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# Camp Takeaways: Rookies, Demarcus Lawrence Star in Seahawks’ First Padded Practice
- URL: https://www.emeraldcityspectrum.com/seattle-seahawks-camp-takeaways-rookies-demarcus-lawrence-padded-practice/
- Published: 2025-07-29T00:37:16.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-08T06:19:04.000Z
- Author: Corbin Smith
- Tags: Analysis, Seahawks, Damien Martinez, Nick Emmanwori, Demarcus Lawrence, Training Camp, Jarran Reed, Grey Zabel, Olu Oluwatimi, Byron Murphy II

\[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="1989"\]

![  Seattle Seahawks rookie running back Damien Martinez prepares to pick up linebacker Josh Ross in a pass protection drill. Credit: Corbin Smith/Emerald City Spectrum  ](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1d/f2/1df2f77b-83dd-4bc0-a6d2-6d1bb5df89a3/content/images/2026/10/unnamed--282-29-format-original-5.jpg)

Seattle Seahawks rookie running back Damien Martinez prepares to pick up linebacker Josh Ross in a pass protection drill. Credit: Corbin Smith/Emerald City Spectrum \[/caption\]

RENTON, Wash. - Busting out the pads for the first time since January, the Seattle Seahawks engaged in a physical, competitive fifth training camp practice at the VMAC on Monday, checking off the next box in line towards the Week 1 season opener against the San Francisco 49ers at Lumen Field.

Easing into the padded practice setting, Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald and his staff cut the practice down a bit time-wise, emphasizing a number of situations in team drills and making sure to mix in some walkthrough-oriented periods rather than hitting for the entire time.

“It was a great practice, a little bit shorter, but really good,” Macdonald told reporters afterward. “A lot of good situational work. Both sides making plays. Same thing that we've been talking about. Excited to watch the tape and move forward, but this is a big week for us as a team, and I believe we're off to a great start.”

What went down in the first padded practice of the new season? Here are five takeaways from Monday’s hard-hitting session:

### 1\. Growing into bigger role by day, Nick Emmanwori generates his first splash play as a Seahawk.

Standing 6-3, 220 pounds, Emmanwori stands out like a sore thumb amongst his secondary peers, but up until last Friday, he had mostly been seeing snaps with the second and third-team offenses as the rookie acclimates to life in the NFL and a complex defensive scheme. However, over the last three practices, Macdonald has gradually started to dangle more opportunities for the second round pick to play with the projected starters, and if Monday served as any indication, those reps are going to stay on the uptick moving forward.

Shortly after transitioning out of individual drills, the Seahawks kicked off their first padded 11-on-11 situational session with the offense backed up against their own goal line. After the first and second team offenses failed to advance the ball further than the 25-yard line, Emmanwori checked in with a unit consisting of a mix of second and third-team players and wasted little time showing off his instincts and athleticism in coverage. Fellow rookie Jalen Milroe tried to dump a pass off to tight end Brady Russell and the dynamic safety undercut the throw, picking it off and running into the end zone for a pick six.

“It was a great play. I wish he’d put the ball away when he caught it,” Macdonald laughed. “I just asked him ‘Hey man, you having fun out here or what?’ Great atmosphere, competing, we’re asking a lot out of him. He’s playing hard, learning a lot, but it was good to see him making a play.”

To this point, the Seahawks haven’t been forcing the issue “overloading him” with information, but as Macdonald acknowledged, Emmanwori has earned the increased playing time in recent practices by picking up everything the coaching staff has thrown at him so far. As he continues to grow more comfortable, the coaching staff will face some tougher decisions as far as how they handle pacing with the youngster as they draw closer to regular season games figuring out where he fits into the defensive plans from the outset.

But one thing remains certain: Emmanwori isn’t doing anything to slow down the hype train regarding his potential to make an immediate impact on defense. Seemingly absorbing everything taught to him like a sponge and starting to turn those lessons into big plays on the practice field, it may be only a matter of time before the bulk of his snaps will be coming with the first-team.

