Converting DL to OL in 2016, a shift in philoshophy?

Ifedi, Odhiambo, and Hunt all played offensive line in college. Are any of the DTs Seattle acquired getting looked at for OL? I've heard of some getting looks at FB, but not OL. Former Basketball player George Fant may end up at OL someday perhaps.

So unless I'm mistaken, there isn't a single new example of converting DL to OL in 2016. This after Seattle had done this regularly with 1-2 players every year since 2012 to the point that it became the butt of jokes around here.

If this is the case, does that mean Seattle has become disenchanted with the concept of giving Cable raw athletes with no experience? John Schneider has talked a lot recently about the OL's most important thing to improve on is simply knowing what to do. Ifedi and Odhiambo do not lack for experience, and Hunt is the epitome of a player who is drafted for his polish and not his tools. Hunt by the way, is the player PCJS identified as the one player they felt they had to make sure they got in the 2016 draft.

When Pete went on the Brock and Salk show after the draft, he even joked about the caller who angrily said "CAN WE PLEASE JUST DRAFT A GUARD!" Pete drafted offensive tackles to play guard this year, but I think the fact that Pete brought up that caller's sentiment unprompted during the interview, in a tone that seemed supportive of the caller... my takeaway from that moment was Pete acknowledging that drafting OL to play OL was a bigger priority this year.

I guess we'll see what Seattle does next year, but based on the 2016 offseason, I have a hunch that the "draft raw athletes and coach them up" strategy is being phased out to some extent. Having tools still matters, as the Ifedi pick proves, but having a higher starting point experience wise seems to matter more this year.

I've never been one to rant about how the offensive line makes the world turn, but I do think we got so close to rock bottom in 2015 that they made 2014 and 2013 look like roses in comparison.

I'm not sure there will be a complete shift, as the Ifedi pick certainly shows that they still put a considerable premium on physical profile over technical proficiency. However, as you said, at least he's played. As far as the true DL prospects go, I guess we'll see what they do with Sokoli. They did burn a roster spot on him all of last season, and that spot was probably more valuable than the pick they used to get him.

Now that they've done it a few times, I'd be curious to know how long they think it takes to get a project "up-to-speed." If this is a multi-year thing in almost all cases, it just doesn't make a lot of sense under the CBA. You might get one good year out of a guy, and then he's up for free agency. Some other team gets to benefit from all the tough lessons the prospect had to learn in your uniform and during your games. We should not be serving as the Minor League of OLs for the rest of the league.

Personally, I've never been opposed to a *single* project on the O-line since the rest could cover for him. But holy hell it was brutal watching multiple projects at once looking at each other after every time RW got sacked.

GeekHawk":3gk9etnh said:

Personally, I've never been opposed to a *single* project on the O-line since the rest could cover for him. But holy hell it was brutal watching multiple projects at once looking at each other after every time RW got sacked.

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Agreed, I think what covered them for the Sweezy experiment in 2012-2013 was that he was surrounded by a bunch of experienced, true offensive linemen. And even then, there were plenty of rough moments initially with Sweezy, and that's about the best you can hope for.

Despite how "abysmal" the 2015 is said to be, it still finished 3rd in the NFL in rushing, without Lynch and Rawls a majority of the time. For as popular and safe of a target Cable is...dude produces what he's hired to produce.

I think each year sees a unique collection of draft priorities that are generated by an assessment of the make up of the current team as well as the supply and demand of available outside talent. Pete Carroll's outfit continues to embrace all avenues of improving the competition. There are other teams, in the league, that also have their conversions projects. It is not an approach that is unique to the Seahawks.

Seattle continues to carry plenty of conversion projects in a number of position groups.Some are new to the competition and some are carry overs from last year. They are well represented in the offensive line, defensive back backfield and among the running backs. As previously noted, they also got around to adding a basketball player this year.

One likely advantage of the makeup of this years "unique" collection of talented additions is that they could get off to a faster start in 2016.

P.S. There is nobody in the league taking on a heavier teaching load for 2016 than Tom Cable.

kearly":2dn2qn3f said:

Hunt by the way, is the player PCJS identified as the one player they felt they had to make sure they got in the 2016 draft.

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Good post. However, I think this quoted line is overselling Hunt a bit. He was a player they couldn't leave the building without, but I don't remember them saying anything about him being the one player they felt they had to get. It's probably just semantics, but it comes across as PC/JS being higher on Hunt than any other player they drafted.

Pehawk nailed it.

We might have had a lot of odd shaped pieces, but you cannot look at our run offense (with a rookie!) and just ignore the results.

