What the Seahawks’ offseason practices revealed about how they want to play in 2023
The Seahawks are going to be different on defense.
But will they be better?
Coach Pete Carroll’s changes to Seattle’s troublesome side of the ball from last season’s playoff team were obvious during offseason practices. Those workouts essentially ended last week.
All that’s left for Seattle before NFL training camps begin July 26 is a three-day passing camp this week. Carroll made it for quarterbacks and younger players. Most veterans are off the next six weeks. They are to report to team headquarters in Renton July 25.
The offseason practices were hardly definitive — or at all hard. The organized team activities (OTAs) and minicamp were in shorts and helmets. The league’s collective bargaining agreement prohibited contact.
The Seahawks’ young, many new defensive backs were not permitted to challenge passes to receivers. The young offensive line that may have a new, rookie center to join two second-year starting tackles (Charles Cross and Abe Lucas) and a new right guard (Phil Haynes) couldn’t really hit anyone. They worked on knowing blocking assignments, and the footwork for them.
Yet the OTAs open to the media over two weeks plus the three, open practices of the minicamp did reveal some of how the Seahawks intend to look and play in 2023.
Three safeties...
Devon Witherspoon is instantly the new starting left cornerback.
The fifth-overall choice in last month’s draft was a first-teamer from the initial rookie minicamp practice. He will start opposite Tariq Woolen, the Pro Bowl cornerback last year as a rookie.
Witherspoon also got looks inside as a slot cornerback last week. That was to see how he might look as a shadow, man-coverage cornerback.
Woolen is on track to return from arthroscopic knee surgery last month for the start of training camp.
The most impacting arrival in defensive secondary appears to be Julian Love.
The former New York Giants captain signed to a two-year contract in free agency with Seattle this spring. He was the starting safety with Pro Bowl veteran Quandre Diggs in the offseason practices. That was while Jamal Adams was in Texas rehabilitating his surgically repaired torn quadriceps tendon from last September.
Love in his four NFL seasons has played every position in the secondary. He will start next to Diggs if Adams isn’t ready for the opening game Sept. 10 against the Los Angeles Rams. If Adams is ready, Love becomes the reason Adams plays closer to the line of scrimmage to stop the run and blitz quarterbacks, as he did in 2020 when he set an NFL record for defensive backs with 9 1/2 sacks for Seattle.
Adams looked bigger in his upper body while standing on the side talking to teammates during minicamp last week. It’s conceivable if not likely he begins training camp on the physically-unable-to-perform list.
Do the Seahawks have any concerns Adams won’t be ready for the reason?
“No, not yet. We’ll see,” Carroll said. “Let’s get to camp first and see what happens.
“It may be too much to ask, I don’t know. We’ll see.”
Love and his versatility are key to what Carroll wants to do to improve the Seahawks defense that was 30th in the NFL against the run last season and subverted much of quarterback Geno Smith’s Pro Bowl year in 2022. Love gives Carroll and defensive coordinator Clint Hurtt the ability to play the three-safety schemes, to free Adams from deep pass coverage.
...With one linebacker?
Jordyn Brooks remains rehabilitating the torn anterior cruciate ligament he got Jan. 1. His recovery process may last into the regular season.
The Seahawks brought back Bobby Wagner iin March after the year they sent him away to the Rams. They signed former Pittsburgh Steelers inside linebacker Devin Bush also at inside linebacker. Wagner and Bush were the linebackers in many base-defense sets during OTAs and minicamp.
When the Seahawks were practicing obvious passing situations with five and six defensive backs, Wagner was often the only true linebacker on the field.
Uchenna Nwosu returns as the team’s leading pass rusher, at outside linebacker in Carroll’s 3-4 schemes he went to last season. Boye Mafe, the team’s second-round pick last year, got most of the edge-rushing downs opposite Nwosu. That’s the spot Bruce Irvin was in last season in his one-year Seattle return. The Seahawks also have Darrell Taylor returning (he was limited some this spring by injury). They drafted edge-rushing outside linebacker Derick Hall in the second round. Second-round picks aren’t supposed to be on the bench.
Carroll wants to see how rookie fifth-round pick Mike Morris, a pass-rushing defensive end at Michigan, can rush quarterback from a down lineman spot. The Seahawks gave end Dre’Mont Jones $51 million to sign from Denver and re-signed Jarran Reed to rush the passer and stop the run along the defensive line.
To play all of the edge rushers and defensive linemen — plus the three safeties Carroll wants to use — in a pass-heavy league, Wagner may often be Seattle’s only linebacker on the field.
Jaxon Smith-Njigba fits
The OTAs and minicamp were prime times for Jaxon Smith-Njigba to show off why the Seahawks selected him in the first round and 20th overall in this year’s draft.
