Seahawks minicamp ends with a twist: Devon Witherspoon moves to inside slot defensive back

It’s the best thing an NFL team’s coach or talent evaluator can say about a top rookie draft choice.

Especially the fifth pick of the entire draft.

“He’s as advertised,” Seahawks assistant general manager Nolan Teasley said Thursday.

He was talking about Devon Witherspoon.

This week, the first cornerback taken in last month’s draft that everyone around the Seahawks has been talking about was even more than advertised.

The team on Thursday ended its three-day, mandatory minicamp and essentially the most extensive on-field work until training camp begins July 26. During the three practices, Witherspoon often was an inside, slot cornerback as coach Pete Carroll tried defensive combinations.

The standout for attacking passes in the air and tackling at the University of Illinois did so from outside cornerback. He had been Seattle’s starting left cornerback from rookie minicamp through the whole-team organized team activities of May into June. The Seahawks made Witherspoon their highest-selected cornerback in a quarter century, since Shawn Springs went third overall to Seattle in 1997 — to start at left cornerback.

Outside, that is.

But Thursday you could almost hear Carroll, a former defensive back, salivating from the middle of the practice field at his idea: Witherspoon possibly playing along with 2022 Pro Bowl cornerback Tariq Woolen, last season’s nickel defensive back Coby Bryant, plus 2022 starter Michael Jackson or promising 2021 draft pick Tre Brown in unique match-up alignments this Seahawks season.

Carroll went out of his way to declare Jackson the best Seahawks player of OTAs and minicamp this spring.

Woolen said after watching another practice Thursday he feels great following his arthroscopic knee surgery last month. He and Carroll said he’s on track to be practicing at the start of training camp.

The 6-foot-1, 193-pound Bryant sprained his foot late last month. That kept him out of the last couple weeks of offseason training — and opened the door for Carroll and defensive backs coach Karl Scott to try Witherspoon at slot cornerback inside.

“He’s capable of playing in there,” Carroll said.

“I talked to him about it way back when, and he was all excited: ‘I can learn it all. I can get it.’ He was really positive about it, so when we gave him the chance he jumped right on it.

“He is a really good football player. He gets it, man. It makes sense to him, and he does things naturally very well. That expedites the process (of learning inside). So, we’ll see. This will be a really good film today again to check him out.

“But we’ve seen him pretty much in charge of the position. So, we’ll see how it goes.”

Witherspoon’s reaction to the experiment?

He’d walk across Lake Washington to Mercer Island if Carroll and the Seahawks asked him to.

“It’s been very cool. It’s an unreal feeling, just a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Witherspoon said of his first Seattle practices. “I just try to take it all in coming out here with the guys.

“I’m just coming in here to compete, represent the Seahawks, and just have that Seahawk on my helmet. There’s a lot that plays into it. But it’s a feeling that you can’t describe.”

Carroll, general manager John Schneider and Seahawks scouts including director of college scouting Aaron Highline saw Witherspoon play some slot defensive back for Illinois. But that was to get Witherspoon in match-ups against a top opposing receiver more than any Illini defensive scheme of Witherspoon as a nickel back inside.

“He wasn’t a nickel in their defense, but he wound up inside. We’ve seen him play on slots,” Carroll said.

“It didn’t matter where he was playing. He covered everybody.

“He’s a special cover guy. His quickness and his instincts...really lend him to he can be an effective player there (inside).”

Carroll said Bryant hasn’t needed surgery for his ongoing foot issue.

“No,” the coach said, “we haven’t heard that yet.”

Carroll said Bryant will take all of the seven weeks between now and the start of training camp July 26 to rest the foot in hopes of him being back on the field for the start of the preseason.

Defensive backs galore

Witherspoon’s experiment at inside, slot corner is proof Carroll believes he has many cornerbacks and safeties that can play effectively in his techniques, and in new schemes.

So many, Seattle’s defense may often have only one linebacker, Bobby Wagner, on the field in games this season.

“This is as competitive as we’ve been (in the defensive secondary) in a long time,” Carroll, the creator of Seattle’s once-famed “Legion of Boom,” said.

