Seahawks claim CB Jayson Stanley off waivers. Ex-WR. Ex-kick returner. With 33-inch arms
The Seahawks have another cornerback—and a potential special-teams players and kick returner.
The team claimed cornerback Jayson Stanley off NFL waivers from Jacksonville on Tuesday. He was an undrafted rookie free agent with Atlanta, Miami and the Jaguars last season.
He’s another former college wide receiver the Seahawks are trying at cornerback—and, perhaps, special teams.
Some guy named Richard Sherman did that pretty well for Seattle out of Stanford, playing in two Super Bowls, winning one and being named an All-Pro three times until the Seahawks sent him away to San Francisco following the 2017 season.
Stanley was a wide receiver and kickoff returner for Georgia through the 2018 college season. The Falcons, coached by former Seahawks defensive coordinator Dan Quinn, changed Stanley to cornerback last preseason.
Stanley fits coach Pete Carroll’s standard for size and length in cornerbacks: 6 feet 2 and 207 pounds with 33-inch arms.
Stanley fits in with Carroll’s desire to add competition for the starting cornerback job Tre Flowers struggled with last season. The Seahawks traded a fifth-round draft choice to Washington last month for that team’s starter at cornerback, Quinton Dunbar.
Dunbar is another former wide receiver at cornerback; Washington changed his position five years ago.
Dunbar, Flowers and now Stanley will compete opposite Pro Bowl cornerback Shaquill Griffin. Dunbar and Griffin both are entering the final years of their contracts.
Stanley also, potentially, fits Seattle’s want to reduce the workload for lead wide receiver Tyler Lockett. Lockett has been the team’s top kickoff returner for years, and made the Pro Bowl for doing that.
But that Pro Bowl for kick returning was in 2015, his rookie season. Kickoff returner isn’t so great for a veteran who has already had a broken leg in his Seahawks career and still has two seasons of his $31.8 million contract to play.
The Seahawks took a step last weekend toward reducing Lockett’s load in punt returner when they drafted Freddie Swain from Florida in the sixth round.
Stanley, who was not invited to the NFL combine in 2019, was known as a special-teams weapon for Georgia through 2018. In addition to returning kickoffs and being on that return team blocking, too, he was on the Bulldogs’ punt-return, punt and kickoff teams.
“(Georgia) Coach (Kirby) Smart installed that in my head,” Stanley told dawgnation.com in the spring of 2019. “Why not play all four special teams? Why not knock people’s heads off blocking and being physical?”
This story was originally published April 28, 2020 at 3:00 PM.
