Seahawks 5th-round pick, long CB Tariq Woolen, is in Pete Carroll-Richard Sherman mold
Pete Carroll went old-school, Richard Sherman-style to get his latest Seahawks cornerback.
Even back to the same round of the draft where the coach got Sherman back in the day.
Eleven years after Carroll drafted Sherman 154th overall in round five to begin the “Legion of Boom” secondary in Seattle, the team selected 6-foot-4 cornerback Tariq Woolen from Texas-San Antonio with the 153rd-overall choice in the fifth round of the NFL draft Saturday.
“I’m just crazy to be in kind of the same footsteps as him,” Woolen said Saturday.
“Now it’s what I do when I get there.”
He said when coach Pete Carroll called to tell him Seattle was drafting him, “I was shocked...just the history of the Seahawks” having great cornerbacks.
He thought with his size, ability on passes in the air and his 40-yard dash time he would get drafted before the fifth round Saturday.
“I was patient,” he said. “And I went to a team that fits me.”
Woolen said Carroll has mentioned to him that Sherman also used to play college wide receiver before Seattle drafted him as a unique cornerback. Sherman became a cornerstone in Seattle’s Legion of Boom secondary and Super Bowl-champion team in the 2013 season.
“I made the transition, too,” Woolen said. “One of my coaches asked me to, in 2019. At first I was kind of reluctant...Then I fell in love with it.
Carroll had for a decade drafted only long, tall cornerbacks in the Sherman mold, famously only with 32-inch arms or longer. Then in the last two years, smaller D.J. Reed and 2021 rookie Tre Brown impressed upon Carroll he may be able to break his mold and still get productive play at cornerback.
Woolen is a return to Carroll’s mold.
He has arms 33 5/8 inches long, levers with which he can hawk passes in the air. His skills on the ball entice NFL scouts.
So does his speed: Woolen has run the 40-yard dash in 4.26 seconds.
“It was pretty crazy,” he said. “Whenever I got the official time, I was like “dang!”
His vertical leap is 42 inches. He’s the only player since the start of 2006 to run that fast in the 40 and jump that high at the NFL scouting combine, according to ESPN. At 6-4 1/8, he tied for the third-tallest cornerback at the combine in the last 16 years.
An assistant coach at Texas-San Antonio suggested to Woolen he switch from wide receiver to cornerback in 2019.
“I was kind of reluctant,” he said. “Did not want to be a corner.
“I ended up falling in love with it.”
Why?
“Seeing myself get better each week,” he said. “As a human, it feels good to see yourself get better. To watch myself get better each week, and from season to season, that’s what made me fall in love with the position even more.”
Woolen looks forward to testing himself in practice against Seahawks star wide receiver DK Metcalf, beginning in the team’s minicamps next month.
“It’s going to be great,” Woolen said. “To be a great corner, you have to have great receivers.”
The Seahawks used eight cornerbacks last season, after the team let starters Shaquill Griffin — Sherman’s successor — and Quinton Dunbar leave in free agency.
Woolen’s pick, the second of a cornerback Saturday, continues the Seahawks drafting positions of need this weekend.
First-round pick Charles Cross from Mississippi State is on a path to being the team’s new starting left tackle as 36-year-old Duane Brown remains unsigned. Second-round pick Boye Mafe from Minnesota is going straight into the pass-rush role outside the defense desperately needs.
The team’s other second-round pick, Michigan State running back Kenneth Walker, arrives with lead back Chris Carson’s return from neck surgery in doubt and Rashaad Penny signed only for 2022.
Third-round choice Abraham Lucas from Washington State will compete with Jake Curhan to be the new right tackle with Brandon Shell gone into free agency still unsigned.
Fourth-round selection Coby Bryant from Cincinnati also enters the cornerback derby. Tre Brown, a 2021 draft pick, impressed coaches but had his rookie season limited by injury. The Seahawks re-signed former University of Washington cornerback Sidney Jones to potentially start opposite Brown. But Jones is signed only for 2022.
Seahawks general manager John Schneider traded down from 145 overall, early in round 5, and picked up an additional choice in round seven from Kansas City. Seattle got the Chiefs’ 158th-overall choice in round five and the 233rd-overall choice in the seventh round.
That gave the Seahawks nine total picks in this draft.
Schneider has traded a draft choice — and usually many — in every one of the 13 drafts he’s been Seattle’s GM.
This story was originally published April 30, 2022 at 11:41 AM.
