Grey Zabel on His Journey To Seattle & Learning in his #Seahawks Rookie Season | Hawk Live

Grey Zabel on His Journey To Seattle & Learning in his #Seahawks Rookie Season | Hawk Live

Let’s go. First one of the year. You’re listening to Hawks Live presented by the Dining District at the Bellev Collection. The show is at 7 every Thursday right here on Seattle Sports 710 broadcasting live from Bellev Square Center Court. I’m Michael Bump is with my guy Paul Moyer. We’re about seven, eight years deep into this thing. But it ain’t about us right now. You guys are in for a treat. This young man sitting next to me is from Pierre, South Dakota. He played football, basketball, and baseball. uh his team hat was 31 and5 and won three straight state championships. Then he goes to North Dakota State. Two-time NCAA Division 1 FCS national champion drafted by the Seahawks, number 18 overall in the first round, the highest drafted lineman in FCS history. Highest drafted guard in the Seahawks franchise since 2001. Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for Seahawks offensive lineman Gray Zable. Great man. We’re happy to have you. It was um I’ve never been more excited for the Hawks to drive an offensive lineman in my life. I I saw your name pop up on the screen and I was extremely excited. Um you guys played other than quarterback the most important position um on the football field. What was that day like for you? Did you feel like the Hawks were going to take a a stab at you or or did you feel you go somewhere else? Man, I I I really didn’t know where I was going to go. I mean, I I interviewed down at CEO Senior Bowl with um John Schneider and then Steve Hutchinson was there as well. So, um that’s mainly the most I talked to them and then had a interview with him at the combine and then after that it was kind of um blank space out there for a while and then here’s a phone call from Renton Washington that completely changed my life. So, I’m so happy to be here and excited for the season. Did you recognize the area code or were you trying to you were guessing when when you got the call? No, the No, it popped up and it said like Renton, Washington right underneath the phone number and I was like, “All right, this is sweet.” There we go. So, you knew where Renton was? Yep. That That’s pretty good. Renton, no one knew where that was 20, 30 years ago. Now, it’s become quite quite the place. Steve Hutchinson, uh I remember 2001. I think that’s when they drafted Steve. And I remember watching him on film and I go, “Oh my god, this is the steel of the draft.” A lot of people saying the same thing about you. But something in common there. You’re wearing Steve’s number. he’s, you know, Hall of Famer. The rumor is you had to give him a a call and maybe ask for permission to use his number. Is that true? Yeah. When he was uh when I showed up on that draft weekend, they brought me in um after they drafted me. I was like thinking about they asked what number I wanted to be and stuff and I was sitting there thinking and EK uh one of Hutch’s best friends was like, “I think you should wear number 76.” Like that’d be sweet. And I sat there and thought for about a minute or two and I was like, “Yeah, I’m going to have to ask if that’s all right.” And uh Hutch gave me his blessings. So now I got some big shoes to fill playing in that number. You You do. He’s He’s one of the best guards I’ve I’ve ever seen. Athletic. And we we try to talk too much about our past, but when I played, offensive linemen were not athletes. I mean, they were they were chunky, right? I mean, they were they were heavy. They they covered space. You 36 12 inch vertical leap. The third highest vertical leap in combine history for offensive linemen. First of all, is that true? 36 and a half. Yep. But don’t watch the video. Is uh I biffed it pretty bad after when I was coming down after the jump. So, um 36 and a half. Yeah. Well, that that’s still pretty impressive. Which means you were an athlete and as he mentioned, you were a three sport athlete. Rumor has it again, you were quite the baseball player throwing 90 plus miles an hour. What What sport before this all transpired to become a Seahawk coming out of high school? Where did you really think you were going to be? Man, I thought I I truly thought I was going to go play in the MLB. Um I thought I was going to take the baseball route and then COVID happened and the draft shrunk down to five rounds and decided, all right, let’s go play football at North Dakota State and have some fun and enjoy that. So, watching you, the thing that stood out to me the most when I was watching you at the Singer Bowl was, well, a lot of things, but I’m looking at the way you moved in space on the screens and uh the screen has been just horrendous for us here in Seattle. So, I got excited, but it also had me thinking, you might have been a little guy at some point in your life. Have you always just been the bigger dude? Because the way that you move makes me believe that maybe you weren’t always the biggest guy on the field or the court. Yeah, I was uh I wouldn’t say little, but like I was skinnier at some point in my life, and man, those were the days. Um, but