“I don’t think you go into the process saying ‘we have quota,’ but absolutely, that’s where the game starts, up front, and it’s going to be really important for us to be dominant in that phase,” Macdonald said. “If it stops there, then you really don’t have a shot the rest of the play. The style of play, we want to be physical, we want to be imposing, we want to create new lines of scrimmage, and I think you’re seeing the investment in that. We’re going to have awesome competition on both lines of scrimmage, it’ll be fun to have iron sharpen iron throughout the process, throughout camp.”
Murphy, the 16th overall pick, was a havoc-wreaking force at the University of Texas who described himself as “aggressive, a very dominant player,” while all three offensive linemen used the word “nasty” to describe their game while speaking with the media. That type of attitude, as much as physical traits, will help shape the success of the Seahawks’ play in the trenches, particularly on the offensive line. That’s a message Seahawks Legend and Pro Football Hall of Fame guard Steve Hutchinson, who works in the player personnel department as a football consultant, has reiterated to Seattle’s scouting department.
“Steve Hutchison talked to us the other day about their group that they played with,” general manager John Schneider said. “Offensive linemen need to play as a group, they need to tough, nasty, they should be walking around the building together. They should be in their own world. That’s what we’re trying to get together. We have been blessed to be around a lot of really great offensive line groups. When we were in Green Bay, we had line that was together for ten years and it was a big deal. And those guys all would probably tell you they weren’t the most talented guys but they worked together as one. That’s what we’re trying to accomplish, and tone-setting was definitely something that was a factor in the guys that we wanted to acquire.”