### 2\. On other end of spectrum, don’t ever doubt Demarcus Lawrence’s old man strength in his 12th NFL season.

While Emmanwori just started his NFL journey and has much left to learn, Lawrence arrived in Seattle to kick off his 12th camp and first with a new team after spending the entirety of his career in Dallas. Some veterans would prefer to coast early in camp and ease their way towards the regular season, but the veteran defensive end isn’t programmed that way and with the pads coming out for the first time, he showed he hasn’t missed any time in the weight room this offseason.

Lining up across from starting right tackle Abraham Lucas in one-on-one pass protection drills, a staple of padded practices this time of year, Lawrence shot out of his three-point stance and violently threw his hands into the blocker’s chest with an impressive initial jolt. Unleashing a brutal bull rush, he lifted the shocked 6-6, 325-pound tackle off of his feet temporarily while driving him back quickly into the backfield, collapsing the pocket in an instant with raw power and an explosive first step. Lawrence wound up winning both of his reps against Lucas, demonstrating that the 33-year old has plenty of juice left in the tank against his much younger opponent.

Earlier in camp, Macdonald touted Lawrence, who signed a three-year contract with Seattle in March, as the “best drill player” he has ever seen. This time around, not surprised to hear following practice that the veteran was throwing blockers around on the first day of pads, he called him a giant, saying he looks and plays much bigger than his listed 6-3, 254-pound size. After getting rocked into the backfield on successive reps by the four-time Pro Bowler, Lucas would vouch for that.

"This is probably the best compliment I have. He looks like a giant on film. Hopefully that paints a picture for you. I don't know what his actual measurements are. I think he's 6-3 and 250 pounds and something, but that's how he plays.”

### 3\. Presented a prime opportunity due to injury, Damien Martinez enjoys his best all-around day thus far.

Injuries remain an unfortunate reality in training camp and on Saturday, the Seahawks lost third-year running back Kenny McIntosh to a torn ACL on a special teams drill. As updated by Macdonald after practice, the former seventh-round pick out of Georgia will undergo surgery in the near future and landed on injured reserve, bringing his 2025 season to an end before it even began.

But while Seattle will miss McIntosh, who brings great versatility as a pass catcher out of the backfield and kick return option on special teams, his injury opened the door wider for Martinez to secure a significant role as a rookie. Known for his hard-nosed running style coming out of Miami, the 217-pound back seemed to relish the arrival of pads for the first time and played faster with them strapped on during Monday’s session, ripping off several nice runs in the team period where he bounced off of defenders with great contact balance.

"I think today was the best day he's had,” Macdonald said of Martinez. “Staying off the ground, seeing the runs. We had a feeling that he would show up a little bit more on the pads, so hopefully that trend continues.”

However, while Martinez was expected to shine as a physical runner, his third down skill set has been a question mark coming into the league. Earlier in camp, he dropped a couple of passes as a receiver and that wasn’t a big part of his game at Oregon State or Miami in multiple college stops to begin with. He did a great job of putting those mistakes behind him on Monday, catching a ball from Drew Lock in the middle of the field in an 11-on-11 period and picking up big yardage after the catch for a 34-yard catch-and-run.

> Damien Martinez had one of the best 1-on-1 pass pro periods I’ve seen by a back in nine years on the [#Seahawks](https://twitter.com/hashtag/Seahawks?src=hash&ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=emeraldcityspectrum.com) beat. [pic.twitter.com/6EtkuBWz7e](https://t.co/6EtkuBWz7e?ref=emeraldcityspectrum.com)— Corbin K. Smith (@CorbinSmithNFL) [July 28, 2025](https://twitter.com/CorbinSmithNFL/status/1949955231728402548?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=emeraldcityspectrum.com)

Most impressively, Martinez dominated throughout 1-on-1 pass protection/blitz pickup work against linebackers, drawing praise on multiple occasions from running back coach Kennedy Polamalu. He didn’t lose any of his reps, stonewalling defenders through the A-gap while washing them downfield when blitzing from off the edge, exhibiting great technique with sticky hand placement and exquisite footwork keeping his feet buzzing.

