Building Rapport, Seattle Seahawks' Geno Smith 'Really Impressed' By Connor Williams

Though they've only been practicing together for a few weeks, Seahawks quarterback Geno Smith already feels a strong connection with his new starting center.

Trending towards being ready for the season opener, Connor Williams will be the third starting center for Geno Smith in three seasons as the Seahawks starter. /

RENTON, Wash. - For the third time in as many seasons since taking over as the Seattle Seahawks starting quarterback, Geno Smith will be opening yet another new season on Sunday with a new center snapping the football to him.

While that may seem problematic - lack of continuity along the offensive line typically does create major concerns, particularly at the pivot position - Smith should have the most talented center he has ever played with now on the roster in Connor Williams, who signed with Seattle last month during the middle of training camp. Coming off a torn ACL suffered last December, the seventh-year veteran hasn't been listed on the injury report this week and looks primed to start in the regular season opener against Denver.

Capping off a remarkable recovery from a severe knee injury, Williams has gradually seen an uptick in activity at practice over the past several weeks and both he and Smith have been putting in overtime on and off the field in an effort to quickly build chemistry for the start of the season.

"Connor has been great man," Smith told reporters on Wednesday. "He's picking up the offense extremely fast. Really impressed with the way that he's leading the group already. We've had a bunch of meetings on our own where we're working on our vocabulary and just speaking the same language when we're out there on the field. He's done a great job with that, he's a true professional. I think he's going to be a great asset for us."

Bringing a new center on board in mid-August usually would be a potential recipe for disaster, especially for a team installing a new offense under coordinator Ryan Grubb. In each of the past two seasons, Austin Blythe and Evan Brown were with the team during OTAs and minicamp, allowing Smith ample time to build a connection with both players several months before the regular season started.

However, while that would be the more ideal scenario, Williams has been around the block for a while, starting 51 games in six NFL seasons, including 26 at center for the Dolphins over the past two seasons. If there's a player who can promptly get up to speed learning a new offense and meshing with teammates, he would be a prime candidate.

When healthy, few centers have been more effective than Williams over the past two seasons. According to Pro Football Focus, the former Texas standout ranked in the top five among centers in pass blocking grade (90.5), pass blocking efficiency rate (98.7 percent), and fewest pressures allowed (six) last season. In 2022, his first year at the pivot position, he finished third among centers in run blocking grade (85.5) and only gave up 16 pressures in 17 starts.

A seasoned veteran who has performed at a high level as a starter both at center and guard in the league, Williams has hit the ground running learning Grubb's offense and taking over as the leader of the offensive line. While Smith acknowledged the two players have a ways to go developing a rapport with one another and their relationship remains a work in progress, he's pleased with their progress from a communication standpoint and believes Williams will be able to start right away for the Seahawks without a hitch.

"With Connor, we're early in the stages of him being here, but he's already jumped right in and we're moving," Smith explained. "There's no setbacks, he looks like he's been here the entire time. But that's going to grow, that's something we're going to build on. Like I said, those meetings that we have on our own, just the communication that we have throughout the building, throughout the day, just going over the game plan. Those types of things are what allows us to go out there and play fast and allows him to jump right into the offense and play."

Still in the early stages of forging a relationship as the battery of Seattle's offense, Smith and Williams only have a couple weeks worth of practice time under their belts and have yet to play together in a game situation, as Williams didn't suit up for the preseason finale when starters played one series. Under most circumstances, that would be far from ideal for any NFL team.

But in this instance, Smith and Williams already seem to building solid comradery and have been seen getting extra work in before practice this week leading up to Sunday's game. Even if he's not quite ready to play a full game out of the gate, Seattle can turn to Olu Oluwatimi, who has been snapping to Smith for most of training camp, and not have to endure much of a drop off.

From Smith's perspective, given how much football Williams has played in the NFL, getting back into the swing of things shouldn't be much different than riding a bike. Aside from grasping new terminology in Grubb's offense and getting to know his new line mates better, there shouldn't be much of a learning curve at this stage of his career and his experience should set him up for early success protecting the quarterback and anchoring the Seahawks offensive line.

"I think overall it's just learning the verbiage, learning a new language. You got plays and they got names and you might come from a place where that name meant something else. So trying to erase the old plays out of your mind and then obviously learning a new system. Football is football, and if you got a pretty good understanding of it I think it helps. He's a veteran guy, so he's been around, he understands. He knows how to get himself prepared. That's probably the only thing, it's just learning a new language."