Connor Williams arrives, almost 100% healthy. When will he become the Seahawks’ center?
Connor Williams says he’s almost fully healthy.
“I feel great. I’m probably about 95%,” the seventh-year NFL veteran said Monday, his first Seahawks day since he signed with Seattle last week, 8 1/2 months following a torn knee ligament then reconstructive surgery.
“I’m getting there. The strength’s getting there. I’m pretty symmetrical (between strength and health in his left and right knee), honestly.”
The Seahawks will take their time with a slow indoctrination for Williams. They will take his knee being less than 100%.
They are guaranteeing Williams $3 million for this season because they believe he is already an improvement at the key anchor position on the offensive line.
“I think we are devising a plan to slowly work back in, and slowly get me on the field,” he said.
Center has been a black hole for Seattle for most of the last decade, since the team traded Pro Bowl center Max Unger to New Orleans for tight end Jimmy Graham before the 2015 season. The Seahawks have started nine centers in the nine years since that trade.
Williams will make it 10 in 10 years.
But when?
Williams wore his new number 57 jersey and held his helmet Monday while he watched Seahawks second-year center Olu Oluwatimi snap to quarterback Geno Smith with the starting offense. Williams watched his new teammates go through position drills and scrimmage 11-on-11 in shells, helmets and shorts. He asked questions of coaches about run fits and line calls while standing behind a drill early in the practice.
Coach Mike Macdonald said coaches and the training staff were deciding Monday whether to bring Williams to Nashville Tuesday for the joint practices the Seahawks and Titans will have Wednesday and Thursday in Tennessee. Those are before the teams’ preseason game Saturday in Nashville (4 p.m., KING-5 TV).
Williams will not play in that game.
Macdonald said starters aren’t playing in it. That makes the full-pads, full-go joint practices the two important days for Seahawks starters this week, toward installing the team’s new offense and defense.
Williams tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee in Dec. 11. He got hurt six plays into what became his last game as the Miami Dolphins’ two-year starting center, against Tennessee.
There is a chance Williams practices with his new team next week. But it may be more likely he gets on the field for the first time in the week following Seattle’s final preseason game. Aug. 24 against Cleveland at Lumen Field.
“We’ve got a pretty good plan in place now. He’ll be with the sports-performance folks for the next week or so, until we can get him full speed for practice,” Macdonald said of his training staff inside the team facility.
“But we are shooting for the Cleveland game, or after, to get him out here practicing for real.”
Maconald was asked if Williams will start the opener against Denver Sept. 8.
“That’s the goal right now,” the coach.
Asked if he will, or wants, or needs to play in a preseason game before the real season begins, Williams said: “We haven’t got into details about that. I mean, first day on campus.
“So, just attacking it one day at a time right now, and trying to get me back to form.”
He said he is at his playing weight. The Seahawks list him at 320 pounds, at 6 feet 5 inches tall.
If Williams’ first practice is after the Cleveland preseason game, the week of Aug. 27, he will have one week of practices to get offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb’s new schemes and line coach Scott Huff’s calls down before the game-plan week before the opener.
Williams, 27, isn’t worried about the time to learn the offense.
He started his first four NFL seasons at left guard for the Dallas Cowboys, who drafted him in the second-round out of Texas in 2018. He was a tackle — and teammate of Seahawks punter Michael Dickson — at Texas.
So Williams knows every position on the offensive line, for three different systems before Grubb’s.
“I mean, obviously for a center, you face your own challenges with that, just having to be able to call out and be sure and firm in the calls and everything,” Williams said.
“(But) I’d say I’ve been through a lot of O-line coaches, and so schematically and call-wise, I mean, seven years in the league you kind of digest it.”
Seattle’s center situation
The Seahawks cleared up their situation Sunday at the line’s anchor position, the spot Grubb last week called one of the most important in his offense.
The team traded Nick Harris, a former University of Washington All-Pac-12 center, back to Cleveland. The deal included a swap of late-round picks in the 2026 draft. Harris had signed a one-year contract with Seattle from the Browns in free agency this spring.
The Seahawks’ new coaches have not been satisfied with Oluwatimi, Seattle’s fifth-round pick in 2023 from Michigan, through offseason practices into training camp. Oluwatimi has one career start in the NFL.
Williams has 77.
Why Williams chose Seattle
Williams took a free-agent visit late last month to Seattle. Then he visited Macdonald’s former Baltimore Ravens.
He was weighing multiple options before he signed a one-year contract with the Seahawks. If he maxes out incentive and per-game bonuses, Williams could earn up to $6 million for the 2024 season.
Why did he choose the Seahawks over the Ravens and other teams?
“They are awesome people. I mean, the building is made up of a lot of great people. That’s been the most stand-out part,” Williams said. “And the guys seem like a great group of guys, hard workers at practice today. Just excited to get out there and working with everyone.
“And for Seattle? I mean, for August weather, this isn’t bad.”
Yeah, a 73-degree sun with a breeze off Lake Washington next to the practice field is a training-camp setting unique in the NFL in early August. Particularly compared to, say, Miami. (It was 92 degrees with 74% humidity there Monday.)
Plus, Williams said, he was attracted to Seattle by Macdonald’s new system and Grubb’s new offense, by being part of the first games of this all-new Seahawks era.
“I always like building, so building with a new team and a whole new program,” he said. “And, also, how they pursued me and how they wanted me made a good, mutual fit.”
This story was originally published August 12, 2024 at 6:09 PM.