Pass blocking was pretty bad if not nightmarish initially, but our ability to put together a system that runs the ball effectively with almost anyone in there - probably isn't just getting lucky.

DavidSeven":1hytovz4 said:

Now that they've done it a few times, I'd be curious to know how long they think it takes to get a project "up-to-speed." If this is a multi-year thing in almost all cases, it just doesn't make a lot of sense under the CBA. You might get one good year out of a guy, and then he's up for free agency. Some other team gets to benefit from all the tough lessons the prospect had to learn in your uniform and during your games. We should not be serving as the Minor League of OLs for the rest of the league.

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This is the part I really agree with. Even if you can convert a DL to OL, why bother? You're (hopefully) not picking them in the first round, so you only have them under control for the next 4 years. You burn the first year presumably, perhaps they have the technique to play some in their second year but they are probably going to be a liability until they learn to recognise blitzes and stunts and who they should pick up. By the time they are likely any good they are in the final year of their contract. Even if their plus athleticism now makes them an effective player, you have endured the teething troubles just so someone else gets the benefit.

It also flies in the face of the Malcolm Gladwell-propagated "10,000 hours" type of belief that you need reps to get good at something. I appreciate them valuing measurables over technique they show in College due to Cable's assertion that they have to re-teach technique in the pros, but I'm guessing that it's easier to teach someone to play guitar if they have played ukulele before rather than only played drums

If you go off of this draft, the philosophy seems to be to draft OL with the physical traits they covet, yet are still flexible enough to play multiple positions.

Ifedi is going to be a Tackle, but they've come out and said they need to put a guy inside for a year, then push him outside.

Maybe they've learned their lesson with Britt. Everyone from Schneider on down has said that you can't expect OL to contribute right out of college anymore. Drafting a Tackle has always been safer because you can slide them inside (usually) if they don't cut it on the outside. That's not a new concept, or one exclusive to us.

Odiambho (sp, I know) is pretty polished with his technique, but he dropped due to injury issues. So they're going after more experienced guys for sure, and I for one am pretty happy about that.

I expect to see a learning curve similar to last year, where the OL stinks a bit to start, then gels and gets better. I just hope that we go to a more spread concept like we did the last half of last year until the OL gets their feet wet, then we can start going run heavy in portions of the game.

How could they NOT shift philosophy?

Being worst in the league should be an embarrassment for all the coaches involved. THEY are the ones that drafted these players and made the decisions to put them in places they thought were the best spots for success.

Erebus":2coyqwpw said:

kearly":2coyqwpw said:

Hunt by the way, is the player PCJS identified as the one player they felt they had to make sure they got in the 2016 draft.

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Good post. However, I think this quoted line is overselling Hunt a bit. He was a player they couldn't leave the building without, but I don't remember them saying anything about him being the one player they felt they had to get. It's probably just semantics, but it comes across as PC/JS being higher on Hunt than any other player they drafted.

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You can hear the audio from the day three presser at .com. It is basically the same thing they said about Luke WIllson a few years ago, among others. Doesn't mean he was their top player, it means he was a player they planned their draft strategy around to make sure they got him.

kearly":9jjzinhs said:

Ifedi, Odhiambo, and Hunt all played offensive line in college. Are any of the DTs Seattle acquired getting looked at for OL? I've heard of some getting looks at FB, but not OL. Former Basketball player George Fant may end up at OL someday perhaps.

So unless I'm mistaken, there isn't a single new example of converting DL to OL in 2016. This after Seattle had done this regularly with 1-2 players every year since 2012 to the point that it became the butt of jokes around here.

If this is the case, does that mean Seattle has become disenchanted with the concept of giving Cable raw athletes with no experience? John Schneider has talked a lot recently about the OL's most important thing to improve on is simply knowing what to do. Ifedi and Odhiambo do not lack for experience, and Hunt is the epitome of a player who is drafted for his polish and not his tools. Hunt by the way, is the player PCJS identified as the one player they felt they had to make sure they got in the 2016 draft.

When Pete went on the Brock and Salk show after the draft, he even joked about the caller who angrily said "CAN WE PLEASE JUST DRAFT A GUARD!" Pete drafted offensive tackles to play guard this year, but I think the fact that Pete brought up that caller's sentiment unprompted during the interview, in a tone that seemed supportive of the caller... my takeaway from that moment was Pete acknowledging that drafting OL to play OL was a bigger priority this year.

I guess we'll see what Seattle does next year, but based on the 2016 offseason, I have a hunch that the "draft raw athletes and coach them up" strategy is being phased out to some extent. Having tools still matters, as the Ifedi pick proves, but having a higher starting point experience wise seems to matter more this year.

