Seahawks Draft: All-American Dawand Jones an OL to consider

The annual Senior Bowl is well underway and as shown the last few years, that’s an event the Seahawks keep a close eye on as it pertains to their draft prospects.

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In last year’s class, for instance, six of Seattle’s nine selections took part in the event, which is organized and run by former Seahawks scout Jim Nagy.

In this year’s Senior Bowl, there’s an offensive lineman from a major college program who former NFL quarterback Brock Huard is really interested in, and for obvious reasons. He explained why during Thursday’s Brock and Salk on Seattle Sports 710 AM.

“Dawand Jones … 6 foot 8, 375 (pounds),” Huard said.

Jones is obviously a massive human being at 6-8 and 375 pounds. He’s also got one of the more impressive wingspans you’ll ever see.

“He had the longest wingspan in the history of the Senior Bowl. It will be the longest in the history of the combine,” Huard said. “He has the wingspan of a 7-5 man – an 89.5-inch wingspan.”

OK, so Jones is very intriguing from a size perspective. How is he as a player?

“You know how many sacks he gave up at The Ohio State University last year? Zero. Zero sacks as a right tackle at Ohio State,” Huard said.

Oh, by the way, Jones was a first-team All-American in 2022.

The “issue” as it pertains to Jones going to the Seahawks, though, is that at present, they don’t need help at offensive tackle as their 2022 first-round pick Charles Cross started all 17 games at right tackle while third-rounder Abraham Lucas started all but one at right tackle and both played well right off the bat. They do need help on the interior of the offensive line with center Austin Blythe a free agent, left guard Damien Lewis is entering the final year of his rookie contract and right guard Gabe Jackson could be a cap casualty as he played under 50% of Seattle’s snaps in favor of now-free agent Phil Haynes.

Having two starting tackles already shouldn’t necessarily prohibit the Seahawks from selecting him, though, as Huard said they could potentially make it work.

“Can he slide in and play guard? Or could Abe Lucas slide in – or would Abe Lucas – slide in from right tackle to play guard?” he said.

Cross and Lucas are both very impressive athletes at those two tackle spots, as they each ran a sub-5 second 40-yard dash at last year’s NFL Scouting Combine. Cross is 6-5 and 311 pounds while Lucas is 6-6 and 320 pounds. Jones would give Seattle three very good and big athletes on the offensive line for years to come.

“This guy (Jones) is athletic. He’s not twitchy, but he’s got unbelievably powerful hands and if he gets his hands on you, it is over,” Huard said. “He’s right now slated as kind of a second-round (pick) … You know what you want? You want big people. Do you know what you want to (have) block if you want to be able to block Fletcher Cox and Aaron Donald? You know what you need? You need big people. You need girth, you need power, you need strength. Keep an eye on that guy.”

You can hear the full conversation from the Blue 88 segment in the podcast below.

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