3 Seahawks 2022 free agents that were really good this season

Seahawks added a veteran anchor to their young O-line

Those of you with top-notch mathy skills have realized that our last player is the man who started all 17 of the Hawks games last year. He didn’t have a great year, but he did well enough to help improve Seattle’s offensive line. Yes, rookie tackles Charles Cross and Abe Lucas had a lot more to do with that, obviously, but you can’t discount the stability center Austin Blythe brought to the Hawks.

Was he great? Ummm…in a word, no. Pro Football Focus graded him at 51.9. For comparison, Cross received a grade of 63.7 while Lucas graded out at 68.5. It’s not a coincidence that the league’s two best centers, the Chiefs’ Creed Humphrey and the Eagles’ Jason Kelce are also PFFs’ top-rated centers. One bit of irony with some real bite: the Browns’ Ethan Pocic ranked third, according to PFF. Sometimes all it takes is a different scheme for a player to display all of their potential.

So why don’t I have Blythe listed as a bust? Well, I already had the article formatted, and it was simply too much work to make all those edits. Nah, not really; copy and paste is absurdly easy. It’s not like when you literally had to cut the line and paste it into its new home. Yes, I’ve done that, and yes, I’m old.

No, it’s simply that in a position that went through a lot of turmoil in the past few seasons, Blythe was in the lineup for 95% of the Hawks’ snaps. Yes, Seattle needs to improve here, but the fact they didn’t have a better player step up speaks just as well for Blythe as it speaks poorly of Seattle’s depth. I expect the Hawks will start a new center in 2023, but at $4 million, Blythe was neither a bargain nor a bust.