikings are in charge of making Carroll’s defense more disguised and unpredictable to offenses between man-to-man, zone coverage and blitzes with interchangeable defensive backs.
Burns knows all of it.
“Always when you have your second year in a system do you have a full understanding and grasp, things slow down,” defensive coordinator Clint Hurtt said.
“He’s been really patient at the line of scrimmage. He’s been really good with understanding where his leverage is, and two, where his help is on particular routes.”
Hurtt has known the 27-year-old Burns since Burns was in high school in Miami, where Hurtt has deep ties from being a player then assistant coach at the University of Miami. Hurtt likes Burns’ understanding of where teammates are assigned on each defensive call. He likes his communication.
So far, Hurtt sounds like he likes Burns to start the opener. Especially with Jones and Brown still sidelined.
“He’s really settled in, really, really well.”
The ‘Avatar’ is starting
At right cornerback, it sure looks and sounds as though rookie fifth-round pick Tariq Woolen is going to be the game-one starter.
The 6-foot-4 former University of Texas-San Antonio wide receiver (converted to defense in 2019) who runs a 4.26-second 40-yard dash entered the month as the biggest curiosity in Seahawks camp.
Now his coaches and teammates call him “Avatar.” He’s been starting every day and both preseason games at right cornerback for almost all of August.
Either the Seahawks are REALLY leading Woolen on, or they really are going to start him against Wilson and the Broncos to begin the season.
In practices he’s consistently denied DK Metcalf and former U.S. track Olympian Marquise Goodwin, Seattle’s two fastest players besides Woolen, on deep fly, post and in patterns.
Last week he was assigned to run down speedy Bears quarterback Justin Fields in the open field on a play. He did.
Hurtt said Woolen might be the only guy he knows who can do that.
“To see the closing speed from Tariq on that...he’s an Avatar,” Hurtt said. “He’s different.
“He’s like guys you create in the video games.”
Hurtt and Carroll know offenses beginning with Wilson and the Broncos in the opener are going to target Woolen right away outside and often if he’s starting. The Steelers did it on the first series of the preseason Aug. 13, running and throwing at Woolen for a touchdown early.
The Seahawks don’t care. Woolen’s been that good.
“The talent is undeniable,” Hurtt said. “He has that.
“And he’s had production, when he’s played and practiced.
“We know that it’s going to happen,” Hurtt said of offenses targeting Woolen. “He’s going to go through some of those transitions — like the beginning of the Pittsburgh game. They are going to challenge young corners. That’s part of it. That’s part of my responsibility to help him out with the calls, with the young guys as they work their way through it.”
The promoted defensive line coach also knows the key to helping Woolen — the key to the entire season for Seattle’s remade defense that finished 31st in the 32-team league last season — is a more consistently effective pass rush. Darrell Taylor and Uchenna Nwosu have been zooming off the edges as the team’s new primary pass rushers as outside linebackers in the new 3-4 scheme.
“The guys up front with the pass rush, so they don’t get picked on back there,” Hurtt said of Woolen and the young defensive backs including fellow rookie Coby Bryant, who is competing behind Justin Coleman for time as the fifth, nickel back inside.
“I know this,” Hurtt said of Woolen, “we all feel confident that he’s going to win a lot more battles than he’s ever going to lose.”
This story was originally published August 24, 2022 at 4:56 PM.