I would say I went to college and I was like 6’4, 235 lbs. So, um, I was kind of a little bit slender and I mean I’m going to hold on to the glory days. I played quarterback till I was an eighth grader and then they’re like, “Uh, yeah, you’re putting your hand in the dirt.” Um, that was tough pill to swallow, but um, yeah. No, and then I kind of kind of grew up a little bit in college. And this isn’t on accident. You come from a family full of athletes. Tell me about that and what that competition was like in your household. Yeah, I would say the most athletic Zable has to be my mom. um she played uh basketball and ran track in college and then um my dad played football um in college as well. And then my older brother is probably one of the most athletic guys I’ve ever met in my entire life. Uh he probably doesn’t look like it now, but he was he was tremendous. So always kind of living in his shadow just a little bit. Kind of drove the competitive spirit of being the best player I could be. And then my younger brother kind of got beat up on. So he’s uh he’s still extremely competitive as well. And he’s super athletic, too. Yeah. Well, you grow up in South Dakota. Um, you’re a great athlete in high school. You win state championship. You got baseball, basketball, and for those who don’t know, North Dakota State is they’re they’re a powerhouse, a dynasty in FCS. Uh, lots of national championships, but how do you end up there? Yeah, I would say the the staff up there is one. Um, two was the the guy that toured me when I went up there for my visit was Cordell Wolson who now is plays for the Bengals um for the past three years. And then at the end of the visit they take you into their trophy room and their trophy room is stacked with national championships. At the time they had at the time they had seven or eight. They ended up winning their ninth that year or maybe their eighth. I don’t know. It’s a lot of championships. Um, but you see that and you want to be a part of that winning culture and I think that’s what kind of gravitated me towards there was like I want to go win and I want to compete and I want to be kind of the best player I could possibly be. Well, you had opportunities now. You you become a very good player at North Dakota State. You got the whole transfer portal thing and there’s there’s money to be had out there. You decide not to go. So, I’m going to ask two questions on that. One, tell us why. And two, they got to have some money there. I mean, there’s there’s some money in North Dakota, particularly oil money. So, just maybe that that whole experience, why you stayed and did did you get paid a little? Yeah. Uh, so I’ll start with question one. Um, big thing that kind of I thought of in the process of kind of do I stay, do I transfer was one, North Dakota State’s going to take you wherever you want to go. Um, and I truly believe that if that’s a job, if that’s anywhere in life, if that’s at the next level at the NFL, North Dakota State can do it. Um, and then I think back to who kind of believed in me from the start. I mean, North Dakota State was my first offer. I was 6’4, 220 lbs. And um, and they believed in me. They thought I could develop into an offensive lineman that was big in athletics. And I won’t name the schools, but out of high school there was three FBS schools that said no way and they don’t think I was going to get big enough. And so they kind of turned me down. And then come full circle um four years later two of those schools are calling me trying to get me to transfer. And so I just thought, man, for somebody to take a chance on me, um why not stay and finish it out with the guys that I’ve been around the past four years and finish it out on top and go out the right way, which we did. Um, and then two, uh, I want to say they gave me like eight grand in NIL money to stay, but as a college kid, eight grand a lot of money. Long lot of money. But I didn’t even get to see it cuz it all just went straight towards my farming operation. So, it was like I didn’t see any of the money. So, stayed poor in college. Eight grand. I went to Washington State. Eight grand in Pullman. I would have been rich. You couldn’t tell me nothing. Oh, but you said it went to uh your your farming situation. And we were trying to figure out all right you leased what over 200 acres uh worth of land. Uh tell me about that and is that part of your family? Like how did you get into something like that? Yep. Uh 243 acres this year all soybeans. So um it’s kind of been my first passion truly growing up always going up to the farm working on it with my grandpa and then uh my dad kind of got into farming in 2011 I believe. Um, and so just kind of developing that passion of maybe this is something I want to do when I grow up and something I want to do for the rest of my life. And then um having the opportunity two years ago now um to take a chance and go farm and thankfully I have an unbelievable support staff of my mom and dad that kind of encouraged me to do something. I take a risk and so I started farming on my own. How did you how did you learn about it? Did you educate yourself? Is it something that you just picked it from grandpa? Are