Seeking O-Line Help, Seattle Seahawks Navigating Veteran Guard Market

With only one guard offering more than one game of NFL starting experience on the roster, the Seattle Seahawks are kicking the tires on a few proven veterans to address the void.

Corbin K. Smith | Apr 1, 2024

Sep 25, 2022; Chicago, Illinois, USA; Chicago Bears offensive lineman Cody Whitehair (65) blocks / Jamie Sabau-USA TODAY Sports

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Seattle Seahawks

Now more than three weeks into the new league year, the Seattle Seahawks may not be done adding veteran free agents just yet with two experienced guards reportedly on the radar.

Per multiple reports, after general manager John Schneider and coach Mike Macdonald hinted at more moves in the trenches on the horizon speaking with reporters at the NFL annual meetings last week, the Seahawks have expressed interest in former Pro Bowl guards Laken Tomlinson and Cody Whitehair. Both players hit the market in February as cap casualties after being released by the Jets and Bears respectively and remain unsigned.

Drafted in the first round out of Duke in 2016 by the Lions, Tomlinson has logged 138 starts in nine NFL seasons, including starting all 17 games for the 49ers and earning his first Pro Bowl nod in 2021. As for Whitehair, he has played his entire eight year career in Chicago and made the Pro Bowl in 2018, starting 118 games while seeing extensive action as a center and left guard.

On a new episode of Locked On Seahawks, hosts Corbin Smith and Rob Rang dove into the latest intel linking Seattle to Tomlinson and Whitehair as free agent targets to an experience-starved offensive line and debate which player would be a better short term fit for the franchise moving into the 2024 season.

The crew also critiques Rang's latest seven-round Seahawks mock draft, including reuniting Macdonald with one of his former defenders from Michigan after a first-round trade down and adding a pair of additional third-round picks.

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Published Apr 1, 2024

CORBIN K. SMITH

Graduating from Manchester College in 2012, Smith began his professional career as a high school Economics teacher in Indianapolis and launched his own NFL website covering the Seahawks as a hobby. After teaching and coaching high school football for five years, he transitioned to a full-time sports reporter in 2017, writing for USA Today's Seahawks Wire while continuing to produce the Legion of 12 podcast. He joined the Arena Group in August 2018 and also currently hosts the daily Locked On Seahawks podcast with Rob Rang and Nick Lee. Away from his coverage of the Seahawks and the NFL, Smith dabbles in standup comedy, is a heavy metal enthusiast and previously performed as lead vocalist for a metal band, and enjoys distance running and weight lifting. A habitual commuter, he resides with his wife Natalia in Colorado and spends extensive time reporting from his second residence in the Pacific Northwest.