D’Wayne Eskridge zooms, Tre Brown learns, German LB impresses in Seahawks rookie minicamp
Just like at the Senior Bowl a few months ago before the draft, D’Wayne Eskridge lined up against Tre Brown.
This time, they did it in the NFL— as the Seahawks’ top two draft choices.
At the snap Eskridge, the flying wide receiver from Western Michigan Seattle made its first pick last month, in round two, ran at Brown. The fourth-round choice from Oklahoma is in the first days of working on the details of coach Pete Carroll’s step-kick technique for cornerbacks against receivers off the line.
That’s too much thinking to stay with Eskridge.
The 5-foot-9 receiver with 4.3-second speed in the 40-yard dash veered right on a diagonal toward the near sideline. Brown’s step-kick became a desperate sprint-turn. Using noticeably long strides, like that of a sprinter half a foot taller, Eskridge zoomed past his defender into the clear down the right sideline. The passing water skiers and power boaters on Lake Washington bordering the sideline were nearly as close as Brown to covering Eskridge.
“Man, he’s quick,” Brown said later.
“He’s also strong. And he knows how to hold his line.”
Quarterback Danny Etling’s pass found the lonely Eskridge in stride 45 yards down the field.
“Oh, it’s great. Everybody’s competing out here,” Eskridge said, with a smile. “That’s what I did in college, so it’s great to be able to come out here and do the same things.”
His sprint past Brown, drafted because the Seahawks lost 2020 starting cornerbacks Shaquill Griffin and Quinton Dunbar in free agency this offseason, got the attention of Seattle’s 70-year-old coach, who can’t get enough speed at wide receiver.
Carroll and general manager John Schneider made Eskridge their first draft choice this year to address Seattle’s vacancy at third wide receiver behind DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett.
This weekend, the Seahawks looked on their way to successfully solving that issue.
“There’s no question that he’s a flyer,” Carroll said. “He showed it right out of the shoots (from the first practice Friday).
“He’s a very powerful guy. He’s about 191-192 pounds, but he’s built really strong and built really solid. You an see the explosiveness. He gets off of the line of scrimmage really quickly and certainly has the burst.
“That was really fun to see with what we were hoping to see. So we’re pleased with the first showing.”
The Seahawks are learning there’s more to Eskridge than just speed.
He was the Indiana high school track and field athlete of the year running the 100 and 200 meters and long jumping while also a football running back and safety in what he calls “little ol’” Bluffton. Western Michigan coach P.J. Fleck recruited him to Kalamazoo.
Fleck moved Eskridge to wide receiver. He shined there as a freshman for a 12-0 Western Michigan team that played Wisconsin in the Cotton Bowl.
But Eskridge’s football world got rocked after that season when Fleck left to become the head coach at Minnesota. Tim Lester took over at Western Michigan. Entering the 2019 season, Lester moved Eskridge from receiver to cornerback. Seattle’s Schneider took particular notice of Eskridge as a true senior breaking up passes and slamming Big Ten ball carriers in a game at Michigan State.
Four games into that 2019 season Eskridge broke his collarbone. He thought his college career was over. Yet he applied for a medical-redshirt season and played that final college year healthy last fall.
He was actually far more than healthy. He led the Football Bowl Subdivision with a whopping 213 all-purpose yards per game last season. That was 17 yards more per game than any other major-college player in 2020.
That injury and his long recovery continues to fuel Eskridge. As if he needed fuel running past Seahawks all over the field this past weekend.
Asked what stood out to him from Eskridge’s first practices as a Seahawks, Carroll said: “Probably more than anything, his attitude.”
“He has a chip on his shoulder,” Carroll said. “He’s going to prove that he belongs. That’s probably as valuable as anything he could have to bring to our club.
“He’s talented. You can see already that he’s quick and explosive. He caught the ball well also. He’s got good, strong hands. He’s made nothing but good impressions so far.
“I’m really fired up about his attitude because he’s here to prove something and that always brings out the best in guys.”
Weekend observations
1. Stone Forsythe is bigger than advertised.
The 6-8(plus), 307-pound pass-blocking specialist from the University of Florida, for whom Seattle traded up to draft in the sixth round last month, played exclusively at left tackle all weekend.
Then again, there wasn’t a ton of competition for his spot. There were just 31 players in the rookie minicamp, by far the fewest in recent years. That’s the result of the Seahawks having a team record-low three draft choices this year. They signed 13 undrafted free agents. They had younger veterans such as position-switching 2019 second-round pick Darrell Taylor, wide receiver Cody Thompson and Etling in the camp.
Forsythe was the tallest player on the field. Fellow offensive tackle Greg Eiland, a rookie free agent from Forsythe’s Southeastern Conference-rival Mississippi State, was bigger at 6-8 and 321 pounds. But Forsythe appeared far more athletic and fit for the role of learning from veteran Pro Bowl left tackle Duane Brown this season in the final year of the 35-year-old Brown’s contract.
“He’s a monster of a man,” Carroll said of Forsythe.
2. Tre Brown more than held his own.
Just because he didn’t stay with Eskridge on that play Saturday or on a couple of other home-run routes this weekend doesn’t mean Brown struggled. He got extensive time with position coaches on fundamentals that have been decisive to the success—or, in the cases of veteran free agents Cary Williams and Dunbar, failures—of cornerbacks in Carroll’s system.
“Man, it was amazing, just being in the NFL,” Brown said.
“It was everything I’ve dreamt it to be.”
