Seahawks take Carpenter with 25th pick overall

By Kshell

The Seattle Seahawks failed to make a trade to get out of the first round. Instead Pete Carroll and John Schneider decided to take offensive tackle James Carpenter out of Alabama. Carpenter is 6'4" who weighs 320 lbs and will be a welcome addition to the Seahawks who had problems with the offensive line. Under Tim Ruskell the Seahawks took just two offensive lineman in the first three rounds in his five seasons as general manager for the Seahawks. Already John Schneider has taken an offensive lineman in the first round back to back years. The last time the Seahawks too offensive lineman in back to back first rounds was in 2000 and 2001 when they took Chris McIntosh(bust) and Steve Hutchinson(all-pro). As you can see those picks had extreme results. With former Raiders head coach Tom Cable hired as the offensive line coach there will be a big emphasis on offensive line play this season. The Seahawks instead of taking a running back or a quarterback chose to go "boring" by taking an offensive lineman. I actually like that they are committed to the offensive line.

The Seahawks had problems running the ball last season. Well you can blame the running back or you can look in the mirror and realize the offensive line wasn't very good. The Seahawks are hoping with Russell Okung at left tackle for the full season to go with Carpenter at right tackle will fix that. The Seahawks if they re-sign Spencer and sign Raiders guard Robert Gallery to go with a healthy Max Unger all of a sudden won't have a terrible offensive line. When the Seahawks made the Super Bowl in 2005 they made it because their offensive line was the best in the NFL. The Seahawks under Ruskell neglected that position so it's good to see the Seahawks finally realize that offensive line is very important. You want a better running game? Well open up some holes and you'll see results. Shaun Alexander wasn't the best back but he had great holes so he put up huge numbers. If you don't have a good offensive line it is hard to win in the NFL.

All in all, I don't have much of an opinion because I don't really know about Carpenter. I heard he is great at run blocking but isn't athletic as a pass blocker. The good news is he is a right tackle so I can't see him being any worse than Sean Locklear. I'm just happy the Seahawks are finally picking offensive line again. It is good to get back to the offensive line and be a physical football team who can run for those third and one's. It will be fun to see in a few years that the Seahawks will have a good offensive line. I'm disappointed the Seahawks don't have an answer at quarterback but no sense reaching for a guy who isn't that franchise guy. Yes the Seahawks went boring with this pick but I think you need a good offensive line to be successful in the NFL. Here is hoping the Seahawks return back to the 2005 days where we had the best offensive line in the NFL. This was just one step in that direction which shows Scheinder is already taking care of the offensive line problems that Ruskell had neglected.