As the Seahawks seem to be shifting from a team with a great defense and a good-enough offense to a team built around a franchise quarterback still in the front end of his prime, it’s important to ensure that the franchise quarterback gets the protection that he needs. He thinks that will be the case in 2018.
“For the first time in a while, in my opinion, really since probably the year we won the Super Bowl, we’ve had a consistent offensive line in practice and that consistency is huge,” Russell Wilson said Thursday, via Curtis Crabtree of KJR and PFT.
“I think [new offensive line] coach Mike Solari is doing a tremendous, tremendous job. We were in the meeting room yesterday actually and just how he installs certain things or really talks about football, talks about what they’re going to do, what we’re going to do . . . and obviously coach [Brian] Schottenheimer leads the way in that . . . but also to listen to coach Mike Solari really explain blocking schemes and what we’re trying to do in the pass protection game and why we’re trying to do it and really explain the whys of football. And his meetings are really interactive, you learn a lot. It’s cool just to watch one of the best offensive line coaches in the game of football -- he’s been that for a long time -- to have him on our football team is a good thing.”
The Seahawks have struggled along the offensive line in recent years, due in large part to a decision (or inability) to spend enough money to have a great quintet of blockers. They’re now paying left tackle Duane Brown, something the Seahawks are able to do after shedding multiple bloated contracts on the defensive side of the ball.
The Seahawks also made major changes to the offensive coaching staff, sparked by a failure to make it to the playoffs for the first time since 2012. The adjustments could enhance the running game, should enhance the passing game, and quite possibly will allow the Seahawks to return to prominence with a much different football formula.