Pete Carroll’s never said about a Seahawk what he says about Riq Woolen for his 2nd year
Pete Carroll has been coaching since before Watergate got Nixon.
The former college defensive back specifically has coached cornerbacks since Jimmy Carter got sworn into office.
Carroll has coached Richard Sherman. He’s coached Hall of Famer Ty Law. Carroll schooled Pro Bowler Aaron Glenn in the 1990s, and Pro Bowl cornerback Carl Lee in the 1980s, among many top players at that most difficult position.
Yet Thursday, Carroll said this about his second-year Seahawks cornerback Riq Woolen:
“I’ve never coached anybody that has as many skills as he has.”
Whoa.
Carroll, 71, said this on a day Sherman, Seattle’s best cornerback ever that Carroll discovered and molded, attended a Seahawks practice for the first time this summer.
Yes, the sunnyside-always-up coach praises his players like he’s their dad.
But this may be the first time in his 14 seasons coaching the Seahawks he’s been this quite this superlative with a player. Particularly one this young in his pro career.
“He’s got everything you could want,” Carroll said of the Seahawks’ 2022 Pro Bowl cornerback as Seattle’s rookie fifth-round draft choice. “And he doesn’t have to know everything to play well.
“He was playing last year learning how to do it, and all. He had a terrific season for his first time out. And so we just think ‘if we can clean up this and clean up that,’ he’s just going to be so difficult (for opponents) to deal with.
“And he’s totally on board. We are all in it to get all that worked out.”
Of all Carroll has been doing this offseason and preseason — green-lighting up to $124.5 million in new contracts to remake his porous defensive front seven, anointing quarterback Geno Smith as the undisputed team leader for the first time, running 100-yard sprints daily in his khaki pants, long-sleeved shirt, Air Monarchs and 95-degree heat — the coach is spending his most concentrated time on Woolen.
Like Sherman, Woolen was a college wide receiver, until the end of his sophomore season at Texas San-Antonio a few years ago. Like Sherman entering the league with Seattle in 2011 and ‘12, Woolen is still raw, to use Carroll’s term.
Veteran Pro Bowl safety Quandre Diggs and other Seahawks joked last season how Woolen shut down his right side of the field and co-lead the NFL interceptions (six) and passer rating allowed (48.7) — without really knowing what he was doing during games.
“I don’t even think he understands what he’s doing right now. You just see him, and all he does is give a thumbs up,” Diggs said following a Seahawks game against Arizona last October.
“He’s just oblivious to what’s going on.”
That was while Woolen was setting a Seattle record with an interception in four consecutive games.
This week Woolen returned to full participation in practice at his starting right-cornerback spot. He missed the first two weeks of camp following his arthroscopic knee surgery in May to clean up loose cartilage in May.
Even when Woolen hasn’t been on the field in training camp that the team ended officially Wednesday, Carroll has been tutoring Woolen on finer points of cornerback technique. He’s drilling him on reading wide receivers.
The veteran coach is emphasizing to his neophyte star instantly moving on to the next play mentally following a bad play — which, for Woolen so far in his NFL career, means he allowed a pass completion — or a bad play by the defense as a whole.
Woolen agrees he got by last year on his physical skills, being 6 feet 4 and able to run the 40-yard dash in 4.27 seconds.
“I feel like this year, it will be more mental for me,” he said.
“I feel like last year, people didn’t think I could play in this league, or they thought I was a special-teams guy. I felt like I had proved that to them.
“This season, I want to prove that I’m the best corner in the NFL. And I feel like I am one of the best cornerbacks in the NFL.”
Woolen’s ceiling
Carroll often says a player’s biggest growth of his career comes from his first college or NFL season to the second.
Thing is, Woolen’s still raw — yet his floor is already supernaturally high. He made the Pro Bowl as a rookie while “oblivious,” as Diggs said.
Carroll, top defensive secondary assistant Karl Scott and the Seahawks can barely imagine what Woolen’s ceiling for growth is this season in year two.
To hear Carroll talk, All-Pro isn’t high enough a ceiling for Woolen.
The Seahawks have had just one first-team All-Pro cornerback in the team’s 47-year history: Sherman, three times, in 2012, ‘13 and ‘14.
Sherman tutored Woolen in person during Seattle’s training camp into September last year. He agreed then the sky may truly be Woolen’s limit.
Sherman said in December Woolen could have been an All-Pro last season. As a rookie.
“Yes,” Carroll said Thursday of Woolen’s potential for so much more. “That’s why I’m staying on his butt about it.
“Because yeah, he could (grow exponentially this season). There are so many things about his game that he could clean up that aren’t difficult to fix. He’s really working at it.
“And he’s got them categorized. He’s working at his stuff.”
What “stuff,” exactly?
Carroll’s too smart to give Seattle’s rival 49ers, Rams, Cardinals and rest of the NFL that information.
“I don’t want to share what it is, but he’s aware of it and he wants to really improve his game,” Carroll said.
“It’s within his reach, for sure.”
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This story was originally published August 17, 2023 at 5:22 PM.
