Seahawks: Offensive line surprising good in pass protection

Although far from perfect, the offensive line for the Seattle Seahawks played surprisingly well on Saturday.

When the Seattle Seahawks took the field on Saturday, all eyes were on the offensive line. The group was a major weakness a year ago, leading to a massive shakeup of unit. Coming into the game, there were still far more questions than answers.

The first thing that needs to be said was that the first unit offensive line looked surprisingly competent. They still struggled at times; there were still mistakes; but to say they exceeded expectation would be a major understatement.

This was especially true in pass protection. We aren’t used to seeing Russell Wilson having time to throw like that. It was fun to see.

To demonstrate how the line played, let’s take a look at all of Wilson’s passes from Saturday’s game. He only played on one drive, and had six passes.

This makes for a nice sample to look at because it was against KC’s starters. After that first series, the Chiefs started mostly playing their backups.

On Wilson’s first pass, the protection was decent. The one issue was Ifedi getting bull-rushed back into Wilson’s face. While not ideal, Ifedi managed to hold up just enough that Wilson was able to get the ball out.

He got too high and lost leverage. It wasn’t a consistent problem though. Ifedi did a better job of keeping his pad level down for most of the rest of the game.

The next two Wilson passes were beautifully blocked. There was a great pocket for the next pass.

And the defensive line was dominated on the third pass.

There was a clear miscommunication on Wilson’s fourth pass. The Chiefs blitzed, and Alex Collins got too far inside and ended up blocking LT Badley Sowell instead of a defender. Wilson end up throwing while backpedaling, which is never a good idea.

The whole situation was far from ideal, but we’ve also seen far worse. Wilson was still about to get the ball out and avoid being hit.

On Wilson’s fifth pass, both defensive ends were able to get around the corner too early. Sowell and Gilliam need to force them much deeper.

Luckily, the interior of the line stood their ground. If Wilson hadn’t been after to find Tyler Lockett quickly, he would have been able to step up into the pocket and buy more time for his receivers to get open.

Wilson’s final pass ended in an interception by Marcus Peters. The ball was late and too far to the inside. Neither of those problems were because of the blocking though.

The line did very well initially. Wilson’s internal clock led him to pull the ball down and move out of a perfectly clean pocket. By the time he reset, the throw was late. That’s on Wilson, not the blocking.

Overall, the pass blocking by the starters was decent. Was there mistakes? Sure, but it was still better than the disaster we saw at the beginning of last season.

It is also notable that the pass blocking looked decent as long as the starting line was playing. Playing well on one drive is nice, but consistent play over an entire game is far more important.

Next: Dan's 5 takeaways from Saturday's unlikely win

It is only one preseason game, but the early signs are that the offensive line may end up being better than expected in 2016.