you studying books, YouTube? Like, how do you perfect your your soybean uh farm? Yeah, I would say all the above. Um, I went to college. I was an egg business major. Um, and then just learning from my grandpa, from my dad, still learning every single day. And um kind of our farm, Northland Farms, I always say like anybody that steps on my farm has to be smarter than I am because I want to learn something from them and learn as much as I can. I think that’s half the battle both farming and football. This is more of a maybe a statement, but it’s a question. You can buy 243 acres with eight grand. No, Jason. That gets you acre acre and a half maybe. No. Jeez. Talk a little football. I was talking with you before you came on and uh you know look you and Jaylen Sundell and you know we’re about to get Charles Cross that we didn’t really get to see in preseason but it looked like you two have been playing together for a long time. Um just talk about that because that’s what you’re going to be that left side. You got your center. You got your your your tackle that they picked up his option. He’s going to be around for a while it looks like. Just talk about that chemistry and how it came together so quickly. Yeah. First shout out, A Lucas. Huge contract today. Let’s go. Huge. Great players getting paid. Love to see that. Let’s go. Um, so three more years here. That’s exciting. Um, and then back to your point, Jaylen and I have just have grown a connection to where like I think he corrects me, I correct him. Uh, it’s one of those deals where and then you play football. You play a game of football and it’s like you don’t even have to talk because you know what he’s going to do. you know, how he’s going to set up this block or how much he’s going to give you on a block or how much help he’s going to be there for. So, I think just playing with a guy like that in my first year is super important. And then obviously Charles didn’t get to see him much um preseason, but just the bond that we’ve created and OTAA’s um training camp and then moving forward into the season is one of those same exact way. I mean, I I know what he’s going to do. He knows what I’m going to do. And we we have a lot of fun playing out there together. You don’t get drafted top 20 on accident. Clearly, you can play some ball. But one of the questions coming in were people saying, “Well, how is he going to acclimate to just tougher competition? You go to the Senior Bowl, you do your thing. I know you haven’t played in a uh official NFL game yet, but you got some preseason work in. What did that competition feel like to you?” Yeah, it was there was a lot of ups and downs. I mean, if you see the first play of my NFL career, got blown up. More of a bull rush. Caught you off guard. Yeah, it was uh Yeah, it caught me. Yeah, caught me off guard. But there’s going to be so many learning experiences and I know it’s it might be a rocky road here and there and it might be tough, but you obviously want your growth being in kind of an upward trajection and getting better every single day. And um we’re talking on the way here, I mean, it’s got to be wins or learning experiences. There’s no such thing as losses in this first year because you’re going to learn from every single time you lose or you might not do your best. So, I think taking that mindset and being able to adapt on the fly and understand that this game is is a is pretty crucial that you can able to learn from every single play is going to be super important. Just to let you guys know, he adjusted on that first play and he writed it. But it was funny because I go, okay, he that’s the speed of that game of strength. We got a bow up now. And you’ve you had a great preseason, man. We we can’t wait to see what happens on Sunday cuz uh I don’t know if we’ve been this excited about an offensive line since about 2013 and we won the Super Bowl that year. So that’d be good. All right, guys. Give it up one more time for Greg. Greg, we appreciate you, man. Absolutely. He’s got lineman dinner to get to. All right. We got to make sure he gets

#Seahawks rookie OL #76 Grey Zabel makes his debut appearance on the FIRST Hawks Live of 2025 ahead of Seattle’s season opener vs San Francisco. The Seahawks first round pick joins former Seahawks Michael Bumpus & Paul Moyer before week 1 of the NFL season seeing the #SeattleSeahawks taking on the 49ers.

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0:00 – Intro
1:01 – Grey’s Draft Day Story
2:10 – Growing up a Muli-sport athlete in an Athletic Family
5:28 – Playing at North Dakota State
8:32 – Grey’s passion for farming
10:15 – Chemistry on the O-Line
11:38 – Learning as a Rookie

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“Hawks Live” is a weekly show dedicated to all things Seahawks that airs on Seattle Sports (710 AM) and SeattleSports.com and is hosted by Seahawks broadcasters and former players Michael Bumpus and Paul Moyer live from The Bellevue Square Center Court in Bellevue, WA on select Thursdays from 7-9p.m. during the NFL season.

Hawks Live is presented by The Bellevue Collection.

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Hawks Live presented by The Bellevue Collection