Actually, it’s his first football start since his Pee Wee days.

Actually, this is a guy who didn’t play high school football at all and barely played in college except for a few snaps during his senior year.

So yeah, this will be interesting.

Fant concentrated solely on basketball in high school and for most of his college career at Western Kentucky, eventually rising to No. 13 on the Hilltoppers’ all-time scoring list. But after realizing that his 6-foot-5, 250-pound frame might be better suited for the NFL than then NBA, he gave football a try during his final college season and saw very limited action at tight end and special teams.

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In May, the Seahawks signed Fant as an undrafted free agent even though they didn’t know whether he’d play tight end or elsewhere on the offensive line, and since then team officials have been impressed by someone who’s proven to be both a quick learner and a quick weight-gainer: Fant is now listed at 296 pounds.

“What made us gravitate to him?” Seahawks offensive line coach Tom Cable told the team’s website on Wednesday. “Long-armed athlete; that’s really about it, because there was no background.”

Said Coach Pete Carroll: “Yeah, he has surprised us from the first day that he stood on the practice field. He just physically understood how to do the stuff that we were asking him to do. There was no way we could have anticipated he would jump to it as quickly as he did. We’re really excited about him. He’s been way ahead of the curve in that regard, very unusual transition he has made.”

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Fant played the final 24 snaps of Sunday’s game after Sowell against the Cardinals and, if we’re being honest here, he didn’t do all that great in his first regular season action. Pro Football Focus rated Fant as one of the worst-performing left tackles of the week after allowed a hit and two hurries, was beaten three other times and was flagged for holding. But Sowell doesn’t seem likely to play Sunday against the Saints, meaning Fant could get the call.

“George did fine [in Arizona] once he settled in,” Carroll said. “He’s a really good athlete but he’s new, so there’s going to be new things that happen sometimes, and we just have to hope that we help him properly and that he can come through and make it through it, and we can get the ball away if he does make an error. Pretty excited about him, though.