Seahawks starting center Connor Williams is retiring from the NFL due to personal reasons, coach Mike Macdonald announced on Friday.
Williams had started all nine games for Seattle this season and 86-of-92 regular season games for three teams across his seven-year NFL career. Originally drafted in the second round (No. 50 overall) by the Dallas Cowboys in 2018 out of the University of Texas, Williams suffered a torn ACL in December 2023 as a member of the Miami Dolphins.
The Seahawks, who are expected to place Williams on the reserve/retired list on Saturday, brought him along slowly after signing him in August and held him out of the preseason. Williams hasn’t had any known issues with his knee this year and Macdonald said the knee wasn’t a factor in the decision to retire.
Macdonald added that he was surprised by the retirement decision by Williams, who broached the idea this week.
“The situation is what it is,” Macdonald said. “You’ve just got to make the best of it and move on.”
The Seahawks signed Williams to a one-year deal during training camp and immediately made him their starting center over Olu Oluwatimi, a 2023 fifth-round draft pick. Williams was having an up-and-down year, most notably when it came to snapping the ball cleanly to quarterback Geno Smith. Williams and Smith were often not on the same page this season, resulting in botched snaps and other procedural issues across the offensive line. Macdonald and his staff considered moving Williams to guard during the bye week but ultimately decided against it.
“Moving a guy into a position like that, you may set him back further and instead of trying to continue to pour into the development piece, you’re kind of starting over and pushing rewind a little bit there,” offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb said Thursday.
Oluwatimi, who made one start as a rookie in 2023, will be Seattle’s No. 1 center the rest of the season, Macdonald said.
“He’s the guy who’s been knocking on the door for a while,” Macdonald said. “Obviously it’s an unforeseen circumstance that you’ve got to take on head-on, but the silver lining in the whole thing is that we get to see Olu go do his thing. This guy’s been working really hard, basically started at center for us the whole offseason until we signed Connor. We had a really good week of practice with Connor not here and onward we go.”
Seattle’s new backup center will be undrafted rookie Jalen Sundell, who has played only one offensive snap this season.
(Photo: Steph Chambers / Getty Images)
