Seahawks
Hawks offensive line: Big boys, bigger friends

By Les Carpenter
Seattle Times staff reporter

ROD MAR / THE SEATTLE TIMES From left: Steve Hutchinson, Robbie Tobeck, Chris Terry and Chris Gray.

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Other links Chris Gray, right guard Steve Hutchinson, left guard Walter Jones, left tackle Chris Terry, right tackle Robbie Tobeck, center

Late at night, long after the others have left for sleep or television or video games, a group of men lingers in a cafeteria corner at Seahawks training camp. There they will sit for hours, the team's largest men cramming beefy thighs around a little table made for college students.

And they talk.

They talk about football, about kids, about fishing, about golf. They do silly things. They sing, turning the lyrics to real songs into parodies. They twist the letters of each other's names, taking for instance, Chris Gray and turning it into Chris Gary or Chris Gay. Anything, no matter how absurd, just as long as they can hold the moment and stay there, squashed in the corner of an empty cafeteria deep into the summer night.

Nobody dreams of being an offensive lineman. Something usually went wrong along the way: torsos filled out, legs got wide and suddenly the next great wide receiver is pawing the ground at right guard and nobody can remember his name. Nobody even cares. Such is the plight of the offensive lineman. If the offense is moving, few ever notice the five men up front who are making it happen, but the moment the line of protection in front of the quarterback breaks down, they are exposed, alone, naked.

They realize this and the anonymity becomes their identity.

"We kind of creep around in the shadows and stay out of the limelight," says Seahawks guard Steve Hutchinson.

Or as Ed Cunningham, former UW and Seahawks center, says with a laugh: "Offensive linemen are almost like drummers in a rock-and-roll band. They're the backbone, but nobody cares. They get the bad parking spaces and they don't get the girls. They're not even invited on the tour bus."

So they stick close like no other group in professional sports. They eat together and visit each other's houses; and, on road trips, when the other players have shuffled off to bed, they linger in the hotel's dining room, just like in training camp. And talk and talk and talk.

Success depends on their every game-day move being choreographed in a blocking symphony. "Kind of like a line dance," Pete Kendall, current Jets and former Seahawks guard, once said. And this group of Seattle linemen has danced well the past 2½ years. It is no coincidence that Matt Hasselbeck's moment of blossoming as a quarterback roughly coincided with the insertion of Chris Terry at right tackle on Dec. 1, 2002, as the final piece of this Seahawks line.

When people use the words "Seahawks" and "Super Bowl" in the same breath, they do so because of Hasselbeck and running back Shaun Alexander and the young receivers with so much promise. But never far in these justifications comes the next piece of evidence that makes Hasselbeck, Alexander and the receivers all possible: "And the offensive line is solid, too."
 
The fact is that this group of Seahawks offensive linemen is probably the best in team history.

But even though it contains two Pro Bowl players — Hutchinson and perpetual holdout Walter Jones — nobody mentions names when dishing out accolades for the Seahawks' line. Nobody needs to. The line is an entity all its own, and its identity is tied to the group. Because of this, the line's bond is tighter than any other collection of players. A new member is instantly absorbed, and he's welcomed into the banter as if he had been one of them for years.

"It's like (relationships) just work themselves out," Hutchinson says when asked what happens if someone comes along who doesn't fit with the group. "Somehow the guy who doesn't get along with everyone usually finds his way out. But the weird thing about the offensive line is: If you're big, we're going to like you.

"Everyone's from different backgrounds, but it doesn't make a difference. Football in general is like 'Survivor,' and we're the contestants and we're in it together."

The basic bond of offensive linemen does not change from team to team, but the level of closeness does. And when a particular group congeals, management is hesitant to tinker with the unity, realizing that it's often better to have a tight unit of good players as opposed to a less-cohesive collection of stars.

Much of Seattle's line success in recent years comes from the fact that its core has been together for more than three seasons — an eternity in today's salary-cap era.

There is center Robbie Tobek, the practical joker; Hutchinson, the left guard, a blossoming talent who looks more like a renegade soap-opera star; Jones the left tackle who might be the best offensive lineman in the game; Gray, the dependable right guard who is a wealth of old stories; and Terry, whom new Seahawks defensive end Grant Wistrom calls "the most underrated lineman in football."

"We know a lot about each other," Tobek says. "In college, the four to five years I played alongside a lot of guys, I still have a lot of good friends. But I was talking to (former Atlanta teammate) Bob Whitfield about this the other day, and I was saying, 'These guys here will be my buddies forever.'

