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Danny O'Neil covers the Seahawks for The Seattle Times.

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July 23, 2008 8:27 PM

Position paper: Linebacker

Training camp is days away, but we'll get a running start by offering a rough sketch of the roster and how it breaks down position by position.

Let's start in the middle. In the middle of the defense that is, looking at the unit that was considered the weak point of the defense when Tim Ruskell took over as president in 2005 and is now a strength with a pair of Pro Bowlers in Julian Peterson and Lofa Tatupu and then there's Leroy Hill, a player whom some consider to be one of the more overlooked stars in the league.

The Seahawks have nine linebackers curently on the roster for training camp. Here's a breakdown with seasons of NFL experience listed in parentheses:

Returning players		New players

Lofa Tatupu (3)		Wesly Mallard (5)

Julian Peterson (8)		D.D. Lewis (6)

Leroy Hill (3)		Matt Costelo (R)

Lance Laury (2)		David Hawthorne (R)

Will Herring (1)

Now, here's a quick sketch of the roster history over the past six seasons, which shows that Seattle generally has seven linebackers on its final 53-man roster. That means there are four players competing for a total of two spots on the 53-man roster.

2007	2006	2005

7	7	7

Lofa Tatupu	Lofa Tatupu	Lofa Tatupu

Julian Peterson	Julian Peterson	Jamie Sharper

Leroy Hill	Leroy Hill	D.D. Lewis

Kevin Bentley	Kevin Bentley	Leroy Hill

Niko Koutouvides	Niko Koutouvides	Niko Koutouvides

Lance Laury	Isaiah Kacyvenski	Kevin Bentley

Will Herring	D.D. Lewis	Isaiah Kacyvenski

2004	2003	2002

7	8	7

Orlando Huff	Anthony Simmons	Anthony Simmons

Isaiah Kacyvenski	Randall Godfrey	Isaiah Kacyvenski

Chad Brown	Chad Brown	Chad Brown

Niko Koutouvides	D.D. Lewis	Marcus Bell

Solomon Bates	Orlando Huff	Orlando Huff

Tracy White	Isaiah Kacyvenski	Tim Terry

Anthony Simmons	Tracy White	D.D. Lewis

	Solomon Bates

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Submit a comment

Posted by Corey Miller

12:29 AM, Jul 24, 2008

Well Danny I have officially abandoned the Mariners this year...unoffically it happened about the 3rd of May. I have the fantasy draft set for my league and am ready to start some football blogging.

Atleast I can make the switch when I want...you still have to cover for Geoff Baker...sad so sad.

Posted by Lonnie

9:24 AM, Jul 24, 2008

This will be my first football blog posting of the season and I can't think of a better place to start.

Of all the units on the Seahawks the linebacking crew are the least of my concerns, if they are a concern at all. Improvements on the defensive line will once again help out our undersized LB's and I see both Tatupu and Peterson getting probowl nods. The only way that either of them doesn't go to the probowl is if Hill finally gets the recognition he deserves and bumps on of the other two.

Let's Rock in '08!

Lonnie

Posted by Paul Tiller

12:25 PM, Jul 24, 2008

Danny O, the main reason we have always have a good amount of linebackers is because the Seahawks know how to use the back up linebackers to play special teams, and play special teams well. And now for the past 2 yrs (07, 08) and possibly many years to come, we will have a very good linebacker corp of guys. D.D. Lewis, in my mind could easily be a starter, but with Lofa, Julian, and Leroy leading the charge, he won't be a starter here in Seattle. But put him in special teams and BOOM, you've got a really good special teams player. Last year Herring was really good at special teams and this year could definitely be better.