The OL is what it is.

Here we stand, less then 4 weeks form our first game of the 2015 season, preparing to meet Quinn and Co. at St. Lewis on our season opener.

The OL performance in the preseason game can not inspire confidence in our hearts but it is what it is and was for the past 2 years.

It is the end result of a process that started 2 decades ago. In the past 2 decades the NFL has consistently shifted the rules of the game to favor the passer and the passing game on offense. With the evolution of the rules, the passing game has become more and more prolific and attractive both in college and the NFL. The almighty unstoppable pocket passer was born to lead the game.

As the passing QB became the headliner of the game, defenses had to adjust. With the rules limiting what they can do downfield, the value of the pass rush increased. It has become clear that you need the biggest, fastest and best athletes to man the DL and put the pressure on the QB. Leaving a QB standing calmly in a clean pocket was a death wish.

The natural evolvement on the defensive side required the best big guys and rewarded them accordingly. It has become the standard for the more athletic big guys to enter college as defensive players. It also affected the type of players that remained available for the OL. The results were that the DL has begun to dominate the OL physically and the life of the QB became more dangerous. With time running out in the pocket the offense had to find a way to neutralize the mounting pressure. The most common solution to OL inferiority is the spread attack. With multiple targets all over the field, the QB could get the pass out quickly before the pass rusher arrived. It has become very prolific in college and elite QBs like Manning, Rodgers, Brady, Brees made a great living out of reading the defense and getting the ball out in 2 seconds.

The hunt for the rare athletic OL players was also on and any offensive lineman that showed better than average speed or athleticism has been shooting up the draft boards and ended as a very high pick. More often then not those high picks proved to be a failure.

NFL teams took one of the following roads in addressing the situation. They either invested a lot of draft capital in securing the best OL talent year after year till they formed a quality OL that can stand up to the DL (the Cowboys way), or they worked very hard to establish a spread like offense that gets the ball out very quickly (the Manning way).

And then there are the Seahawks.

They started on the Cowboys road and invested high picks on Okung, Carp and others. It made the OL okay. Not great, not even very good but serviceable. As they developed their team identity they began to realize that for a proper ZBS run first team, some of the OL talent is not helping and that they need the right type of guys to support this playbook. With the spread offense taking over the college game, those guys were not being produced in the quantity needed to pick immediate contributors.

Somewhere along the way the Seahawks gave up on investing top draft value on their OL. In the past 3 drafts the seahawks picked just one OL player before day 3 of the draft. They decided to place their full trust in Tom Cable and the old Gibbs mantra – Give me a year and I can turn garbage men to serviceable ZBS OL. It fit their style of game, their talent and their cap stucture.

The new idea was to pick Cable's kind of guys. Train them mainly in zone run blocking. With a beast of a RB and a running QB they should be able to run effectively over 50% of the snaps. The passing game will be built on top of this run game. With a prolific run game in place, the use of play action passes becomes very effective and will buy the QB that extra second that his OL can't provide him. Add some short quick passing plays, bubble and screens, and you can use the defensive aggression against them. Finish the product with a very mobile scrambling QB that can run out of trouble and buy himself the time to make the play. The rest of the plays may end with a high rate of sacks but as long as the above is "running on schedule" you should get the chains moving effectively if not spectacularly.

With a stifling defense that benefits from the cap space available you can create a non conventional SB contender.

It kind of worked actually. The Seahawks ran the ball like no other team in the NFL at a ridiculous 5.2 yards per carry. They did manage to build a passing game over the running game and the offensive production has placed them 9th-10th in the NFL. And YES, RW is the most pressured QB in the NFL. All according to plan.

The first preseason game of 2015 has turned many fan faces white. The repeated sacks and pressures that the Seahawks QBs had to face on that game were obscene. The strip fumble on the first passing play by the #1's was only the first in many embarrassing pass protection displays.

The real horror was not the lack of any semblance of pass protection. That could be expected from a young rebuilding OL under Tom Cable. The scary part was that during 60 minutes of football, the RBs managed to log a total of 39 yards on 23 carries. This is the whole point of this OL. It has to enable a productive running game. Without a scary efficient running game the play action is half dead. Without it you can't move the chains on schedule. You basically invite the pass rush to collect scalps.

It is not just the lack of the Beast in the game. The 2nd and 3rd units did not do any better against their counterparts. The message was on the wall and even the ever positive PC could not utter the "I'm very excited about some of the things they showed" after the game.

However, all is not lost in the south Alaskan kingdom. Being slapped in the face on your first preseason game can serve as a positive reinforcement and push a system to rebound and do better. Just like Clark's TFL and ball strip on his first ever NFL play does not make him an immediate clear and present danger on every play from now on, the OL will regroup and work very hard to correct their game. It will do better.

The DEN game will greatly affect the intensity of everything OL related. Players will be fired up to redeem themselves, Cable will be burning with frustration, and life will become very intense in the Seahawks training camp. Not a bad thing in my book.

A big part of what we all saw on that game is a direct result of everything that happened leading to the game. Losing 2 key players on that line, the veteran LG (yes, 4 years is a vet on this line) and the leader and play caller of this line takes time to make up for. When the next man up for each position is an ongoing competition between players with less than 10 NFL starts your task becomes much harder. In 2 weeks of training camp, 4 players practiced LG and C. None had the time to get set in his position and the line as a whole is changing from day to day. Not only did the starting unit change day by day, New/young players shifted between roles. Playing center for 2 days then Guard for 2 more, then tackle with the 2nd unit, allows the coaching stuff to find the right place for a player. It helps his future potential by enhancing his versatility. It does not do a hell of a lot to help him show his best game on the first preseason game. "Always compete" had us paying a very big price on that game. By the time we take the field against the RAMS those positions should be set and the line will have some time to work as a unit and get ready to do its job. A good sign would be finishing the competition after the KC game. Next week should begin with a starting OL all set and ready to work together.

I hope TC will be able to manufacture a functioning unit before the first game of the regular season. Defenses traditionally start the season ahead of offenses. In our case it may be worse and OL play will probably be a hot topic during the first games of the regular season. Hopefully it will gel together and become more effective as the season progresses. If we survive the first half of the season without losing games we should have won due to OL performance we should be ready to make a hard push in the 2nd half of the season. We made the SB last year after spending the whole off season tailoring the offense to Percy's capabilities just to throw the game plan away and rewrite the offensive playbook in mid season. The OL is no different. When the season begins we should be ready with the best players on it and with a game plan to work around whatever weakness are still there. We have been doing the very same thing in the past 2 seasons after injuries etc.

It will be what it is. A TC offensive line has never been ranked higher then 15th in sacks allowed. This line will not be any better. If it works well enough to keep the running game going, the rest will work itself out. RW looks extra sturdy in camp and ready to bounce from a few hits. Graham will hopefully not be blocking in the backfield during passing plays and the defense will get us the ball back to try again.

When we played DEN in NY, special teams and the defense outscored them 15-8. We will find a way to win football games with whatever OL we have. We know how to do it. We've been doing it for the past 2 years.

GO HAWKS.