Learned, patient Tre Flowers jumps at perhaps last chance to start for Seahawks
Tre Flowers has learned.
He’s learned to not play rap music before 8 a.m.
“You can’t wake up to killin’ people all the time,” he said Tuesday.
The Seahawks’ fourth-year cornerback has also learned lessons from this time last year.
The 2020 Flowers was fueled by memories of what Aaron Rodgers and Davante Adams did against him in the NFC divisional playoffs two seasons ago. They completed four of six passes targeting Flowers specifically, for 86 yards. Both of Rodgers’ touchdown passes and the key first down late were at Flowers, coach Pete Carroll’s hand-picked starter at cornerback from week one of his rookie year.
Adams romped for 160 yards on eight receptions on that cold night in Wisconsin in January 2020.
It was coldest for Flowers.
He lost his starting job at the start of the 2020 season. That was after Seattle traded with Washington for Quinton Dunbar. Dunbar had chronic knee pain and eventually surgery. Flowers replaced him at right cornerback and played well—until he went on injured reserve in week 12 with a hamstring injury.
D.J. Reed took over at right cornerback. The 49ers castoff and Seahawks waiver pickup last season wowed coaches with his aggressiveness. Though Flowers returned off IR in week 17, Reed finished the season as the starter.
This spring, the Seahawks used one of their only three draft choices on a cornerback, Tre Brown from Oklahoma in round four. Reed was still starting at the beginning of training camp two weeks ago. Then last weekend he strained his groin in practice.
Reed missed the team’s mock-game scrimmage Sunday. He missed practice again on Tuesday.
This, right now, is Flowers’ time—again. Time to reclaim his old Seahawks job. And to time stake a claim for his future, in or away from Seattle.
This is the final year of his rookie contract.
So far, he’s taking full advantage of this latest—last?—opportunity. In practice last week he raced back and jumped with huge, fast wide receiver DK Metcalf. Flowers tipped Russell Wilson’s pass into the end zone away from Metcalf into the arms of safety Quandre Diggs for an acrobatic interception.
Tuesday, he did it again.
With Reed still recovering from his injury, Flowers again started opposite Akhello Witherspoon at cornerback. Wilson spun around and extended a play. Metcalf read that and broke off his shorter route into a sprint deep. Flowers came off the right sideline and zoomed after Metcalf while Wilson’s long pass looped to the end zone. Metcalf outjumped Diggs for the ball, but Flowers arrived just in time to knock the ball away as Metcalf was landing from his lead. Flowers celebrated that play by waving his arms across each other in a negating motion to signal the incomplete pass.
“He’s just come back fightin’, clawin’, scratchin’. He ain’t giving it up,” Carroll said following the 11th practice of training camp.
“There is no sign that he’s been pushing to be anything other than the best he’s ever been. And he’s looked like it. He’s looked the best he’s ever looked.”
Flowers said he’s come up with a new approach for this year—after his new approach last year.
“Just a full reset,” he said. “Letting all the years go before me. Not thinking about all the plays I’ve missed.
“Just trying to get better every day.”
What has the 6-foot-3 Flowers, now 26, learned in the three years since Carroll took him away from his college position of safety and made him Seattle’s latest prototypical, Richard Sherman-like tall, long cornerback as a rookie?
“Patience,” he said.
How long did it take him to learn that?
Flowers scoffed.
“Y’all saw it,” the native of Converse, Texas, said.
Flowers had promising moments in 2019, including the first three interceptions of his career. At times it was apparent why Carroll turned him into his latest long cornerback.
But at other times Flowers became a target, one opponents exploited.
Offenses generally avoided Pro Bowl cornerback Shaquill Griffin’s left side in 2019. Griffin was on the field for 633 coverage snaps that year. Quarterbacks targeted him only 70 times, on just 11% of all pass plays. They threw more at Flowers and in the middle of Seattle’s defense, particularly at a series of nickel backs the Seahawks tried that year. The Seahawks sank to 26th in the NFL in pass defense in 2019.
Then came the Seahawks’ playoff game in Green Bay in January 2020. Rodgers followed the league trend that night. He mostly stayed away from Griffin and picked on Flowers. It started with his first pass of the game. Adams easily beat Flowers across the field on a sharp crossing route for a 14-yard gain.