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It certainly looks like the Hawks are changing how they view the OL, but they are still a few years behind.

At a certain point you have enough data/results to either prove or disprove a theory on roster management, and figure out which areas your scouting ability is lacking.

The Hawks have had bad OL for years and years. Only the most stubborn of people could look at their methodology and say they know what they are doing.


Linemen drafted 2-5 rounds early who end up sucking.
"SPARQ monsters" who can't actually play a position.
Projects that never get past the PS, or end up making our roster because we are THAT bad.
DT converts whose best example (Sweezy) is a flawed run-block-only G who might eventually become average.

But beyond that, the way the Hawks have treated the OL goes against their overarching philosophy of COMPETITION. Every good unit on the Hawks has been made better through competition. They stressed it over and over. Not on offensive line though.

Every year we have had backup-quality linemen "competing" against practice squad quality linemen. As bad as our starters have been, the Hawks didn't make it a priority to add linemen who could push for an immediate job (and be an UPGRADE).


I'm hoping this is the beginning of the end for Cable. The linemen that he "loves" end up being worse than the linemen that he doesn't like, so he adds ZERO in the scouting department (actually he is a negative because he is a bust-finding machine). His coaching abilities are vastly overrated because he struggles to even make a linemen "average" so their projects/conversions experiment is not producing the desired results. Their obsession with SPARQ has led them to drafting athletes instead of football players.

I'd bet $100 that if we fired Cable we would have a better OL in the first year of the new coach.

Sokoli, Pericak, and Schwenke are still on the roster. I don't think the conversion system is finished yet.

Hawks46":7hq82mm8 said:

IIfedi is going to be a Tackle, but they've come out and said they need to put a guy inside for a year, then push him outside.

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When did they say that? Carroll said Ifedi is going to start out at right guard with Webb at right tackle and see how that goes, but he was talking about prior to the season, not the entire year. They'll do their regular shuffle to see who's best where, and Ifedi could very well end up at right guard for the season, but they aren't making that decision now.

bjornanderson21":28f9y1nl said:

I'm hoping this is the beginning of the end for Cable. The linemen that he "loves" end up being worse than the linemen that he doesn't like...

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If the entire Seahawks scouting process for O-linemen consisted solely of Cable telling Pete & John what players he likes, then you're probably right. But I'm pretty sure that's not the way it works.

I noticed that this year they didn't switch either Odhiambo or Ifedi to the other side of the line
even though they switched both to guard.

The familiarity and muscle memory of hundreds, thousands of reps and 2 to six years playing
offense has to be considered. Especially since the number of reps in theNFL are limited by league
mandated limits on practice time. Both argue against re-training even a superior athlete.

I agree Cable is an elite coach, he's just been given too many sow's ears to convert to the proverbial
silk purse.

Erebus":3m3k1f9p said:

kearly":3m3k1f9p said:

Hunt by the way, is the player PCJS identified as the one player they felt they had to make sure they got in the 2016 draft.

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Good post. However, I think this quoted line is overselling Hunt a bit. He was a player they couldn't leave the building without, but I don't remember them saying anything about him being the one player they felt they had to get. It's probably just semantics, but it comes across as PC/JS being higher on Hunt than any other player they drafted.

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Not according to John Schneider....

http://www.seattlepi.com/sports/football/article/Seahawks-sixth-round-Joey-Hunt-7385759.php

Though Hunt was regarded by most draft analysts as a player likely to go unselected, Seahawks GM John Schneider said he and head coach Pete Carroll felt almost obligated to take Hunt after he worked out for Cable and Matt Berry, Seattle's director of college scouting.

"They went down there and worked him out together," Schneider told reporters after the pick on Saturday. "And once Tom spent time with him and Matt, and when they came back, I don't know if Pete and I would be able to leave the building if we didn't come away with Joey."

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Also of note, Hunt, it turns out, is a former Defensive Line player......

Hunt came to TCU as a defensive tackle, but switched to the offensive line -- first at guard, then sticking at center. He's a little undersized for what the Seahawks typically look for on the offensive line, but made up for that with his experience at leadership at the center position.

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His latest idea is to have a physically large offensive line. Not a horrible idea but.....the Seahawks redraft thread please...

My prediction is that the rotation will have to be juggled alot to find one that is workable. Bout midway through the season the run blocking will be awesome. Rees and Hunter will get injured. Russ will get hurt and Boykin will have to play. Good thing we got his center. (though some with size and talent were available)

I think Toms a good teacher but they are obviously letting him pick his own talent which really hasnt panned out.