D.J. Reed, draft pick Tre Brown change Pete Carroll’s mind on long cornerbacks--sort of
What’s this, Pete Carroll—the supposedly stuck-in-the-leather-helmet-era football dinosaur—actually changing?
Fans, devotees to new-wave analytics and probably your dog constantly rip the 70-year-old coach for stubbornly insisting to upon the antique idea of running the ball as the basis for Russell Wilson’s offense. Carroll infuriated those critics in January when he said “we need to run more” in Seattle in 2021. He’s hired Shane Waldron from the run-based Rams to be his first-time NFL offensive coordinator and play caller to do it.
So what’s this, with Carroll’s baby, his defense? Specifically, with what he knows best, defensive backs?
The former college safety, NFL defensive backs coach and defensive coordinator—the man who gave made tall, long Richard Sherman a superstar in Seattle—used one of the Seahawks’ three draft picks this year on shorter Oklahoma cornerback Tre Brown.
The 5-feet-9, 3/4-inch Brown is the first among the 10 cornerbacks Carroll’s selected in 12 Seahawks drafts that has arms shorter than 32 inches. Brown’s are more than an inch and a half shorter: 30 3/8 inches.
Sherman was famously 6-3 with 32-inch arms when Seattle drafted him a decade ago. He became the prototype for Seahawks cornerbacks, the hawking leader of the Legion of Boom and a $48 million Super Bowl champion for Carroll.
Since then, eeryone knows the Seahawks covet colossal cornerbacks.
“Yes, we would love to have big corners and all that. And we did, remember, when we got here,” Seahawks general manager John Schneider said.
Sherman. Byron Maxwell. Brandon Browner. Tre Flowers.
“But, you have to adjust to the times, too, and there is only a certain amount of players that you can pick from,” Schneider said of Seattle having just three draft choices this year, Brown being their second one, taken in the fourth round last weekend.
“And more about the person: This guy’s a true competitor. He’s on the upswing. He’s overcome a lot. Tulsa guy, he’s got a confidence about him and a competitiveness that we love and we treasure.”
Reed changed Carroll
Brown can thank D.J. Reed for being a Seahawk, for changing Carroll’s and Schneider’s thinking.
Reed was Seattle’s revelation the latter half of last season. The 49ers gave up on him for 2020 because of a torn pectoral muscle from the offseason. They tried to get him through waivers with an injury designation in August, hoping to put him on their injured-reserve list.
Carroll and Schneider claimed Reed for the Seahawks. They basically put him on layaway until November when he was healthy enough to play. The 24-year old had his first career interception in his first Seattle game, as a fifth, nickel defensive back in a blowout win over his former 49ers.
Reed was so impressively aggressive and determined, Carroll moved him outside—to where he usually only plays the guys taller than 6 feet. He made Reed Seattle’s starting cornerback in December, after Quinton Dunbar’s knee injury became season-ending.
Now Dunbar and fellow 2020 starter Shaquill Griffin are gone; they signed this offseason with Detroit and Jacksonville, respectively, in free agency. Reed will enter training camp in late July on the inside track to join recently signed free agent Ahkello Witherspoon as Seattle’s starting cornerbacks for 2021.
Witherspoon fits the Carroll mold. He’s 6-3 with 33-inch arms.
Reed is 5-9. Like Brown’s, Reed’s arms also are shorter than 32 inches.
Brown hasn’t even had his first Seahawks practice yet—that will come next weekend in the team’s rookie minicamp. But he already knows his likeness with Reed.
“I have actually been familiar with his play, him being at K-State and stuff like that,” Brown said. “I see that we have a lot of sort of similarities. ....We’re the same size.
“I’m very familiar with his play.”
For Carroll, this is indeed something of a shift in thinking at cornerback—thanks to Reed.
“You’ve already seen us. We’ve played with the tallest, longest guys you could play, and we’ve played with guys at the other end of the spectrum,” Carroll said. “D.J. showed really well. D.J.’s not the tallest guy in the world, but he’s a heck of a football player and he showed that he could find his way to get through it.
“Tre plays with great aggressiveness and attack and he’s always after the football. Very much like D.J. plays.
“So we’ll see how that works.”
Carroll emphasized he hasn’t completely flipped on loving long cornerbacks.
“Remember that we also, in free agency, we signed a guy who’s 6-3,” the coach said. “And Tre (Carroll converted Flowers from college safety) is over there 6-3, as well.
“We haven’t given up on any of our thoughts. We’re trying to find the guys that bring something special, that can play the game. They don’t have to be all the same.”
As if to prove a point, Carroll and the Seahawks returned to form this week. A few hours after they drafted Brown they signed cornerback Bryan Mills from North Carolina Central as one of their undrafted rookie free agents for 2021. Mills has, yes, 32-inch arms.
Thursday, the Seahawks claimed cornerback Saivion Smith off waivers from Dallas. He’s 6-1, 200 pounds. His arms are 33 1/4 inches long. Smith signed with LSU out of high school as a coveted recruit. He left there after one year and played for a junior college in Mississippi. He then played at Alabama and went undrafted in 2019. After playing in the XFL Smith had three tackles in six games for the Cowboys last season.
A crowded field
Smith is the 10th cornerback among the 85 players currently signed to the 90-man offseason roster. And most are bigger. Reed and Brown are the exceptions.
Seattle brought back veteran Pierre Desir (6-2) this offseason. Flowers, the team’s starter in 2018 and ‘19, is entering the final year of his contract. Former Washington Husky Jordan Miller (6-2) is on the roster. So are Reed, Brown, Witherspoon, Damarious Randall (5-11), Mills (6-1) and Gavin Heslop (6-0).
Only five or six of those 10 cornerbacks will make the team in September. The Seahawks guaranteed Witherspoon $4 million for this year to get him in free agency, so he’s staying. So is Reed and Brown. The coaches value Randall’s experience as an NFL starter, at cornerback with Green Bay from 2015-17 and at safety with Cleveland in 2018 and ‘19.
Flowers needs to re-prove himself to earn a spot, given his $2.1 million salary-cap charge and non-guaranteed salary for 2021. Reed passed him in the cornerback heirarchy by the end of last season.
Marquise Blair, listed as a safety, is returning from a season-ending knee injury last September to compete with Ugo Amadi to be the team’s nickel cornerback inside.
Brown’s being under 5-10 traditionally suggests inside, nickel back against slot receivers in Carroll’s scheme.
But, again, Reed has changed Carroll’s thinking. Plus, Brown said he stayed almost exclusively outside while at Oklahoma. And he was impressive doing it. He stayed with and in front of receivers to often break up plays in the pass-a-rama Big 12 Conference, where defense is mostly optional.
“He’s going to play outside and start there,” Carroll said of Brown, “and we’re going to see what he brings to the competition. He played outside throughout his years (at Oklahoma). ...
“We’re thinking of him as a corner to play outside. We didn’t draft him as a nickel, if that’s what you’re asking. We did not.”
This story was originally published May 7, 2021 at 12:28 PM with the headline "D.J. Reed, draft pick Tre Brown change Pete Carroll’s mind on long cornerbacks--sort of."
