The Seattle Seahawks released hulking right guard and fan favorite D.J. Fluker on Sunday evening, clearing $3.6 million in cap space while appearing to clear the deck for Damien Lewis – the team’s third round pick in the 2020 NFL draft – to start in 2020.
Although coach Pete Carroll sounded very confident that Lewis could start right away – going as far as to say that, “he won’t take a back seat to anybody,” Carroll’s culture of competition won’t allow him to just hand the job to a rookie right away – he’ll have to earn it.
And with 17 offensive lineman still on the roster, even after the release of Fluker and Justin Britt, competition will be aplenty whenever the team is able to get back onto the field.
B.J. Finney is expected to move into the starting center role in place of Britt, but Lewis will still face competition from a litany of names; including Phil Haynes, Jamarco Jones, Ethan Pocic, Chance Warmack, Jordan Simmons, Jordan Roos, and Demetrius Knox.
Jones could end up reverting back to tackle, his natural position out of the draft, while Pocic is an option at center as well. However, both guys could conceivably see some work at right guard over the summer.
Lewis’ primary competition is Haynes, last year’s fourth round pick who started the final game of the season after missing the first half of the year while on the PUP list.
Haynes and Lewis are similar players, and Haynes has a full-year of development at the NFL level – which could work in his favor especially with a very different training period leading up to the 2020 season.
Haynes does profile more as a left guard however, and he could settle in as the backup to veteran Mike Iupati, likely paving way for Lewis to start in his first NFL campaign.
There’s a long way to go until then though, and coach Carroll will take every last minute before making his decision of who will be protecting Russell Wilson in the trenches.
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