Yes, that is Chris Spencer back at center for Seahawks
There were a lot of new things to see when the Seattle Seahawks opened their first mini-camp under Pete Carroll on Tuesday. But one old thing was very surprising.
Chris Spencer, who lost his starting job at center in the final weeks of the Jim Mora regime, was back in the middle of the Seahawks first-unit offensive line when the team ran through drills with new line coach Alex Gibbs.
There has been much conjecture whether Spencer would even be part of the Seahawks future with the new coaching staff making numerous changes already. But while much can still change between now and training camp in July, the former first-round draft choice appears again to be part of the plan.
While guard Rob Sims was traded to Detroit, Spencer remains with the team and has been flip-flopped back to his old spot, with Max Unger shifting back to right guard.
What gives?
"I'm a center," Spencer said after Tuesday's initial workout. "That's what I do. Unfortunately last year I broke my thumb and all the debacle with that. But I'm a center in this league. We had a talk about that and that's where I'm at."
Spencer said he expects that situation to stay the same going forward.
"We haven't talked about anything but center," he said.
Spencer, 28, has started the past four years after taking over for Robbie Tobeck. But with the line struggling last season and Spencer having trouble snapping the ball left-handed after breaking his right thumb, he was moved to right guard for the final three games.
The shift was seen as a demotion and the clearance for Unger to move permanently into the middle, but the new coaching staff appears to prefer the old format as it seeks the most athletic group of players for Gibbs' zone-blocking schemes.
"The first day he said, 'You can't play fat in this offense,'" Spencer said. "You've got to be able to run and go and get back to the huddle and run it again. Run the same track over and over again."
To that end, Spencer said he's in excellent shape this offseason with a chance to finally get healthy.
Two years ago he missed much of training camp following offseason shoulder and thumb surgeries. He then started 11 games in 2008 before going on injured reserve with a herniated disk.
He recovered from the back injury well enough to start 14 games last season, but struggled at times while playing with a cast on his broken right thumb.
"It feels real good to be back out there being smooth and not worrying about if this hurts or that hurts," Spencer said. "I'm feeling good. This has been a good offseason for me, where I can actually train and prevent some of these freakin' injuries that have been happening to me."
As for the Seahawks new blocking schemes with Gibbs?
"We've got a lot of different techniques," said Spencer. "He's a technician and he's on you. He's going to push you to make you better. It's been a good thing. The techniques are a lot different, but it's a good difference.
"We're almost in extreme zone (blocking) now," he said. "We're really getting to the sidelines. We used to run a lot of tight zones, but that's kind of taken a backseat to the wide zone plays."
While Spencer took a lot of criticism last year as part of the struggling line, he said he's happy to start fresh and isn't surprised he's still part of the Seahawks.
"I didn't really focus on all that," he said. "My focus was getting into the offseason and starting to train early. I wasn't even worried about that. I knew I could play football and being here or there was the least thing on my mind. Wherever I'm at, I know I can play football, so that's not a question.
"But I'm excited to be back here with a new coaching staff coming in. We had a really good talk about some things and I'm just excited to be back in Seattle. I love Seattle. I don't want to leave Seattle. I'm excited to be back in a new offense and working on new things and see where this thing carries."
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