Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll loves to highlight players entering their second year in the league. He often dubs their rise in performance the ‘second-year leap’ as players tend to perform considerably better after they have a year of experience under their belt.
In the case of Tre Flowers, he not only completed his first NFL season in 2018, but his first year playing cornerback as well – having switched to the position shortly after he was drafted in the fifth round of the 2018 NFL draft.
“You can imagine the first five days of practice for him last year was just a blur,” Carroll commented on Thursday. “He was trying to make the transition to cornerback. Now he’s working on his skills, he’s working on his mentality, he’s working on recognition, all the kinds of things that come to play as you grow.”
Flowers eventually settled into his role as Seattle’s starting right cornerback, and while he had his ups and downs he proved to be aggressive and physical, while also displaying a proficiency for forcing fumbles.
“He’s a monster athlete out there,” Carroll continued. “That comes out of his confidence, [and] he becomes more and more aggressive [and] he becomes a bigger factor. Last year he did a really good job knocking the ball out and turning the ball over for us and he’s going to be one of our best guys doing that again, so he’s a great asset. He’s really comfortable with what he’s doing right now. He seems to be playing faster. Everything is better.”
Flowers is expected to start alongside Shaquill Griffin again this season, and the duo will look to build upon an up-and-down 2018 campaign and help usher in a new Legion of Boom era in 2019.
