Should Seahawks Consider Sam Darnold, Garrett Bradbury Reunion?
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DETROIT, MI - JANUARY 05: Minnesota Vikings Center (56) Garrett Bradbury in action during the game between Minnesota Vikings and Detroit Lions on January 5, 2025 at Ford Field in Detroit, MI Credit: © Allan Dranberg/Cal Sport Media [/caption]
Over the course of the free agency period, the Seattle Seahawks have made overtures at multiple veteran offensive linemen, including coming up just short in a bidding war for former Indianapolis Colts guard Will Fries and most recently bringing guards Teven Jenkins and Lucas Patrick in for visits.
Throughout the past week, however, the Seahawks interestingly have not been linked to any centers on the heels of comments from offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak stating his scheme required an “elite” player at the position. This lack of movement on that front could mean the organization holds incumbent starter Olu Oluwatimi and intriguing second-year blocker Jalen Sundell in higher regard than advertised.
But it’s also possible general manager John Schneider simply didn’t like the price point for top centers on the market such as Drew Dalman and Ryan Kelly, who signed lucrative multi-year deals with Chicago and Minnesota respectively. As a renowned sales bin shopper during his 15 years at the helm, a newcomer hitting the market as of Monday may pique his interest for multiple reasons.
As reported by multiple outlets last week, the Vikings had been trying to move six-year starting center Garrett Bradbury after signing Kelly to open the free agency period, hoping to flip him for a late round draft pick. But nobody offered anything for the former first round pick, predictably forcing the organization to release him as a cap casualty instead.
The impending release of Bradbury already has drummed up speculation about the Seahawks being interested, and it goes beyond any possible reservations about Oluwatimi or Sundell being full-time starters. The 29-year old pivot man previously played in Kubiak’s zone-centric offense back in 2021 and last season, he started all 17 games for the Vikings, developing a strong rapport snapping the football to quarterback Sam Darnold, who signed with Seattle on a three-year deal to open free agency as Geno Smith’s successor under center.
Chemistry between the quarterback and center remains incredibly important for an NFL offense, as the pivot man typically handles all of the pass protection calls in the trenches and relays those calls to the signal caller, including blitz pickups and audibles in blocking assignments pre-snap. The Seahawks will want Darnold to feel as comfortable as possible commanding Kubiak’s offense and signing a proven, respected veteran like Bradbury could help substantially given their previous success working together in Minnesota.
In addition, even as he nears his 30th birthday, Bradbury still possesses top-tier athleticism for the center position. Back when he came out of North Carolina entering the 2019 NFL Draft, he posted a spectacular 9.96 Relative Athletic Score with a 4.92 40-yard dash, 31-inch vertical jump, and 7.41 3-cone drill time, traits that still show up on film as a run blocker. As Kubiak should know well from his time in Minnesota, Bradbury’s quickness and lateral movement skills cater well to zone blocking in the run game, and he continued to excel in that department by grading out as Pro Football Focus’ seventh-best zone blocking center (77.1) last season.
Looking back on Bradbury’s six NFL seasons as a starter, he only has finished with lower than a 71.0 zone blocking grade once as a rookie way back in 2019 and finished in the top 10 three different times over the previous five campaigns, demonstrating the consistency, reliability, and overall effectiveness Kubiak will be looking for from the center position anchoring Seattle’s rushing attack.
But while his run blocking and physical attributes fit Kubiak’s system quite well, if Bradbury didn’t have warts in his game, the Vikings would not have gone out of their way to replace him with Kelly and moved on from him this offseason. Over the past two seasons, he has regressed significantly in pass protection, struggling to protect a host of different quarterbacks who took snaps in 2023 and 2024.
During that two-year span, Bradbury has allowed 59 pressures and seven sacks, including allowing a league-worst 37 pressures on Darnold last season. Opponents have been able to rag doll him consistently with power, driving him back into the pocket and discarding him far too frequently to register hits on the quarterback, further evidenced by his 96.7 percent pass block efficiency rate, which ranked dead-last out of 28 qualified centers. By nearly every metric, he proved to be subpar in the pass protection department.
Given that unacceptable production, the Vikings decided to cut bait and brought in Kelly to help ramp up protection for second-year quarterback J.J. McCarthy, who will be expected to take the reigns as the new starter in Darnold’s stead in 2025. Add in the fact that he has surrendered 26 or more pressures in four of his six NFL seasons and it becomes questionable whether a change of scenery or a more favorable scheme will really do much to shore up the issues he has dealt with slowing down interior pass rushers for the majority of his career.
When it comes to whether or not the Seahawks should have interest in Bradbury, the front office and coaching staff have to determine if he would present a clear upgrade over the in-house options already on the roster in Oluwatimi and Sundell. Or at least provide enough of an improvement over those two inexperienced players to justify taking a flier on him as a free agent and a potential roadblock to their development.
On one hand, Oluwatimi lacks the athletic toolbox Bradbury brings to the table and he scored significantly worse as a zone blocker in 2024 compared to the seasoned veteran. From a schematic perspective, it’s debatable whether the former fifth-round pick out of Michigan has enough movement skills to thrive in Kubiak’s system, while Bradbury already offers a known commodity who has fared well in that scheme in the past.
But if athleticism stacks up as a top prerequisite for the Seahawks finding a starting center, Sundell possesses similar quickness and explosiveness to Bradbury and already has a spot on the roster at a fraction of the cost with untapped upside and positional versatility. While he didn’t run quite as fast in the 40-yard dash, he nearly equaled his veteran counterpart with a 30 1/2-inch vertical jump and a 7.63 3-cone drill, exhibiting upper echelon change of direction skills for an offensive lineman while scoring a stellar 9.33 Relative Athletic Score.
As for the pass protection angle of this decision, Oluwatimi finished a rock solid 10th among qualified centers in pass block efficiency rate and yielded no sacks on 260 pass blocking reps, substantially better than Bradbury has done at any point in his career. Though it’s still a relatively small sample size, the numbers comparison between the two stands out like night versus day, and paying more money for the worse player would require some explanations.
Ultimately, Darnold deserves to carry some sway in this process. If he thinks Bradbury would provide the veteran leadership that Seattle’s maligned offensive line needs in the middle and urges the team to sign him because of their chemistry as the quarterback/center battery, Schneider and the front office have to at least entertain the possibility. A positive recommendation from Kubiak would also go a long ways towards him coming to the Pacific Northwest as well.
Considering the Seahawks haven’t had much stability at center since Max Unger departed via trade in 2015, bringing an experienced blocker with Bradbury’s resume into the fold wouldn’t be the worst of moves and could potentially pay off at the right price in a scheme he has succeeded in before. But unless the new coaching staff truly has little to no confidence in Oluwatimi or Sundell being a capable starter or don’t believe either of them are ready for that role, based on his multi-year drop off in pass protection alone, signing him has the feel of a lateral move more than a difference making signing at this stage of his career.
