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Seattle Signs a Veteran Tackle the Night Before Minicamp
The Seahawks signed veteran offensive tackle Bobby Hart on Monday, the day before mandatory minicamp opens, and waived undrafted rookie receiver Levi Wentz to clear the 90-man roster spot. This is the kind of move that makes zero noise and tells you a lot about a team that knows exactly what it is.
Hart is a 31-year-old journeyman: a seventh-round Giants pick in 2015, best known as Cincinnati’s three-year starting right tackle from 2018 to 2020. He played 10 games for the Chargers last season, starting eight on a line missing Rashawn Slater all year and Joe Alt for most of it. He has 108 career games and 75 starts. He has also, per Field Gulls, taken zero NFL snaps in some recent seasons. So: experienced, available, and not threatening anybody’s job. Perfect.
75
Career NFL starts for Bobby Hart across 108 games — including all 16 in both 2018 and 2019 for Cincinnati.
If everything goes right, Hart won’t start a game in Seattle. That’s the entire point. A defending champion’s offensive line room doesn’t need a savior, it needs a body who has blocked real NFL edge rushers and can soak up reps so Charles Cross and Abraham Lucas don’t get overcooked in June. Pete Carroll used to sign these guys every summer. Macdonald’s doing the same thing, just with less fanfare.
The timing is the only wrinkle worth a raised eyebrow. Right guard Anthony Bradford tweaked his knee on the final OTA day, Christian Haynes took his reps, and now a veteran tackle walks in the door. Probably unrelated. Probably just depth. But on an offensive line where the right side is the one genuinely unsettled spot, you notice when the front office adds a guy who’s started 75 games.
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If everything goes right, Hart won’t start a game in Seattle. That’s the entire point of signing him.
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Legacy
Russell Wilson Is Done. For Real This Time.
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It’s the right call, and somewhere Geno is allowed a small smile about it. Wilson reportedly had a real chance to go to New York and sit behind the guy who once sat behind him. Instead he picked the chair with better lighting and no pass rush. Hard to argue.
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He picked the chair with better lighting and no pass rush. Hard to argue.
For us this one carries weight no contract update ever will. Wilson quarterbacked Super Bowl XLVIII, gave us a decade of fourth-quarter magic and one of the great heartbreaks in franchise history, and then left for Denver in a trade that, all these years later, still funded a chunk of what Seattle is now. The current Seahawks are partly built on the picks that man brought back. Now he’ll analyze games in a suit on Sunday mornings, grinning at the camera the way only he can.
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AROUND THE COOP
Around the Coop
Minicamp opens Tuesday. Mandatory minicamp runs June 9-11, the last required gathering before training camp and the Hard Knocks cameras. It’s also ring ceremony week. Three days of football, one night of jewelry, then the long quiet of summer. Heavy
The Wentz era was brief. Undrafted rookie receiver Levi Wentz was waived to make room for Hart, which is what happens when you’re WR number 15 on a roster that already had 14 too many. Somewhere a practice-squad spot is still theoretically possible. Theoretically. Seahawks.com
Wilson nearly made history the other way. Before retiring, Wilson had been mulling a Jets offer to back up Geno Smith. The man who replaced Geno would have ended up behind Geno. The NFL writes better fiction than anyone gives it credit for, and this time it chose not to. ESPN
NFC WEST SCHADENFREUDE REPORT
RAMS
The Rams unboxed their new toy at minicamp, and defensive coordinator Chris Shula’s grand plan for the reigning Defensive Player of the Year is to mostly leave him alone. “You’re not gonna take Michael Jordan, LeBron, all those guys and pull them out of their comfort zone,” Shula said of Myles Garrett. They gave up Jared Verse and three premium picks for a 30-year-old, and the strategy is to point him at the quarterback and get out of the way. Revolutionary. Seattle gets to see how that goes twice, including Christmas Day.
NINERS
San Francisco was so proud of its perfect voluntary attendance that Kyle Shanahan canceled mandatory minicamp entirely, per PFT. A whole week off as a reward for showing up to the practices that didn’t count. Meanwhile the rest of the NFC West is actually on the field this week doing the football. Nice work if you can get it, and the 49ers can apparently always get it.
CARDINALS
The Josh Sweat trade rumors keep swirling, and Sweat answered them by quietly showing up to mandatory minicamp anyway, with the Cardinals reportedly not trading him after all. So the edge rusher Arizona overpaid for stays put, the trade-deadline chatter rolls into July, and a rebuilding team gets to keep a player it can’t seem to decide whether it wants. Embrace it, Arizona.
SEACHICKENS TRIVIA
Seattle’s first-ever quarterback led the entire NFL in pass attempts during the franchise’s inaugural 1976 season. How many passing yards and touchdowns did he ultimately total across nine seasons in Seattle?
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Jim Zorn — 20,122 passing yards and 107 touchdown passes over nine seasons and 100 starts. He was named NFC Offensive Rookie of the Year in 1976 for leading the league in attempts on an expansion team, then entered the Ring of Honor in 1991.
Got a Question for The Rooster?
Minicamp’s the last real intel window before July goes silent. Fire your questions, your hot takes, and your conspiracy theories about the right guard depth chart to the mailbag. The good ones get answered, the unhinged ones get answered faster.
Three days of football, a ring ceremony, and then we're on our own until July. Make them count. Go Hawks. — The Rooster