The 5-10 Brown, like 2020 late-season starter D.J. Reed (5-9), is not a prototypical, long, tall Carroll cornerback. He’s also been extensively taught in the inch-mirror-punch technique of walling off receivers at the snap rather than turning and running while staying on top of receivers, as Carroll demands.
So technique is going to be huge for Brown. He worked extensively during position drills with defensive passing game coordinator Andre Curtis on the step-kick technique’s footwork of following receivers their way off the line.
“You’ve got to have repetition,” Brown said. “Me (at Oklahoma), I was pretty much an ‘inch-mirror-punch’ guy, knowing that I’ve also had the step-kick but I haven’t done that in a while.
“It’s all getting back to that and getting used to that and repping that, so I can perfect it.”
Curtis was with Brown for most of the weekend. He’s learning assignments as well as the technique.
A couple times, Brown dropped too deep in zone coverage, leaving the short outside wide open for easy completions and 10-yard gains for the offense. Curtis immediately walked up to Brown to instruct some more, with Brown holding his helmet with both hands.
3. The German linebacker is more than a foreign token.
Aaron Donkor worked most of the weekend with Taylor and assistant linebackers coach Aaron Curry on edge rushing, dropping into pass coverage and more.
Donkor is Seattle’s allocation this year in the NFL’s International Player Pathway program. The team has the option of keeping him all year on its practice squad without him counting toward roster limits. But if the Seahawks believe he could help in 2021 on special teams they can sign him to the active roster like any other free agent.
“My goal for this year is to make this team,” Donkor said in his German-accented English.
“I feel like I have a shot, just like every player on this team, at linebacker and special teams.”
The 6-1, 240-pound former European basketball player didn’t begin playing football until 2017, when a coach in Germany used a connection in the U.S. to get him a roster spot at a junior college, the New Mexico Military Institute. He played two seasons there then one at Arkansas State.
Donkor is fast, big and athletic.
Carroll digs fast, big and athletic.
Donkor’s experience has been on the line of scrimmage as an edge rusher, more like a rush defensive end. Seattle is trying him off the line as an outside linebacker, one of the team’s thinnest positions.
Asked if Donkor was a raw project, Carroll shook his head side to side.
“No, no. He looks very comfortable,” Carroll said. “He had a couple plays we showed on (team) highlights (Friday) just running and chasing the football. He looks like he fits in.
“It’s a good start.”
Slower tempo
The practices helmets and shorts were noticeably slower in tempo than rookie minicamps of previous years. Coaches—including new offensive coordinator Shane Waldron, carrying a walkie-talkie to talk into the helmet speaker of Etling, the camp’s only quarterback—took extra time to explain and teach between plays.
Some of that was because many positions had only one player at them. So coaches were giving guys rests between plays.
Once, a defensive lineman smacked into 209-pound running back Josh Johnson, the physical, undrafted free agent from Louisiana-Monroe. Carroll admonished the defensive line for going too aggressively for the intended tempo of the minicamp.
The bigger context is the league’s veteran players wanting to do less—and actually, nothing—on the field this offseason that isn’t mandatory. That is, nothing but one, three-day veteran minicamp in a final offseason training period into June. Teams around the league are trying to entire those veterans to OTAs by promising to conduct them as walk-throughs. Even in sandals instead of spikes, as in Miami with the Dolphins.
What did Carroll and his staff get from this lower-speed rookie minicamp practices?
“We get a ton out of it,” he said. “The tempo isn’t really important at this point. It’s getting reps. Before we came on the field we did a bunch of walk-through reps (indoors). These guys got to get a bunch of looks in plays. They just need the repetitions. They just need the turns, to start to put it together. If you can imagine, all the new language, it’s a heavy burden for them the first couple days. When they want to come out here and run around and show off a little bit, it’s hard. It slows you down.
Carroll said this weekend was just the start of the process of installing the playbook in the new guys.
“This is not time for us to make big evaluations, trying to gauge how it’s going to go and all that. At all,” Carroll said. “But, it’s the start. ...
“They have an introduction to what’s coming up next week.”
Waldron’s new system
The practices weren’t at all revealing or indicative of Waldron’s new offense.
Foremost, none of the players who will be running it this season were running it this weekend—chiefly, quarterback Russell Wilson.
Carroll said this about Waldron’s new offensive system he’s started installing via Zoom online with veteran players the last few weeks: “Very intricate, very precise...it’s beautifully thought out...I fell in love with what he was bringing.
“Our guys have to really work hard with the discipline to execute it in the right manner.”
What’s next
The rookies will stay through this week for team meetings and conditioning at the facility. They will merge into the remote playbook installation the veteran players started via Zoom calls with coaches weeks ago.
The veterans can join the rookies in Renton. But the Seahawks are one of about 20 teams that have said through the players’ union they won’t do anything this offseason that isn’t mandatory. That’s a remnant of the NFL not doing any offseason drills last year because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Phase three of the offseason workout program (May 24-June 18) remains four weeks and includes OTAs and the one, mandatory minicamp. Each team can have up to 10 days of OTAs on the field. No live contact is allowed, but 7-on-7, 9-on-7, and 11-on-11 drills are OK.
The league announced the Seahawks’ OTA dates as May 24, May 26-27, June 1, June 3-4, June 7-10. But the players have said they aren’t coming because OTAs are voluntary.
Carroll said the Seahawks have talked to veterans about possibly coming to OTAs eventually, perhaps with a changed mandatory minicamp.
The mandatory minicamp is scheduled to be June 15-17.
Training camp is scheduled to begin the last week of July.
This story was originally published May 16, 2021 at 1:04 PM.