"I can't imagine a whole lot of time will go by without me talking to Hutch or Chris Gray. Maybe I run my mouth a little bit, but it's fun. I love these guys."

Here's something interesting about offensive linemen: They get to the stadium before everybody else.

Here's something even stranger: They do nothing once they get there.

For home games, Hutchinson says he arrives at about 9 a.m. before a 1 p.m. kickoff. He's not alone. Usually the rest of the linemen are there, too, pulling on their pants and jerseys more than four hours before the game is to begin.

At the University of Michigan, this was a matter of pride for Hutchinson. He had to be the first one dressed. Almost always he was, beating even the kickers and punters who need to be on the field early.

"It's a lot like hurrying up to go to work," Hutchinson says. "Offensive linemen are usually about routine, and they like to stick to that routine. We're just creatures of habit."

But once they are dressed, with tape on the ankles and pads in all the right places, they are stuck. There's nowhere to go, the game is still several hours away and there is no pressing need for offensive linemen to be on the field four hours before the game begins. It's not like they are going to throw passes or check the direction of the wind. The most they will do is stroll around the field to check the grass and decide which shoes to wear.

So they sit in the locker room and do what they do most of the time they are together. They talk. It's really quite a sight: 10 giant men sprawled on chairs and on the floor, dressed in football uniforms, clutching cups of coffee and chatting about boats or cars or hunting gear.

In the years the Seahawks played at Husky Stadium, the Seattle offensive linemen rigged a game to kill time. They took a water bottle and placed it on a bench — then while sitting a few feet away, they tossed the little orange rings that go around the lids of Gatorade bottles at the water bottle in a rudimentary form of ring toss.

Needless to say, time passed verrrrrry slowly.

"There's a lot of commiserating that goes on with offensive linemen," Cunningham says. "They spend more time around the so-called water cooler than anyone else in football. They are fat and ugly, and they still have tremendous egos like everyone else in sports, but there is nowhere to let it go. There are so many things in an offensive lineman's life that are in total, total opposition to each other."

Yet for all that time they spend together, offensive linemen never seem to tire of one another. If it wasn't enough to sit up all night talking and arriving together early on game days, they have to eat together. This can be quite an ordeal.

Like the day a couple of weeks ago at Seahawks training camp, when the linemen decided to blow off the regular team luncheon and head to an Italian restaurant in Cheney. They ordered big — as usual — requesting mounds of pasta and bread. Then when the bill arrived, they each reached for their pockets only to discover — surprise! — they all had left their wallets back at the room.

Depending on whom you believe, either Chris Gray or Jerry Wunsch was stuck with the bill as the other players rolled with laughter.

You have to have a good sense of humor to be an offensive lineman. Either a sense of humor or a gift for needling back, because the jokes come and they never stop. Offensive linemen usually are among the smartest players on a team, but they are also the most immature. No prank is too low, no joke too obscene.

"Somebody says something that's kind of stupid to say, then someone jumps all over that," says Matt Hill, a reserve tackle the past two years before being released Sunday. "Then you hear Walter with that jocular laugh. It's always the same thing, too, with maybe a little difference. A lot of times it's the guys telling their old stories."

In the big-money, fast-car world of the NFL, this passes for a wild night for an offensive lineman.

"You know, I love all the clichés about offensive linemen," Cunningham says, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Every time a story is written about them, it's the same thing. 'They're heady, smart, they drive big trucks.' They drive big trucks because they don't fit in cars."

But the fact is: The clichés are real. Offensive linemen do drive big trucks. You can always spot the lineman's ride in any NFL parking lot. It's the tallest truck in the lot, without any of the chrome or shiny wheels. In fact, there's a good chance the truck is covered in mud, looking like it has been fished from the bottom of a pond.

And if the linemen are invisible, well that's fine, too. At least they have each other. Ultimately, that's what matters most.

"Generally, one guy does not make a major move without talking to the other guys about it," Tobek says. "I'm buying a boat, and I won't actually go do it without saying to these guys, 'What do you think?' "

Undoubtedly, someone will have an opinion. Then someone else will have a thought, and eventually this will lead to a joke, and the whole group will be laughing.

It will be something to see — 10 big men sitting in a circle, giggling like children.

And no one will even know they are there.

Les Carpenter: 206-464-2280 or lcarpenter@seattletimes.com.