RENTON — When it comes to naming the starting five on their offensive line, the Seahawks may let actions speak more loudly than words.
Asked where the team is in settling on a starting five, coach Mike Macdonald said Sunday: “I don’t know if we’re going to announce it or whatever. But we’re getting close.’’
Reading between the lines of Sunday’s practice indicates that the team has indeed just about settled on a five.
Three have been set since the start — left tackle Charles Cross (who returned to do some team drills on Sunday as the team practiced in shells as he continues to recover from recent finger surgery), left guard Grey Zabel and right tackle Abraham Lucas.
Sunday’s practice provided even more evidence that Anthony Bradford appears to be the winner of a battle at right guard with Christian Haynes as he again took most of the snaps there with the No. 1 offense following a standout performance in Friday’s 33-16 preseason win over the Chiefs.
That leaves center, where Jalen Sundell again took the reps with the starters on Sunday ahead of Olu Oluwatimi, who has not played in the preseason while dealing with a back issue.
Oluwatimi’s injury has opened the door for Sundell, who played just 57 snaps as a reserve last season, to state his case.
“I thought Jalen played a tremendous game (against he Chiefs),’’ Macdonald said. “Coaches felt the same way.”
Oluwatimi, though, was back on the field doing some individual work, and Macdonald said the hope is he will get some work when the Seahawks hold a joint practice Thursday against the Packers in Green Bay.
And given that Oluwatimi held the starting job the second half of last season while Sundell has no NFL starts as he enters his second year, there may still be a path for Oluwatimi winning the job.
There are no caveats to the right guard spot, where Bradford appears to have just simply played better than Haynes, who was the 81st overall pick of the draft in 2024. Haynes is now working almost solely with the backups at both left and right guard.
Bradford was named by Pro Football Focus as the Seahawks’ player of the game in the win over the Chiefs, when Seattle rushed for 120 yards on 14 carries during the two series in which the starting offensive line played en masse.
PFF wrote that Bradford played 19 “dominant snaps,’’ adding he “didn’t surrender any pressure across six pass-blocking snaps and racked up an impressive six positive grades on 13 run-blocking snaps.’’
Bradford finished with the best offensive grade on the team at 92.9, including 90.2 run blocking.
Macdonald didn’t seem to disagree with that assessment when asked Sunday about Bradford’s play against the Chiefs.
“When you watch the tape, you felt the physicality, and I thought he finished plays the best that he has on tape to this point at this game,’’ Macdonald said. “So, let’s keep stacking those performances (on a) play-in, play-out basis. And he can play some really great football if he can do that.”
Consistency has always been the issue when it comes to Bradford, as he’s often shown flashes since arriving in Seattle as the 108th overall pick out of LSU in 2023.
He showed enough promise to start 10 games at right guard as a rookie in 2023, including the last six.
He then won a battle with Haynes in camp a year ago and started the first 11 games before suffering an ankle injury that ended his season.
He’d also, though, struggled enough that he was thrown back into a rotation with Haynes for five games before being installed as the full-time right guard for the final three he played before getting injured in November.
Bradford finished the season rated 118th out of 136 guards by Pro Football Focus.
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With Haynes returning, three offensive linemen being drafted, a new offensive system and outside zone blocking scheme being installed by new offensive line coach John Benton, Bradford appeared in a fight not only to retain his starting role when training camp began but potentially to simply retain a roster spot.
Bradford said he understood at the end of the offseason program, and after having gotten his first sense of what the outside zone scheme would entail, that he needed to come to training camp with a different approach than past years.
The outside zone calls for offensive linemen to often take one step at the snap and then run laterally, creating something of a wall to the left or right for a running back to run behind.
Bradford came to the Seahawks known for his physicality and ability to block straight ahead.
“That was in my mind, for sure, when we got off from OTAs (Organized Team Activities) is that we are going to be running,’’ Bradford said. “We are going to be running and running. So I had to spend a little bit more time on my endurance and my conditioning.’’
Bradford said he attended regular workouts this summer with other players at the University of Michigan, near his native Muskegon, Mich.
The Wolverines recently hired Juan Castillo as an offensive analyst. Castillo was the run game coordinator and offensive line coach with the Ravens from 2013-16 when Macdonald began his coaching career and the team ran a system similar to what the Seahawks are running now.
Bradford said he was constantly “going through my O-line stuff’’ during the workouts in Ann Arbor, laughing that he was being “taken through that ringer.’’
He said lost five to six pounds from his listed 335, which he said knows doesn’t sound like a lot but means he’s “feeling better, moving better.’’
Bradford admitted that’s a change from his first two seasons, when he said he took more time off in the summer.
That effort didn’t go unnoticed by Macdonald.
“I think he’s taking control of his career,’’ Macdonald said. “I think it’s his mentality that it’s up to him. Nobody else can want it for him. We obviously know he has the talent to be a great player in this league, and he’s shown it in practice consistently. He has game reps where he’s shown it. We all know it’s a matter of consistency and that’s the challenge for him to finish this start that he’s put together.’’
Teammates have noticed, as well.
“He’ll be as good as he wants to be,’’ Lucas said. “He’s improved; he’s doing well. I know he gets kind of a bad rep, but he’s a good player. He’s going to continue to become an even better player.”
Bradford said it “felt good’’ to perform as well as he and the line did against the Chiefs.
He said he also knows there will be those who will remain unconvinced until a line that has been oft-criticized the last few years does it consistently during the regular season.
“We don’t really care what everybody else has got to say because we know what we are doing inside these fences (at the VMAC) throughout the day,’’ he said. “We’ve just got to tell them to show up on Sunday and see what we’ve been doing.’’
Bob Condotta: bcondotta@seattletimes.com. Bob Condotta covers the Seahawks for the Seattle Times. He provides daily coverage of the team throughout the year.