Anthony Bradford has his hands \u2014 and arms \u2014 full.<\/p>\n
And it has nothing to do with all the criticism he gets from Seahawks fans.<\/p>\n
The big offensive lineman, the one Super Bowl-champion starter Pro Football Focus and many Pacific Northwestern folks love to hate, is walking down a row of VIP fans lined up along a white fence next just beyond the end zone of the team\u2019s lakeside practice field. Another training-camp practice has just ended. Bradford has taken off his helmet, his navy-blue, number-75 Seahawks jersey and his shoulder pads.<\/p>\n
In his large white paw, he had a black Sharpie pen. In his left arm and hand, the 6-foot-4, 335-plus-pound right guard has his 3-month-old daughter.<\/p>\n
Kashtyn was born this spring to Anthony and Nia Bradford, the Seahawk\u2019s wife. They were not college or high-school but grade-school sweethearts, back home in Muskegon, Michigan.<\/p>\n
Minutes before Dad was double-fisting daughter and autographs at the Virginia Mason Athletic Center, the young Bradford family was sitting on the grass in the end zone of the practice field. Bradford was playfully hoisting their tiny daughter on his massive shoulders. As Mom fiddled with the stroller, Dad was leaning back holding their baby above his chest.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s perfect. Facts,\u201d Bradford told The News Tribune on KJR-FM radio after hearing a description of that charming scene.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s opened up my mind, for sure,\u201d he said of becoming a father for the first time, soon after his 25th birthday. \u201cYou know what I\u2019m saying, taking care of another human being.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just, like, the love is different. It\u2019s like everyone else says: It\u2019s like nothing you can ever explain.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love it. Today was cool, you know what I\u2019m sayin\u2019? Morning practice. Fans out there. Then after, I got to get some grass time with my daughter.<\/p>\n
\u201cPretty cool, man.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bradford\u2019s proud smile was as wide as his chest.<\/p>\n
\u201cGrinnin\u2019 HARD!\u201d he said, laughing.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t be told until it\u2019s in front of you,\u201d he said of parenting. \u201cJust the crying, and just the good times, the bad times. It\u2019s a whole new world.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I\u2019m happy to be there. Happy to be there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yes, life is excellent, thank you, for the right guard some of you may have ridiculed with memes and more over his missed blocks posted online on social media the last couple Seahawks seasons.<\/p>\n
Pro Football Focus rated Bradford as the 70th-best guard among 81 rated across the league for 2025, and 76h in pass blocking.<\/p>\n
Seahawks coaches like Bradford protecting quarterback Sam Darnold a whole lot more than PFF and the couch experts do.<\/p>\n
Anthony Bradford, clear starter<\/p>\n
Bradford is beginning another season as Seattle\u2019s four-year starter at right guard. He\u2019s started 41 of a possible 45 games for the Seahawks in his NFL career. That\u2019s not counting the nine games he\u2019s missed to injuries over his first three seasons.<\/p>\n
When the team traded up this spring into the fifth round of the NFL draft to select Iowa All-American guard Beau Stephens, many saw the move and Stephens as instant competition for Bradford\u2019s job.<\/p>\n
But Stephens hasn\u2019t sniffed the second-team offense, let alone challenged Bradford\u2019s starting job, during any of the rookie\u2019s first NFL training camp. Christian Haynes is firmly the number-two right guard. The team\u2019s third-round pick in 2024 has failed in three chances to win Bradford\u2019s job, under three different Seahawks offensive line coaches.<\/p>\n
That leaves Bradford as the undisputed starter entering the final year of his rookie contract.<\/p>\n
Veteran line coach John Benton, Bradford\u2019s fourth line coach in five years counting back his college days at LSU, loves Bradford. Benton loves Bradford\u2019s size, his physicality and what many see as his surprising lateral speed to get across the line in Benton\u2019s outside-zone run-blocking scheme.<\/p>\n
Benton and head coach Mike Macdonald say, yes, Bradford misses some blocks. Almost all NFL offensive linemen do. But his number of productive plays, his rapid improvement in pass protection, his familiarity with the team and his linemates far outweigh the moments people post videos about on Twitter\/X or Instagram.<\/p>\n
Before last season began, Macdonald praised Bradford for \u201ctaking control of his career\u201d with better offseason training and preparation.<\/p>\n
After the Seahawks beat Arizona at home in early November, Macdonald said Bradford had one of his better games, and praised the guard\u2019s pass protection.<\/p>\n
A day after Seattle\u2019s blowout win at Atlanta early last December, Macdonald said: \u201cBradford was the team\u2019s highest-graded offensive lineman in Sunday\u2019s game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Benton, Macdonald and new offensive coordinator Brian Fleury love Bradford being a part of Seattle\u2019s rare continuity of all five starters returning from an even rarer Seahawks luxury last season: a not only functioning but effective offensive line.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an extremely rare situation to have all five starters returning, especially from a Super Bowl team. I\u2019m walking into a good situation,\u201d Fleury, the San Francisco 49ers\u2019 tight-ends coach the previous four seasons, said.<\/p>\n
