Seahawks, Pete Carroll overdue to take a long, press cornerback in this week’s NFL draft
They’ve become as synonymous with the Seahawks as blue and green.
Tall, long cornerbacks. The Pete Carroll prototype.
Seattle’s veteran coach, a former college and pro defensive backs coach and old college DB himself, has in his 11 years running the franchise drafted nine cornerbacks. All nine have had arms at least 32 inches long.
The most famous, of course, is Richard Sherman. The supposedly too-slow, too-stiff cornerback from Stanford has 32-inch arms and is 6 feet 2 1/2 inches tall. The Seahawks traded three times before they selected the supposed “project” in the fifth of seven rounds in the 2011 NFL draft.
That worked.
The brash, dominant Sherman became a charter member of the Seahawks’ “Legion of Boom” secondary he named. He became a three-time All-Pro. He was a four-time Pro Bowl selection. He became a Super Bowl champion and earned $47 million in Seattle from 2011 through 2017.
The Seahawks made Shaquill Griffin (arm length measured at the NFL combine: 32 3/8 inches) their highest-drafted cornerback of the Carroll-Schneider era, in the third round. Sherman made Griffin his understudy. It took about two hours of his first day in the Seahawks’ team facility in Renton for Griffin to love Sherman.
Sherman taught Griffin the intricacies of Carroll’s unique step-kick technique of challenging then running with receivers by pressing them on the line of scrimmage immediately upon the snap of the ball.
That was in 2017.
Carroll, general manager John Schneider and the Seahawks enter Thursday’s first round of the 2021 NFL draft having drafted zero college cornerbacks since Griffin.
They selected Tre Flowers as one of their multiple fifth-round picks in 2018. But Flowers was exclusively a safety at Oklahoma State. Carroll immediately converted the 6-3 1/4, very long-armed (33 7/8 inches) Flowers to cornerback, specifically because of his length. Flowers started at cornerback in 2018 through the 2019 season.
Then Carroll and Schneider traded with Washington in the spring of 2020 to get Quinton Dunbar. Dunbar’s arm length: 32 1/2 inches; yes, they even trade for the long arms. Dunbar started with Griffin, until a season-ending knee injury late last fall.
Now Griffin and Dunbar are gone, in free agency to Jacksonville and Detroit, respectively.
These four years since Griffin are the longest Carroll and Schneider have gone between drafting college cornerbacks since they arrived to run the Seahawks more than 11 years ago.
So far this offseason the Seahawks have signed free agent Ahkello Witherspoon (one year, $4 million), a 33-inch arm cornerback from San Francisco, in free agency and re-signed former Packers starter cornerback Damarious Randall with the intent on moving him from safety back to cornerback. They still have D..J. Reed, who started at cornerback to finish last season.
Yet these Seahawks are (over)due to draft a cornerback.
One such as Benjamin St-Juste.
St-Juste was a prized recruit a few years ago out of Canada, to the University of Michigan. He had a season-ending hamstring injury, and the Michigan program announced he was retiring from football.
He didn’t. He transferred to Big Ten Conference-rival Minnesota, and he excelled. He was particularly strong in press coverage off the line. St-Juste showed with the Golden Gophers he could play press-man coverage or cover-three with a single safety in center field supporting behind him while he took away the outside. That’s Carroll’s preferred approach with Seattle’s secondary.
St-Juste (pronounced Saint Joost) is 6-3 and 200-plus pounds. He has 32-inch arms. So he fits the Carroll prototype in Seahawks cornerbacks.
The knock on St-Juste is he’s a tad slow. That’s the same knock so-called experts had on Sherman 10 years ago.
That and his injury and transfer history have St-Juste pegged by most to be available on the second or even third day of the draft, Friday and Saturday. That also fits Seattle. The Seahawks ‘ first pick is in round two on Friday, at 56th overall. They traded their first- and third-round choices for 2021 to the New York Jets last summer to add All-Pro safety Jamal Adams.
Because of that plus trades for Gabe Jackson last month, Carlos Dunlap in October and Stephen Sullivan last draft, Seattle has just three picks in this draft. That’s the fewest in team history, and fewest in the NFL since 2009 when the Jets had three—barring likely trades by Schneider again to gain more in later rounds.
The Seahawks have more needs than picks this year: cornerback, center, defensive tackle, third wide receiver, outside linebacker.
But they seem likely to use one choice on a cornerback. Carroll has had far more success drafting corners than signing veteran ones from other systems. He’s successfully taught Sherman, Flowers and Griffin his step-kick technique from scratch, from their first days in the NFL.
Before the 2015 season they signed free-agent Cary Williams from Philadelphia. Carroll tried to teach Williams his ways mid-stream in Williams’ NFL career.
It failed. Williams never did get the step-kick. He was thinking too much while playing. He lasted just 10 games of the 2015 season. The Seahawks cut him during that season. They paid him $7 million for just over half a season.
So they are likely to be back to drafting and home-growing a cornerback.
It’s also likely Schneider is going to try to trade back from 56th overall in the second round to gain more picks in rounds three through seven. If he does, Seattle still has tall, long options at cornerback.
Robert Rochell also fits Carroll’s prototype at corner. He’s 6 feet tall with 32-inch arms. He has speed: third in the 100 meters at the Louisiana state track meet while in high school. He was one of the few top prospects from the lower Football Championship Subdivision who played his last college season in the fall, at Central Arkansas, instead of this spring.
Central Arkansas used Rochell plenty in press coverage, so Carroll and the Seahawks have seem him in a scheme similar to what they’d want him to play for them.
Cornerbacks drafted by Pete Carroll for Seahawks
Year Round Player School Arm length
2010 4 Walter Thurmond Oregon 32 3/4 inches
2011 5 Richard Sherman Stanford 32”
2011 6 Byron Maxwell Clemson 33 1/2”
2012 6 Jeremy Lane NW Louisiana 32 1/2”
2013 5 Tharold Simon LSU 32 3/4”
2014 6 Eric Pinkins San Diego St. 32 1/8”
2015 5 Tye Smith Towson 32”
2017 3 Shaquill Griffin Central Florida 32 3/8”
2018 5 Tre Flowers Oklahoma State 33 7/8”
This story was originally published April 25, 2021 at 6:42 AM.