### 4\. Olu Oluwatimi stands out amongst offensive linemen in 1-on-1s, while Grey Zabel gets veteran advice.

As receiver Cooper Kupp alluded to after practice, the first day of pads serves as an unofficial holiday for football players, and coaches view it in the same light. After months of non-padded, non-contact practices, even if Monday wasn’t fully live with defenders bringing ball carriers to the ground like a true game setting, true evaluation can finally begin with linemen getting after it in the trenches on both sides of the ball.

Away from Lawrence’s jaw-dropping reps against Lucas, no player may have fared better in Monday’s much-anticipated 1-on-1 session than center Olu Oluwatimi, who found himself matched up against Byron Murphy II and Jarran Reed on his four reps. Murphy created backward displacement off the snap on both of his rushes against the third-year pivot man, but Oluwatimi recovered nicely each time, setting a firm anchor and halting the rush midway to the pocket for clear wins in pass protection. He later held up well against Reed, washing him away from the pocket on one of his reps and thwarting a quality bull rush on the other.

In one of the more intriguing matchups of the drill, Zabel was pitted against star defensive tackle Leonard Williams, and he looked like an unseasoned rookie on their first battle as he got caught on his heels by a bull rush and the defender swam past him to the quarterback with ease. But the first-round pick demonstrated short-term memory and rebounded, coming back on the next rep to stymie a bull rush/spin move combo by No. 99, receiving praise from line coach John Benton.

A few moments later, Zabel could be seen seeking out Williams off to the side of the drill, and the two players engaged in a conversation where the defender appeared to be giving him tips for handling the bull rush and swim move combo that he beat the rookie with on the first play. Macdonald viewed it as a great example of players competing hard but still supporting one another as teammates once those reps have happened.

“It shows you who Leo is, but I wasn't over there to see it, but I have seen it up to this point. Even on tape, you can see behind of the vets talking to the rookies on both sides of the ball. The guys are really conscious about ‘12 as One.’ We're sharpening each other, we're going to compete the heck out of each other when we're going, but we're also going to support each other and hold each other to a certain standard. It's great to see the vets set the example.”

### 5\. Mike Macdonald pushing buttons hoping for more from run game on offense in next padded session.

As expected, Macdonald liked a lot of what he saw with the ushering in of pads for the first time this season, feeling that his players did a great job of getting off to a fast start at the right tempo and playing with the physicality he desires. But that doesn’t mean that he was pleased by everything, and though he had to be fired up to see the defense making big plays such as Emmanwori and Riq Woolen intercepting passes and that side of the ball played into the lack of run game production, he didn’t see what he wanted to see from the ground attack on offense.

When asked whether he felt the presence of a healthy Lucas at right tackle and rookie fullback Robbie Ouzts out of the backfield on Monday, Macdonald couldn’t have had a more blunt assessment of Seattle’s run game coming out of the practice.

“I have to watch the tape, but right now, no. No, knock on them, but we didn't run the ball very well today, so we got to be better,” Macdonald said.

For the Seahawks to fulfill their goals this upcoming season, the onus will fall on a newly-constructed offensive coaching staff to turn around a run game that ranked 28th in the NFL a year ago and didn’t perform much better in 2023\. At the center of those issues, the offensive line has been a consistent problem for the franchise despite using 10 draft picks on line prospects in the past four years, including Zabel this past April.

One practice shouldn’t cause fans to panic, however, and as Macdonald pointed out, camp practices tend to have ebbs and flows with the offense and defense exchanging strong days. It’s possible he will feel a bit differently after reviewing the film as well. Still, with so much on the line - literally and figuratively - trying to get the Seahawks rushing game back on track, the coach clearly was aiming to spark a better performance from the offense as a whole in the second padded practice on Tuesday, desiring a clear sign of progress on that front early in camp.