When the Seattle Seahawks take on the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday afternoon, they will be without starting left tackle Duane Brown. Brown, of course, has been battling a biceps injury, along with some kind of knee ailment, for the majority of the season, but the Week 16 matchup will be only his third missed start of the year.
With Brown out, the assumption has been that George Fant would step in and start at left tackle, however, John Schneider was on the radio earlier on Sunday, and who the starter is could come as somewhat of a surprise.
Interesting --- John Schneider hints on pre-game radio show that Jamarco Jones will start at left tackle. Says "we'll see how it goes.'' Team may prefer to keep Fant in his usual role.
— Bob Condotta (@bcondotta) December 22, 2019
There could be any of a number of reasons why the team could go this route. Jones has shown some promise on the inside as a guard, but he has the natural length of a tackle. Thus, it might be an opportunity to see what Jones has to show at tackle. He has zero snaps of experience playing tackle in the NFL, outside of a few dozen preseason snaps, and this opportunity could mean more to George Fant or Germain Ifedi than Jones.
If Jones has a stellar day against the Cardinals, it could lessen the pressure on the Hawks to work on a contract extension for either Fant or Ifedi, while giving the team the faith to continue to develop Jones as a tackle of the future. On the flip side, a disaster of a day could possibly contribute to a contract extension for either Fant or Ifedi in the coming weeks.
In any case, it’s a big surprise to see this less than an hour before the game starts, but it’s certainly something to be keeping an eye on during the game to see how Jones is able to handle NFL caliber edge rushers, including Chandler Jones, who leads the NFL in sacks since 2016.