Ted’s Talk: Predicting Sataoa Laumea’s rookie season

The Seattle Seahawks were back on the clock at No. 179 in the sixth round – a selection they acquired from the Washington Commanders in the Sam Howell trade – and they decided to bolster their offensive line depth with Sataoa Laumea from the University of Utah. Laumea played both guard and tackle in college and will likely fit best inside as he transitions to the NFL game.

Athletic Profile/Comps

Relative Athletic Score (RAS)

Mockdraftable

Laumea doesn’t have enough testing to get a value for RAS. His RAS comps aren’t thrilling either, so we’ll have to do a little extra work.

First, we’ll look at what Mockdraftable shows for comps. There’s a familiar name to Seahawks fans on there but what if we look at the comps for OL in general as opposed to strictly OG since Laumea played both at Utah?

Hey, there’s DK’s dad! He didn’t have enough measurements to qualify for a score either, so instead we’ll look at our old pal Rees Odhiambo, who somehow landed on IR with multiple broken and dislocated fingers on both hands after Seattle traded for Duane Brown during the 2017 season.

We have to do a little projecting here, but Odhiambo is probably a close athletic comp to Laumea at OG. What if we dig a bit deeper and look at RAS comps for Laumea at OT?

Weird, we just mentioned Duane Brown! He’s way too athletic though, so he’s not the name that stands out to me from this list – that honor would go to 2024 Seahawks free agent signee Tremayne Anchrum.

Anchrum moved to OG in the NFL which is the expectation for Laumea as well, so that’s how we’re comparing their RAS profiles. Laumea is quite a bit taller but the testing that he did complete slots in closely with Anchrum. Again, we’re projecting a bit with the rest of the testing, yet the Odhiambo RAS of 5.05 and Anchrum RAS of 5.44 could give us a decent approximation of the type of athlete that Laumea is coming out of Utah.

Gut reaction to the pick

Seattle investing in the trenches is always a good thing in my book. Laumea is another player that was rated higher than the sixth round in multiple outlets, so the pick is good value.

Laumea, like Seattle’s first addition to the OL Christian Haynes, had an impressive streak starting 44 consecutive games with two seasons each at RG and RT. He’s also very physical, just like Haynes.

Case in point.

Mike Macdonald talked about wanting to be a physical team in the trenches and Laumea should add to that. He also showed glimpses at the Senior Bowl of holding his own in pass protection.

Laumea had a good track record in college and a high enough skillset to more than justify his selection in the sixth round.

Rookie season prediction

It will likely be a challenging year for Laumea as he transitions back inside to guard, compounded with switching over to the left side which he didn’t play in college. Maybe he surprises everyone and impresses enough to compete for snaps at LG later in the season? At this point, I’m assuming that Laumea will get some special teams snaps and work his way up to the de facto 4th OG by the end of the season behind Haynes, Bradford and Tomlinson with the ability to back up both sides – similar to the role Phil Haynes had for a couple seasons. This is one of those picks that I just have a feeling about in the long term, however, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him take hold of the starting LG spot down the line, especially if Bradford stays on the right side to compete with Christian Haynes.