Don’t sleep on backup offensive linemen Patrick Lewis as the NFL draft approaches. The offensive line is down two starters from a year ago. Left guard James Carpenter signed with the New York Jets. Center Max Unger was traded away to the New Orleans Saints. The Seahawks have also failed to add anyone in free agency thus far.

That obviously puts a lot of pressure on the team to pick linemen early in the draft this year. They almost certainly will do so, but it things aren’t as desperate as they seem. They appear to already have the center position taken care of.

The Seahawks were very pleased with the development of Patrick Lewis at center a year ago. He started four games and appeared in three others. Early on things were very rough for him, but he played well later in the year.

Lewis is a very athletic player who is still adapting to playing in a zone blocking system. His development can easily be seen by looking at the team’s success rate at running through the A gaps (to either side of the center). There was steady improvement there throughout the season for Lewis.

Where Lewis struggled was in adjusting protections pre-snap. This is an area where Unger excelled, so the difference when Unger was out was definitely noticeable. While this is an area of concern, there is still reason for optimism.

Lewis hasn’t been a center for very long. He was a guard in until his final season in college. Since coming to the NFL, he’s split time between guard and center. Since most of that time has been on practice squads, he wasn’t really given the chance to learn adjusting protections at the NFL level.

That is, until he landed in Seattle last October. The Seahawks made him a full time center and got to work acclimating him to the their scheme. Lewis responded by quickly picking up the elements of the running game. Now he must continue to figure out Seattle’s passing game.

Lewis is currently the starter on the depth chart. There is a decent chance that he remains there heading into training camp. That means that he will go through the entire offseason program and training camp with Seattle’s starters on the offensive line.

This will give him all the opportunity he needs to work on this deficiency in his game. There is no reason to believe that he won’t be greatly improved in this area for the 2015 season.

Lewis is a far superior athlete to Unger. If Lewis can improve on the technical and intellectual aspects of his game, there is no reason not to believe that the Seahawks don’t have their long-term answer on center already on the roster.