Having covered the Seahawks as a local and national reporter since 2010, I was fortunate to see the Legion of Boom grow from nothing to a historically great defense, and watching Earl Thomas develop from a hybrid cornerback/safety prospect with a suspect GPS to the best safety in the NFL was one of the most remarkable things about that journey.
Earl was always intense. REALLY intense. Even early on, when he went so hard, he would occasionally whiff on plays like a full-speed cat on a freshly waxed kitchen floor. He didn’t drop to a different speed to make up for it — he simply studied the game at a molecular level, learned the keys he needed to learn, and suddenly, he was a guided missile with perfect tracking. I’d say that transition really took hold in 2012, and from then on, he was the most dangerous safety in the league.
Of all the NFL players I’ve talked to, Earl and Ray Lewis burned at a different temperature. Not in a snarly, aggressive way that might cover a weakness or insecurity; those guys just glowed when you talked to them about the potential to nuke a route or break a perfectly designed offensive play into smithereens.
My favorite Earl Thomas story happened in early 2016. I had been pestering Richard Sherman for months to do a piece in which I selected five of his plays, and we would go through them together to get a better sense of how Sherman was able to do his thing. He finally agreed to do it, and on this particular day, we walked up to the second floor of the Seahawks’ facility in Renton, Washington, to go through the plays.
Sherman opened the door to the defensive backs room, and Thomas was in there by himself, eating lunch and watching tape.
“Whatchu doin’?” Thomas inquired.
“We brought you some guests,” Sherman said. “We’re doing this tape thing.”
Silence. The tape still ran.
“But, we’ll go somewhere else.”
And so we did. Thomas was the Alpha Dog in a secondary packed with alpha dogs. And he established that without saying a word. He just generated a different level of deference and respect with his play, his attitude and his demeanor. So Sherman and I walked to the tight ends meeting room to get the piece done.
Thomas’ return to Seattle for the first time since he was carted off the field as a Seahawk in Week 4 last season, and the now-infamous middle-finger salute to the Seattle sideline his broken leg prompted, has been a big story all week. At the time, Thomas wanted a gesture of career and financial security from his only NFL team, and his only NFL team seemed to want to move on.
The Ravens, unconcerned with Thomas’ recent injury history, signed him to a four-year, $55 million contract with $32 million guaranteed this offseason. So far, he’s been a rare bright spot in an injury-riddled secondary that traded for ex-Rams cornerback Marcus Peters this week in hopes of limiting the damage presented by opposing passers. Thomas has allowed four catches on seven targets for 76 yards and no touchdowns, with one interception.
Becoming a great deep-third safety is hard enough. Remaining a great deep-third safety throughout an entire career is just about impossible, especially as the years add up. Every loss of a step seems like a mile. Every little inability to use the recovery speed you once had can have you lost in space very quickly. But somehow, in his tenth season and with more than one lower-body injury that would seem to mute the freakish athleticism of your average NFL player, Thomas is still doing what he does at a level most safeties can only aspire to.
Ravens head coach John Harbaugh has known his share of great deep safeties, and he paused when I asked him this week what they have in common. How are they similar, and how are they different?
“Wow, that’s deep,” Harbaugh said when I asked specifically how Thomas and Ed Reed, who Harbaugh had in Baltimore from 2008 through 2012, worked (and work) their magic. “Just off the top of my head, I would say they’re both similar in the sense of how much they care how hard they work, how much it matters to them. They’re a little different kind of players. Earl is more of an explosive runner. Ed was kind of more fluid in the way he moved back there. But probably the end result, there are probably more similarities than differences, I would say.”
As to the attributes common to those rare players able to play the deep third at a knockout level over an entire career, Harbaugh had a lot of specifics about that.
“You need the physical skills, for sure. The range, change of direction, the ball skills. You also need just a natural feel, horizontal vision for where the route and the threats are.
“Brian Dawkins was another one that we had that in the past who had a great feel for where the threats were coming from vertically and understanding routes (Harbaugh was the Eagles’ special teams coach from 1998 through 2006, and Philadelphia’s defensive backs coach in 2007; Dawkins played for the Eagles from 1996 through 2008). The ability to track and play the ball in the air, good angles downhill. Willingness and ability to tackle people is important. [Troy] Polamalu, Ed Reed, certainly Earl, too, and Brian Dawkins; all of those guys could blitz really well. Time up the blitzes, time up the disguises, have a sense for quarterback mannerisms and cadences and things like that.
