Seahawks rookie Tre Flowers gets an amazing grade for 2018

The Seahawks had two young cornerbacks starting most of the season. And Tre Flowers may have shown by the end of the year he is the best corner on the team.

Before the season the Seahawks moved Shaquill Griffin to left corner to take the place of Richard Sherman. Sherman was released in the offseason. Griffin was and is expected to be a very good player in his career. But he may not be the best corner on his team. Tre Flowers may be.

Griffin probably would have been better served to get another year at right corner prior to moving to the left side. Of course, Flowers was converting from safety in college to a cornerback in the pros. That he was getting better and better as the season wore on while still learning the position should mean that Flowers could develop into a Pro Bowl corner.

Flowers has the perfect size for a Pete Carroll corner. He is 6-foot-three-inches and 210 pounds. His size affects receivers routes and Flowers does not shy away from contact. Flowers isn’t Sherman-esque when it comes to tackling yet, but he could get there. In fact, according to Pro Football Focus Flowers was the third-highest rated corner in terms of run defense, grading at 90.6.

Flowers had 55 solo tackles in 2018 but 22 of them came in the first four weeks of the season. The reason he didn’t have more later is that quarterbacks stopped throwing his way as much. And the fact that Flowers didn’t have an interception actually goes to show how tight his coverage was. He had fewer chances to pick the ball because his coverage was so good that quarterbacks didn’t throw towards him.

Flowers ended with the second-best cornerback grade (64.1) on the Seahawks, per Pro Football Focus, just behind Justin Coleman (67.3). Coleman, though, is a lot corner and doesn’t play out wide and Flowers has greater responsibility. Griffin (50.7) was far off the level of Flowers overall. Griffin wasn’t bad, he just wasn’t as good as Flowers.

The good thing for Seattle is that both Flowers and Griffin should get better and both are under contract through at least 2020. Seattle’s defense will improve just as Griffin and Flowers will. My feeling is that by 2020, though, Flowers will eclipse Griffin as the better corner in Seattle. And that is not a bad thing.

Grade: B