Charles Cross profile: Why the Seattle Seahawks drafted the OT in the NFL Draft
With the 9th overall pick in the 1st round the Seattle Seahawks selected Charles Cross. Here’s what we know about the player.
Charles Cross' Strengths
A top-five offensive tackle recruit in a loaded 2019 class, Cross redshirted his first year on campus. Standing at 6’5” Cross weighs 310 pounds. Having seen action as a backup in just three games, he started 10 contests the year after, being named a Freshman All-SEC selection. This past season, he improved to first-team All-SEC starting all 12 regularly scheduled games before sitting out the Liberty Bowl.
Cross generally keeps defenders tight to his chest in the run game. He does a good job of rolling his hips into contact and walling off bodies to deny them pursuit angles. He shows intelligence with his angles and his approach off the snap and is good at keeping the backside D-end from chasing. Scoop-blocking B-gap defenders is almost effortless to him most of the time, as he puts his body in the way and keeps them trapped on the backside with no path to flow with wide zone runs. On plenty of occasions, he would show those guys his backside as if he was trying to post them up in basketball. He can also pin edge defenders inside sufficiently by getting his outside hand underneath the far arm-pit, denying them the ability to work over the top.
Cross displays light feet when transitioning off combos and working up to the second level, where he has no issues with breaking down in space and attaching to bodies. Watching him fly around the field on screen passes is a joy to watch.
What has NFL scouts really excited about Cross, however, is how truly graceful his movement in pass-protection is. He made massive improvements in that area this past season, as he allowed just two sacks and 14 additional hurries on an absurdly high 719 pass-blocking snaps.
He displays good rhythm and patience in his sets, with the naturally athletic feet to kind of stay neutral against hesitant moves or having to figure out where the rush is going. He lives by the fundamentals of “head back, hands up, get depth and stay square”, plus he swallows power with his hands to not prompt any lunging. You routinely see him push his man into the pile in the middle. Plus, even when the edge rusher gains half a step on him, he has the long arms to make that guy overrun the loop.
Despite being two-and-a-half inches shorter than Evan Neal for example, his arms are half an inch longer (34.5 inches) and his hands are just a quarter of an inch short of hitting 11 inches. He uses that length extremely well when defenders do get their hands inside his chest and he’s able to take steam off them by lifting them up at their shoulder-pads. He grabs a lot of cloth with those hands, without getting called for it.
This guy has an absurd ability to recover, the few times is caught totally on the wrong foot and can redirect laterally to save himself and the quarterback. Cross beautifully transitions on twists, where his feet are already in position to pick up the looper, whilst passing on the first guy.
He feels so confident in himself that he can shuffle over to his guard initially if the picture is muddy, yet still get in front of whoever’s coming off the edge with incredible hip mobility. Cross does not panic when having to pick off nickels rushing off the edge, has the footwork to cut off angles and push that defender past the quarterback.
Charles Cross' Weaknesses
The one bad thing that stands out about Cross is that he’s just not the quickest off the ball, plus then he can get caught oversetting to the outside in the process.
He needs to develop when facing guys with speed that don’t bring their hands prematurely. To actively widen the arc at times, instead of waiting on them. In the run game, he’s more somebody who you want riding guys on zone plays, rather than creating movement at the point of attack.
If you ask want your tackles to blow D-linemen off the ball on gap schemes, this is not your man. Cross was beaten multiple times by Ole Miss’ Sam Williams in their 2021 in-state rivalry game. He did this by showing speed first and then attacking the inside shoulder to open up that direct path for himself. This occurred before Cross could set his base, plus then jabbing inside and going around off that. As much as Mississippi State threw the ball, a lot of those snaps don’t qualify as “true pass-sets” according to PFF because of all the RPOs. This also affected his experience in the run game, where almost all of it was basic zone concepts.
Conclusion
Cross was above the 90th percentile in the two most important testing numbers for a tackle, a 4.95 in the 40 and a 9’4” broad jump. He has plenty of experience taking pass-sets over the last two years, even though a hefty portion of them weren’t true vertical sets. He kept his quarterback very clean this past season. If you go out on Sundays expecting Cross to move people against their way in the run game, you’ll be disappointed. If you need a left tackle who can be top-tier pass-protector from day one, I don’t believe there’s a name who can do it at a higher level than him.
In Cross the Seahawks have a very dependable player.
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