PALM BEACH, Fla.—John Schneider hears you.

The Seahawks general manager and president of football operations knows fans are clamoring for additions to the offensive line, a unit that battled inconsistent play and injuries last season.

So far, the only new offensive lineman added this offseason is Josh Jones, who projects to take over the swing tackle role previously held by George Fant and Stone Forsythe, but more additions will come in time. Schneider acknowledged that trades could be an option, particularly after the draft, then of course there is the draft itself, one considered to be strong when it comes to offensive linemen, giving the Seahawks several opportunities to add talent with their 10 picks, five of which are in the first three rounds.

The Seahawks have looked at several offensive line options, and could still sign a veteran free agent, but so far they haven't found the right fit.

"It probably won't be until after the draft that's a cap casualty guy or something like that," Schneider said when asked about adding a veteran lineman. "We brought several guys through, it just hasn't been a fit."

But while you wait for the Seahawks to add to their line, be it through the draft, free agency or a trade, another important factor to consider is that the Seahawks are expecting the current group of linemen already on the roster to benefit from the changes the Seahawks have made to their offensive coaching staff.

New offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak is bringing with him to Seattle the West Coast scheme made famous by Mike Shanahan, then later his son, Kyle, and other Shanahan-tree coaches around the NFL, and it's a scheme that, in a lot of ways, makes life easier on offensive linemen than what the Seahawks were doing a year ago. Most notably, the wide zone run game puts linemen on the move, giving them a chance to dictate the tone rather than sit back and react. Elements of the passing game such as play-action and bootleg rollouts also will help linemen in pass protection.

"Zone stuff is coming off the ball and running, and anytime you can instill your will on someone else first, especially as an offensive lineman—instilling confidence in those guys in huge," Schneider said. "If you're sitting backed up and you're in shotgun and you're throwing the crud out of it, that doesn't help those guys' confidence. These guys are like, all right, we run off the ball, we establish the run game, all the boots, all the movement, everything moves off of that."

And it's not just the scheme that has the Seahawks confident in the line's ability to improve, there's also the factor of the new coaches that head coach Mike Macdonald and Kubiak are bringing to Seattle, in particular run game coordinator and senior advisor Rick Dennison and offensive line coach John Benton, who between them have 50 years of NFL coaching experience.

"It's pretty cool with this staff—there's a system, which is awesome, now here are the teachers," Schneider said. "These guys are all proven teachers. To see those guys assimilate as quickly as they did to working with the other coaches and our personnel staff and the whole operations group, it was awesome."

The cohesion on the offensive staff is just part of why Schneider feels like the team is well ahead of where it was at this time last year.

"Then we have that other year with the whole defensive staff, what Mike really focuses hard on as well spending as much time with the defense as he does," Schneider said. "We're so much further ahead in knowing what each one of those guys really wants in a pass-rusher or a linebacker. Guys were just getting settled last year, so it was really hard to be like, 'OK, we're going to trust this coach because he's coached that guy,' and we don't necessarily know that coach that well yet, and we're not all speaking the same language as well as we should be. So I think we're just much further ahead and able to compensate for some of those deficiencies quicker than we were last year. I'm excited about it."

Schneider was asked if the current scheme will better fit some of the young linemen on the roster, including 2024 draft picks Sataoa Laumea and Christian Haynes, and said being able to play in attack mode will help them.

"Yeah, totally, because they can force their will," he said. "They're both really aggressive dudes. They can both come off the ball, they both want to fight you, they want to get in a wrestling match. Especially with rookie offensive linemen, it's not great to just be sitting and catching all the time. You want to take the fight to the defense. It's exciting for those guys."

And the new offensive coaches are excited about the chance to work with some of Seattle's young linemen.

"I know everybody's like, 'You need offensive linemen,'' Schneider said. "Yeah, we do want to add to our offensive line—but it's cool to have those guys come in from the outside and be like, 'Shoot, I loved Christian coming out, I loved Taoa.' They like the guys."

Schneider added of Dennison and Benton, "Having those developers, having guys who have a consistent, proven offensive system where you can see how they've helped other players over the years where you're like, 'I didn't think that guy was going to be a starter in the National Football League, and now he is a starter, and he's thriving,' it instills confidence in the whole group of us that are evaluating… Truthfully there's probably only like six, seven, eight of those zone guys who are proven commodities still coaching in the league."

Schneider was also asked about center, where Olu Oluwatimi finished the season as the starter. The Seahawks are also excited about 2024 undrafted free agent signing Jalen Sundell, and with center not considered a particularly strong position in this year's draft, those two could well be battling for the starting job come August.

"You guys haven't really seen Jalen yet," Schneider said. "He came in and they played really well. He played several positions. The staff really likes him. He's smart, reliable, he's tough. That's going to be interesting. Those two guys, that's going to be pretty interesting there."