Over the years the Seattle Seahawks have done a pretty horrible job of drafting offensive linemen. You’d have to go all the way back to Walter Jones – who retired 15 years ago – to find a real star for this unit and since then Seattle has only managed to draft a couple of respectable starters. In both cases (left tackles Russell Okung and Charles Cross) they were top-10 overall picks. Needless to say, it’s tough to miss on a top-10 pick and aside from those two the cupboard has been pretty much totally empty in this department for the entirety of the John Schneider era.
Former head coach Pete Carroll deserves a lot of that blame, but if the Seahawks are going to break out of their 9-10 win funk and make a deep playoff run anytime soon, they’re going to need to turn that around and start drafting quality offensive linemen right away.
Drafting good linemen is of course easier said than done, but you could do worse than to use a strategy of taking the best athletes avaiable at each position. In a new 2025 mock draft from Jacob Infante at Pro Football Network the Seahawks roll the dice on Oregon offensive tackle Josh Conerly Jr., who’s from Seattle and played his high school football at Rainier Beach.
PFN on Seahawks-Josh Conerly Jr.
“The offensive line still could use some work if their offense is to help the Seahawks make that leap into a perennial playoff team. Conerly put together a tremendous 2024 campaign, particularly in the latter half of the year. He’s a top-notch athlete who’s nimble in pass protection with ideal pad level and great lateral agility. He’s dense and strong enough to hold his own in the run game, too, giving him plenty of potential in the pros.”
Potential is what the Seahawks would be banking on with Conerly, who checks in at 6-foot-4, 305 pounds. That’s a little bit small for a pro tackle, but there is more than a decent chance that Seattle would plan to slide Conerly inside to left guard from left tackle, where he played most of his time at Oregon. As a general principle, using first-round picks on guards isn’t a good idea, but the Seahawks are an exception to the rule – given how bad the situation is at both spots, going anything but guard in the first round is arguably a bad idea.
Conerly is projected to be a first-rounder, so if Seattle does want him odds are that Schneider will have to use the number 18 overall pick in the draft.
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