“An example: Dawkins, Earl does it, and Ed did it; bring them down, and they’ll show pressure off one side, knowing that they’re working back to the deep middle or the deep far half, and be able to hold the disguise long enough for the quarterback to think that’s where the pressure is coming from. Still, [to] get back and know what their threats are in time to cover those deep routes on the other side of the field? That’s pretty amazing. That’s what those top guys have been able to do.”
Seahawks coach Pete Carroll had Thomas from 2010 through 2018. He also had Ronnie Lott with the Jets in 1993 and 1994, and he had Troy Polamalu at USC in 2001 and 2002. He served as the defensive backs coach for the Bills in 1984 and for the Vikings from 1985 through 1989. Throughout his career, Carroll developed into one of the best technique teachers for defensive backs at any level of football, and he also had a lot to say when I asked him about the common denominators that make great deep safeties great.
“Those two guys in particular [Thomas and Polamalu] were phenomenal, creative guys. They saw plays before they happened, so they anticipated it when they did,” Carroll said. “They were like two steps ahead of everybody else. They could feel things coming at them, and they had a sense for it. The level of confidence that they had because of the success they had over the years and the savvy that they’ve always had ever since they were little kids playing all sports allowed them to trust going for it. Both those guys go for it.
“Troy was an incredible football player. He did things you could never tell him how to do it. He just had to make it up and create it. Earl is the same way. That’s why they’re so unique. Both those guys are not very tall, and you would not think that they fit the bill for a big time NFL safety. They’re great players.
“I think there’s a combination of things. They have to have extraordinary savvy and instincts. Usually, that comes from being all-around athletes that can basically do everything and anything. They have had to have had a lot of positive experiences so they have the confidence it takes to take those shots when they show. They do things that coaches generally say, maybe not yet, you can’t go there now. They go. I’ve loved coaching guys like that.
“The first guy that was really like that was Ronnie [Lott]. I got him late in his career. It was so important for me to understand why he would do the things that he would do. It’s helped me forever to allow guys the freedom that’s necessary to make those plays, that they can see that they can do what nobody else can do.”
The diagnostic abilities Carroll spoke to were readily apparent in Thomas’ first regular-season game with the Ravens, a 59-10 mollywhopping of the Dolphins.
On this play, quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick would like to hit running back Kenyan Drake on a deep seam wheel concept, but Thomas isn’t having it. In fact, he seems to read this play right out of the chute. Not only does he move from the other side of the formation for the interception, but he moves through tight end Mike Gesicki, who’s open on the play, with an obvious (and impressive) awareness of Fitzpatrick’s intentions.
Here’s a different angle of the same play:
This is probably my favorite Thomas interception ever — a 78-yard touchdown return against Deshaun Watson and the Texans in 2017. Here, he baits Watson as a cornerback would. It looks for all the world like DeAndre Hopkins is going to catch this ball on a drag route as he gets inside position on Richard Sherman, but Thomas times his move perfectly, shoots in at the last millisecond, and turns the game around.
And in this 2015 interception against the Panthers, Thomas shows just how much a great safety with insane diagnostic skills and even more insane speed and change-of-direction abilities can shut down not one, but two, quarterback reads on the same play. Carolina has a 3 x 1 set loaded to the right, and Thomas is on the weak side of the formation. Cam Newton has tight end Greg Olsen and receiver Jerricho Cotchery running double in-cuts from the inside and outside slot. Newton first reads Olsen, but Thomas comes over to help shut it down. And then, he flips his hips and goes after Cotchery, with an interception as the result.
A year later, and once again against the Panthers, Thomas proved with his presence and in his absence something you learn about great deep safeties over time. Their value to a defense is reflected in part by the plays they stop and break up, but it’s even more about the parts of the field they prevent opposing quarterbacks from testing. Carroll told me more than once over the years that you’d have to go a long way to find a successful example of a quarterback throwing a deep post against Seattle when Thomas was on the field, and that played out over time. It certainly played out here.
On this play, Thomas successfuly defends a deep seam pass to Olsen, but he also suffers a broken tibia when he collides with fellow safety Kam Chancellor.
There have been quite a few more deep posts in Carroll’s life since Week 4 of the 2018 season, when he last had Thomas on the field. The Seahawks have tried in vain to approximate Thomas’ greatness on the field, to no avail. One could call it a misdiagnosis on Seattle’s part — that once you have a great deep safety, you don’t let him off your roster without a fight — but that would minimize the remarkable nature of Thomas’ level of play at this postilion for so long. Betting that your guy will be that guy puts you in a disadvantageous position most of the time.
Earl Thomas remains what he has always been — a singular talent, and an army of one.