These spring OTAs and minicamps showed glimpses of what Carroll’s overhaul of the defense may look like this fall.

Dre’Mont Jones, the team’s uncharacteristically expensive free-agent signing at $51 million from Denver, joined brought-back Jarran Reed and rookie nose tackle and Cameron Young as the three starting down linemen with hands on the ground in a three-point stance.

Those appear to be the run stoppers to begin the 2023 season — especially with Carroll saying Thursday nose tackle Bryan Mone is a long way back from his season-ending injury late last year.

That’s one more true defensive linemen than the Seahawks often had on the field last year. That was with inside edge pass rushers Uchenna Nwosu and Bruce Irvin running straight upfield to quarterbacks. The result was the NFL’s 30th-ranked rush defense in 2022.

Nwosu, entering the final year of his contract after a 9 1/2-sack season, and 2022 second-round pick Boye Mafe were the starting outside linebackers rushing off edges in these offseason practices. Wagner and new arrival Devin Bush were the inside linebackers.

But when the Seahawks went to extra defensive backs in pass-defense drills, Wagner was at times the only linebacker dropping into coverage. Nwosu and Mafe rushed the passer.

Carroll said Wednesday the team’s not ruling out safety Jamal Adams returning for the start of training camp. But that still seems unlikely. Adams is coming back from a tricky torn quadriceps tendon he got in last season’s opener.

When and if Adams returns, Carroll’s plan is to play Adams, Pro Bowl free safety Quandre Diggs and 2022 New York Giants captain Julian Love as a three-safety base defense. Adams is poised to be closer to the line of scrimmage to blitz quarterbacks and stop the run, as he did while getting 9 1/2 sacks for Seattle in 2020 to set an NFL record for defensive backs. Love, who has played all positions in the secondary in the NFL, and Diggs would stay back in pass coverage.

That’s five defensive backs — with Witherspoon and Woolen the cornerbacks — plus five linemen/outside linebackers across the line of scrimmage. That would leave Wagner as the 11th defender, the lone linebacker inside.

Witherspoon’s, Love’s and Bryant’s versatility give Carroll options of playing essentially a 5-1-5 within his 3-4 scheme. That is, if you count outside backers Nwosu and Mafe rushing the edges as fourth and fifth players along the line.

Such a unique scheme would give opposing offensive play callers — including creative run-pass maestro Kyle Shanahan of San Francisco, the team Seattle must conquer to win the NFC West — something new to think about for Seahawks games in 2023.

All this is whether or not Jordyn Brooks, the Seahawks’ starting inside linebacker last season when Wagner was away playing for the Rams, comes back anytime this season. He tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his knee in January. October would be on the early side of a typical return from an ACL surgery.

Zach Charbonnet impresses

Pete Carroll on rookie running back Zach Charbonnet from UCLA, the Seahawks’ second-round pick: “Zach does everything well...He’s just a complete ball player.”

Don’t be surprised at the playing time and opportunities Charbonnet gets with returning 1,000-yard rusher Kenneth Walker in Seattle’s backfield this season.

Undrafted rookies Sutherland, Bobo gain

Carroll said “two, three or four” undrafted rookies could be competing to play this season.

The first two he mentioned: safety Jonathan Sutherland from ⁦Penn State and wide receiver Jake Bobo from UCLA.

Sutherland was getting some reps with the starting defense as Seahawks coaches tried different combos.

Bobo’s size at 6-4, 207 is intriguing. Coaches were on him a lot this spring, a sign they want him to develop. “BoBO!!!” calls from teammates were a daily staple of OTAs and minicamp practices.

Doug Baldwin, graduation speaker

Retired Seahawks Pro Bowl and Super Bowl-winning wide receiver Doug Baldwin will be Seattle University’s undergraduate undergraduate commencement speaker. The graduation ceremony is Monday at Climate Pledge Arena.

A Stanford graduate with a bachelor’s in science, technology and society, Baldwin will receive an honorary doctorate degree from Seattle University.

Baldwin was the commencement speaker at Bellevue College in 2021.