Closer look: New Seahawks guard Oday Aboushi

While they met with a much more high-profile offensive lineman on Friday, the Seattle Seahawks also signed free agent guard Oday Aboushi, adding competition at a position of great need and inquisition. What sort of player are they getting with Aboushi and how good are his chances of pushing either Mark Glowinski or Germain Ifedi off of the 2016 starting jobs?

Aboushi, 25, was a fifth round pick by the New York Jets in 2013 out of Virginia. At the combine he came in at 6’5, 308 lbs, 33.8” arms, ran a 5.45, did 17 reps on the bench, had an 8’4” broad, and a 23.5” vertical leap. As a draft prospect, Aboushi probably wouldn’t be at the top of the Seahawks list. Of course, they passed on him several times, including taking Jesse Williams and Tharold Simon back-to-back just three picks ahead of Aboushi. But as a free agent, there’s good reason for them to sign Aboushi to a one-year deal.

The first being that he was available and cheap. He also has 18 games of starting experience, all at guard. The bad news is that the Jets released him after only two seasons, after they had signed former Seattle guard James Carpenter to take his job. The Seahawks didn’t want to pay Carpenter, the Jets didn’t want to stick with Aboushi, and now Seattle is taking Aboushi to compete at guard a couple years later. Interesting how that works. At the time, ProFootballFocus spoke highly of his run blocking while they were negative about his pass blocking. Sounds about right for the Seahawks.

The blog Turn On The Jets did a breakdown of Aboushi’s college film in 2013, noting that he was very bad against speed rushers and that he’d be a long-term project for New York. The project turned out to be too big for them to handle and Aboushi spent the last two seasons with the Houston Texans, appearing in 11 games with eight starts, including three last year.

At the moment, it looks like he will compete with Glowinski, Ifedi, Rees Odhiambo, and perhaps Luke Joeckel at the guard spots. They also have futures contract signee Robert Myers. There will definitely be more offensive linemen added to the mix, whether it’s Clady, later signees, draftees, and undrafted free agents. Aboushi looks to be a longshot to start and perhaps has some road to climb in order to make the final roster, but these things change rapidly under Pete Carroll.