He caught just about everything thrown his way. In six practices The News Tribune saw — individual position drills, work with the quarterbacks during after practices, scrimmaging — the smooth rookie from Ohio State had just two passes go off his hands. He caught everything with his hands, arms extended away from his body. His routes were quick and precise, albeit with no defensive back permitted to jam or contact him, or challenge the pass in flight.
Smith-Njigba is what Carroll said on draft night he was ready to be, the Seahawks’ new third wide receiver with Tyler Lockett and DK Metcalf.
“Oh, man, he’s really, really natural,” Carroll said last week. “He’s really a natural athlete, gifted in his timing, in and out of breaks and things and his feel. He also has, which we saw this in the workout at school, he’s got great change of direction in him, and he’s got this marvelous ability to get in out of his turns. And his hands are just as natural as can be. He’s really a bright football player, too. It makes sense to him.
“We’ve already moved him all around. He’s been inside, outside and all kinds of stuff. And so that looks like it’s just what we were looking for.”
Olu Oluwatimi is getting his shot
Olu Oluwatimi sometimes alternated full-team offensive scrimmage series at center with veteran Evan Brown on the starting offensive line.
Teams don’t give rookie fifth-round picks snaps with the first-team quarterback and offense unless they are seriously considering him to start.
The Seahawks are with Oluwatimi.
He showed Seattle’s coaches he already knows the playbook. He is adept at reading defensive fronts and choosing protection calls just before the snap. He anticipates blitzes well. All, Carroll and offensive coordinator Shane Waldron say, is from Oluwatimi’s time last season as the Rimington Award winner as college football’s best center at Michigan and Wolverines coach Jim Harbaugh’s NFL-like offensive system.
No Seahawk is going to say it, not with Brown signed to a minimum one-year contract after starting at center some of the last two seasons with Detroit and veteran Joey Hunt back with Seattle.
But Seattle’s starting center job, the quest to fix a position that’s been broken with this team for most of the last eight years, is Oluwatimi’s to take.
The rookie just needs to show in training camp with the pads on that he has the physicality to match his NFL-ready smarts. At 6 feet 3 and 308 pounds, physicality shouldn’t be an issue for Oluwatimi.
“Yeah, it’s too early. It’s too early to really say anything about the competition of it,” Carroll said last week. “But Olu looked really good. He did really well. There’s no question that he can handle it. He’s physically fit to do it and smarts-wise, no problems. It’s just going to be a battle and we’ll see what happens, and we’ll just take our time.
“There’s no rush on that one...we’ll just play it out. But I’m really encouraged by what he’s brought to us.”
Zach Charbonnet to contribute
Those who howled at the Seahawks drafting another running back in the second round, or who thought they did that for mere insurance in case lead back Kenneth Walker gets hurt, didn’t see Zach Charbonnet in offseason practices.
He’s a different back than Walker, the 2022 second-round pick who last season joined Curt Warner in 1983 as Seattle’s only 1,000-yard rusher as rookies. Charbonnet is 6-1, 220 pounds. He looks like he can run anyone over, which he often did at UCLA.
But he also showed quickness, speed, cutting ability and pass-catching of a smaller back.
It’s not a 1 and 1A arrangement in the backfield, that Walker had with Rashaad Penny entering last season, and Penny had at times with Chris Carson before that. Walker is the clear number 1 and Charbonnet 2 entering the preseason. Veteran third-down back DeeJay Dallas and rookie seventh-round pick Kenny McIntosh will also factor in.
But don’t be surprised with how many carries and snaps Charbonnet gets this season at the sport’s most attrited position.
“It’s going to be great. Zach’s great,” Walker said. “He knows a lot and he’s really confident. He came in here and he’s known his plays and he’s doing everything right, so it’s going to be great to see when he steps on the field.
“He runs hard. He lowers his shoulder, or he can make a move. So he’s all around a great player.”
Projected Seahawks starters
The Seahawks’ 2022 draft class is still getting rave reviews across the league for having four starters — Woolen, Walker, Cross and Lucas — and a fifth prime contributor in Coby Bryant at nickel defensive back.
From what the TNT saw the last month, four rookies from this year’s class are likely to start this fall, counting Smith-Njigba as a slot receiver if Seattle begins games more in three-wide receiver formations.
Rookies in bold.
OFFENSE
QB: Geno Smith
RB: Kenneth Walker
TE: Noah Fant, Will Dissly
WR: Tyler Lockett, DK Metcalf, Jaxon Smith-Njigba
LT: Charles Cross
LG: Damien Lewis
C: Olu Oluwatimi
RG: Phil Haynes
RT: Abe Lucas
DEFENSE
DE: Dre’ Mont Jones
DT: Cameron Young
DE: Jarran Reed
OLB: Uchenna Nwosu
OLB: Darrell Taylor
ILB: Bobby Wagner
RCB: Tariq Woolen
S/Rover: Jamal Adams
SS: Julian Love
FS: Quandre Diggs
LCB: Devon Witherspoon
