'A Blessing!': Phil Haynes Relishing Opportunity to Start, Mentor

RENTON, Wash. - Considering the challenges he faced during his first two NFL seasons, Phil Haynes has plenty of reasons to be thankful as he begins his fifth year with the Seattle Seahawks.

In his first two years in the league, Haynes played a grand total of one offensive snap in a regular season game, battling through numerous injuries that prevented him from competing for a starting spot and led to the Seahawks trading for veteran Gabe Jackson. At the time, it seemed unlikely the 2019 fourth-round pick out of Wake Forest would receive a second contract from the team, especially after he failed to make the roster during initial roster cuts two years ago.

But with a clean bill of health since the rough start to his career, Haynes has impressed in his limited playing time at both guard spots over the past two seasons, including playing a career-high 485 snaps in a rotational platoon with Jackson at right guard last season. Showing enough promise to warrant another extended look, Seattle re-signed the 27-year old blocker to a one-year contract in March, granting him his first legitimate opportunity to start in the process.

With sweat dripping down his face following a team walkthrough on Thursday morning, Haynes expressed his gratitude for the organization sticking by him and giving him another chance to compete.

"It's a blessing to be one place for five years," Haynes smiled. "It's a blessing to be here."

It's been quite the turnaround for Haynes, who has demonstrated starter-caliber qualities when healthy despite having no clear path to a starting spot over the past couple of seasons.

When Damien Lewis and Jackson missed time late in the 2021 season due to COVID and injuries, Haynes stepped in as a replacement at each guard spot and helped pave running lanes for Rashaad Penny, who ripped off 170-plus rushing yards in each of his starts to close out the season. Last year, the Seahawks finished with a perfect 3-0 record in games he started, averaging nearly 120 rushing yards per contest, including exploding for over 200 yards in a road win over the Chargers at SoFi Stadium.

As Jackson battled through a chronic knee issue, Haynes outperformed the veteran in all facets. Though both players surrendered four sacks in pass protection, according to Pro Football Focus, Haynes posted a pass blocking efficiency rate nearly a full percent better than Jackson and allowed half the number of pressures in comparison. He also scored significantly better in the run game department, though Sports Info Solutions did charge him with a slightly higher blown block percentage.

Reflecting on his reversal of fortunes, Haynes credited alterations to his diet and offseason training regimen, including shifting his focus from power lifting to more centralized workouts focusing on flexibility with muscle groups that can be more vulnerable blocking on the field.

"Diet is a big thing. Training is huge," Haynes stated. "Like in college, you want to lift the most weights you can. But it's really working on those in range muscles, so when you get caught in a certain stance, you don't get hurt cause you're strong there. Little things like that people don't really know about."

Simply being able to gain experience on the field has also been a game changer for Haynes, who, like many lineman coming out of college these days, had to make the adjustment from a pass-heavy spread offense into a pro style system with vastly different run game concepts. Specifically, Wake Forest didn't run middle wide zone as Seattle frequently does with offensive coordinator Shane Waldron calling plays, so the transition has taken multiple seasons for him.

Missing extensive time early in his career stalled Haynes' progression in that regard and he admitted the run game in general remains a work in progress for him, but under the tutelage of line coach Andy Dickerson, Haynes has made up significant ground with on the job training over the past two seasons. This spring, he continued to focus on becoming more proficient with the footwork and technique in different run concepts.

Watching all of his snaps in film study this offseason, while stats with a larger sample size compared to the previous season may paint a different picture, Haynes believes his one-on-one pass protection took the biggest leap forward in 2022. Digging deeper into his game logs, with the exception of a difficult game against the Chiefs where he allowed a season-high five pressures, he only had one other game the entire season where he allowed more than two pressures on quarterback Geno Smith, including five games where he didn't allow any pressures.

For added context, in his two worst outings, Haynes drew the unideal assignment of blocking new teammate Dre'Mont Jones and Chiefs star Chris Jones, two of the four defensive tackles in the NFL who have produced at least 5.5 sacks in each of the past three seasons. Considering the talent lined up across from him, he can be forgiven for struggling a bit with those matchups, but now he's eager for the chance to sharpen his craft working against Jones on a daily basis on the practice field.

"It helps a bunch," Haynes said of Jones' arrival enhancing his preparation. "Dre'Mont is as just quick as it comes and he can do power too, so he's savvy. It's going to help with the ADs [Rams defensive tackle Aaron Donald] of the world, all those elite pass rushers, so it's going to help us."

Going into his fifth NFL season, Haynes will once again have to adjust to playing alongside a new center, as the Seahawks will be breaking in a new starter at the pivot spot for the third straight year. But to this point, the transition has not been a difficult one with former Lions starter Evan Brown and rookie Olu Oluwatimi already in full command of the offense and coming to Seattle with prior backgrounds making line calls in similar schemes.

In the first two days of camp, Haynes has logged first-team snaps next to Brown and Oluwatimi, who have alternated practices with the starters. While the three players haven't seen much action together yet to this point, he has been impressed with how both candidates vying to replace retired starter Austin Blythe have hit the ground running and building chemistry with each of them remains a top priority over the next several weeks.

"Both those guys are incredibly smart. They picked up the offense very, very quickly," Haynes said. "Evan's been in the league for a while and Olu's been a couple places in college. It's kind of different systems, they kind of pick up really fast. The main thing is just kind of working cohesion, working off games and double teams, and nailing the snap counts, because everybody's a little bit different, so you're gonna get the rhythm of that."

With camp just getting started, Haynes won't be resting on his laurels, as the Seahawks invested a fourth-round pick in LSU guard Anthony Bradford and down the line, the rookie likely will be given a chance to play with the first-team. On a one-year audition, he will have to maximize his reps to show he has what it takes to stick around beyond 2023 as a long-term starter.

But considering how far he has come in the aftermath of a disappointing first two seasons in Seattle, Haynes isn't going to shy away from competition. In fact, during OTAs and minicamp, he embraced a leadership role as one of the few returning veterans who has been in the system for the past two years learning from Dickerson, taking youngsters such as Bradford under his wing to help get them up to speed.

With much left to prove, a far more confident Haynes couldn't be more grateful to be back in the Pacific Northwest and while he will be fighting tooth and nail to secure his first starting job in the NFL, if anything has been evident over the first two days of camp, he will be battling for his position grinning from ear to ear.