RENTON – After a day off, the Seattle Seahawks were back on the field Wednesday afternoon at the Virginia Mason Athletic Center for their fifth OTA practice of the spring.
This was the second OTA practice that was open to the media, with Monday’s practice being the first.
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Once again, it’s difficult to glean too much from this stage of the offseason, as no live contact is allowed and are still early in their offensive and defensive installation processes. But with that in mind, here are some notes and observations from what transpired.
Darnold’s day
After an up-and-down practice on Monday, quarterback Sam Darnold appeared to have a better afternoon this time around.
During a two-minute drill, Darnold connected twice with second-year tight end AJ Barner over a five-play sequence. Darnold threw a strike up the seam to Barner for about a 17-yard gain and then hit him again for a 5-yard touchdown pass on fourth-and-goal, with Barner making a sliding catch along the left edge of the end zone.
At one point, Darnold showed off his arm strength on a deep pass that he uncorked on the run while rolling out to the right. Speedy wideout Marquez Valdes-Scantling hauled it in for a long reception, but the play was called back due to an illegal man downfield penalty.
Darnold also hit Cooper Kupp, Jake Bobo and Valdes-Scantling for TD passes – all three of which featured great routes by the receivers.
Kupp lined up in the slot in a trips formation and pulled off a nice hesitation move on cornerback Damarion Williams for a 9-yard TD. Bobo showed off a nice stick route on his TD. And then during an 11-on-11 red-zone drill at the end of practice, Valdes-Scantling faked like he was running a slant route and then broke hard back to the left and beat cornerback Riq Woolen to haul in a 5-yard TD.
Other highlights
Josh Jobe, who currently slots as the team’s third cornerback, made a nice pass breakup on a deep sideline pass from Darnold to Valdes-Scantling.
Jared Ivey, a 6-foot-6, 274-pound undrafted rookie edge rusher out of Ole Miss, broke up a pass from Jalen Milroe at the line of scrimmage while going up against the third-team offense.
The O-line rotation
There appeared to be more mix-and-matching along the offensive line than there was on Monday, which made it a bit more difficult to get a read on where players might stand at the two spots that are expected to be position battles.
But in general, second-year pro Jalen Sundell and third-year pro Olu Oluwatimi both got a healthy dose of first-team reps at center. And at right guard, second-year pro Christian Haynes and third-year pro Anthony Bradford got most of the first-team reps.
Once again, second-year pro Sataoa Laumea primarily worked as the second-team left guard and second-year pro Michael Jerrell was generally the second-team left tackle.
The expected starters at the other three spots – left tackle Charles Cross, rookie left guard Grey Zabel and right tackle Abraham Lucas – each got most of the first-team reps. Veteran swing tackle Josh Jones also got some first-team reps at right tackle.
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