RENTON — The Seahawks competition to start at center just got hotter.
Seattle and free agent Connor Williams agreed on a one-year contract as confirmed Tuesday evening online by agent Drew Rosenhaus with Ryan Matha. The deal is worth up to $6 million, according to ESPN.
Williams, 27, has started the last two seasons for the Miami Dolphins at center. He tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee in December. He visited the Seahawks at their team headquarters late last month.
The team obviously felt good enough about Williams’ recovery from reconstructive surgery in less than nine months to sign him for this season.
Williams started at left guard his first four years in the NFL, for Dallas. The Cowboys drafted him in the second round in 2018, out of Texas.
After that visit Seattle coach Mike Macdonald said if his team signed Williams, it would be to play center.
That’s where Olu Oluwatimi, a Seahawks’ 2023 fifth-round draft choice, had been starting in spring offseason practices and to begin training camp. In practices Monday and Tuesday, for the first times, former University of Washington center Nick Harris rotated with Oluwatimi on the starting offense.
Asked about the situation at center for his team Monday, Macdonald said, “It’s open.”
It’s more open now with Williams arriving.
Oluwatimi and Harris alternated with the starting offense again Tuesday. Harris also has played guard in his four-year NFL career for the Browns. He was an All-Pac-12 center for the Huskies. His college line coach was Scott Huff, now the Seahawks’ new offensive line coach.
Oluwatimi has three years remaining on his rookie contract. The youngest of six children of Nigerian immigrants was the Outland Award winning for college football’s best interior lineman and the Rimington Award winner for the best center in college two seasons ago at the University of Michigan.
Before Williams’ deal with Seattle became known Tuesday, Seahawks offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb said of the competition at center between Oluwatimi and Harris: “It’s exactly what you want: two high-operating guys in a battle for one of the most important positions on the offense. And we want that. We want high-level competition.”
And now with Williams arriving from Miami, it’s three high-operating guys, in a higher-level competition.
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