Three of Green Bay’s first five throws were at Flowers. The third of those throws was Rodgers’ easy, 20-yard touchdown pass to Adams. The Packers led 7-0 within the game’s first five snaps, and the Seahawks were chasing the rest of the night.
Green Bay went up 28-10 midway through the third quarter when Adams again turned Flowers around. That was for a 40-yard touchdown catch, putting Wilson and Seattle’s offense in desperation mode. Wilson frantically rallied the Seahawks to within 28-23 with 9 minutes left. Green Bay then had a third and 10. A stop by Seattle’s defense would continue the game’s momentum in road-white’s favor. The Packers sent Geronimo Allison on another crossing route at Flowers. The cornerback could not keep up. Rodgers’ completion for 12 yards extended the drive. It was one of many key third downs late that finally ended Seattle’s season.
Flowers hasn’t been a consistent starter since.
Now, he’s got a prime chance with Reed out to become a starter again, to begin a contract year.
“Good and bad. Ups and downs. Staying true to who I am,” Flowers said Tuesday of his lessons in patience.
“And, you learn it in life,” he said, chuckling. “I have a baby, too. So, coming home, I can’t rush her, either.
“So, patience.”
His daughter Bailee is 4 years old now.
The baby girl of Flowers and girlfriend Breshae Monroe was 1 and Flowers was making her lunch one spring afternoon in 2018. That’s when Carroll and general manager John Schneider called to tell Flowers the Seahawks had drafted him in the fifth round.
Now, Dunbar is gone, signed with Detroit. The 5-9 Reed is hurt. Flowers is surging.
And Carroll is seeing the possibility of the 6-3 Flowers joining the 6-3 Witherspoon as matching, prototype corners starting at Indianapolis in the opener Sept. 12.
Tuesday, the veteran coach and former defensive back was calling on Flowers again—to win the starting right cornerback job. Again.
“I’m really fired up for him to meet the competitive moment at this point,” Carroll said. “And I hope that he can keep coming through and making stuff happen and can play.
“Because when he’s out there he’s a stud.
“He’ll get every chance. He’s going to get every chance.”
Flowers intends to seize this chance.
“I want this, real bad,” he said. “I want to be good. I want to be great.
“I want to make the plays.”
Rookie progresses
D’Wayne Eskridge was still on Team Bucket Hat, watching practice.
But Carroll said the team’s top rookie draft choice ran without pain for the fifth consecutive day. Now the Seahawks want to be sure he’s all the way back from his big-toe injury.
“But it’s all very positive,” Carroll said, toward the speedy wide receiver coming off the physically-unable-to-perform list to practice with the wide receivers soon.
Status quo on Adams, Brown
Nothing new on Jamal Adams and Duane Brown. They again watched practice while wanting new contracts.
Asked if he feels the need to explain the Seahawks’ approach to each during this camp to younger and newer players, Carroll said no, that the younger guys may have questions but the team’s veteran leaders can answer.
Many out
Nearly 20% of the Seahawks’ 91-man roster did not practice the first day on the field since their mock-game scrimmage.
They included starters: Adams, Brown, Reed, Gabe Jackson and Damien Lewis, plus Rashaad Penny (groin), Cedric Ogbuehi (“a little muscle thing” that might cost him two weeks, Carroll said), Ethan Pocic (hamstring), Cody Barton (quadriceps), Penny Hart (ankle).
Carroll said Jackson and Lewis, the team’s starting guards, got rest days.
He said Pocic could return in a few days, but that both he and Ogbuehi will not play Saturday’s preseason opener at Las Vegas.
Plan for preseason opener?
There is one fewer preseason game, and three exhibitions this year. And the Seahawks are installing a new offense under new coordinator Shane Waldron.
Yet Carroll said that doesn’t mean he is going to play Wilson and the veteran starters longer than he usually does in a first preseason game.
Then again, Carroll wouldn’t reveal anything about his plays for Saturday against Las Vegas. That’s his usual.
This story was originally published August 10, 2021 at 5:54 PM.