Fleury is Bradford\u2019s seventh offensive coordinator in seven years, counting his final three seasons at LSU.<\/p>\n
A new Anthony Bradford contract? <\/p>\n
Fleury, Benton, general manager John Schneider and Macdonald have to decide by the end of this season whether to re-sign Bradford beyond 2026. The team spent up to $121 million to extend the contracts of left tackle Charles Cross and right tackle Abe Lucas before and during last season.<\/p>\n
Bradford told the TNT no one from the team has approached him or his agents, Marlon Moore and Neil Robinson of the AthElite Agency, about a new contract.<\/p>\n
But Bradford already knows what he wants.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey haven\u2019t approached me about a new deal, and I would love to stay, bro,\u201d Bradford said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was literally talking about this with my brother the other day. It\u2019s just like, it\u2019s nowhere else I would rather be, bro. I just feel like my heart and soul is in Seattle. I feel like I am a Seahawk. You know what I\u2019m saying? And if I can spend the next 10, 15 years here, I\u2019d sign that contract quick, bro.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, yeah, of course I want to be here. I love the fans. I love my teammates. Love the coaching staff that we got here, and I just love what we building here. And I wouldn\u2019t want to go and start nowhere else.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, yeah,\u201d Bradford said, \u201cplease.\u201d<\/p>\n
About those many critics?<\/p>\n
Oh, yeah, Bradford hears them.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know for people outside of the building, it\u2019s kind of hard for them to understand why I am in the place that I am. But people in the building and me myself understand why I\u2019m in the place I am,\u201d Bradford said. \u201cIt\u2019s because we all come here and work every day, and that\u2019s on my mind every day just to work, be where I\u2019m at, and do my job just so I can put myself in the best position that I can.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s funny to me. I ain\u2019t gonna lie to you, the first few videos that I ran across with people that showed me, I was like, \u2018Damn, like people really taking their time out of the day to like go do this to this for me?\u2019 I\u2019m like, \u2018Man, that\u2019s kind of (mess)ed up. But then I was like, \u2018Hey, it\u2019s kind of funny, to be honest. Give me a little different, like outside of \u2018Hey, I got beat on this. This is what I need to do.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s kind of like double film, you know? Double film.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bradford and center Jalen Sundell, the undrafted free agent find from 2024, are the only Seahawks starting offensive lineman not signed through at least 2028.<\/p>\n
Bradford\u2019s coaches don\u2019t sound eager to break up that continuity on a Seahawks offensive line that is finally, after a decade of struggles, playing well as a group.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we have a really great opportunity to take this thing to the next level,\u201d Macdonald said this week.<\/p>\n
Jadarian Price returns (sort of) <\/p>\n
The 16th practice of training camp Wednesday was a closed walk-through in bucket hats and t-shirts. Macdonald calls it an \u201cACT\u201d practice \u2014 for Alignment, Communication and Technique.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not a practice to do it fast, or intensely. It\u2019s do to it perfectly right.<\/p>\n
With that context, Jadarian Price walkthrough plays as the first-team tailback, after missing four in a row. Macdonald said his rookie first-round pick had \u201cupper-body soreness.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nick Emmanwori\u2019s latest <\/p>\n
Nick Emmanwori walked out to practice with his teammates. He was wearing court shoes and tossing a football as the dynamic, hybrid safety\/linebacker watched his guys on his first-team defense walk through their assignments for the hour.<\/p>\n
Emmanwori passed a team physical exam Tuesday. He can come off the physically-unable-to-perform list at any time the Seahawks\u2019 medical and training staff, and he, feels he\u2019s ready to practice for the first time in this camp. He had arthroscopic ankle surgery in July.<\/p>\n
The opening game is four weeks from Wednesday, Sept. 9 against New England in the NFL kick-off game at Lumen Field.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anthony Bradford has his hands \u2014 and arms \u2014 full. And it has nothing to do with all…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":972206,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2081],"tags":[7,6,238,237,261,2635],"class_list":["post-972205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-seattle-seahawks","tag-football","tag-nfl","tag-seahawks","tag-seattle","tag-seattle-seahawks","tag-seattleseahawks"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/117089237967036243","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/972205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=972205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/972205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/972206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=972205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=972205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=972205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}