Seahawks rookie Tariq Woolen has some ridiculous stats in 2022

12s hoped that Seahawks rookie cornerback Tariq Woolen would be very good one day. But based on his statistics so far, he might already be great.

Pro Football Focus (subscription required) is a very good site and has some extremely informative information for NFL fans. But so far in 2022, PFF has a completely wrong grade for Seahawks rookie Tariq Woolen. What Woolen does sometimes can’t be measured.

But even Woolen’s raw statistics for this year are crazy. So PFF, what are they thinking? Who knows. But the great thing is that 12s are likely seeing another superstar Seahawks corner blossom much earlier than we thought.

Woolen was a fifth-round draft pick this year and fell in the draft because teams probably thought he was too raw and had no proof that his imposing size would translate to greatness as an NFL corner. But Seattle appears lucky enough to have taken Woolen in the fifth round just as they were lucky enough in 2011 to take another top corner named Richard Sherman.

Seahawks appear to have gotten a steal in the 2022 draft with Tariq Woolen

But Woolen is either extremely smart (which he may be as well), was well-coached in college at UTSA to the point where he was a lot closer to NFL-ready than most expected or he simply has the physical tools to overcome everything else. It might be all three.

Want some ridiculous statistics? Through four games of his rookie year, Woolen has missed exactly 1 tackle and has made 12. In other words, he has 1 more interception (he has 2) than he has missed tackles.

Woolen also posted the fastest speed in the NFL in Week 4 (21.58 MPH) which he did while returning an interception for a pick-six versus the Detroit Lions. It was the second week in a row Woolen posted one of the fastest speeds in the NFL.

Woolen also has allowed a passer-rating-against of just 35.3, per Pro Football Reference. He has allowed just 47.1 percent of passes to be completed when targeted. He has only allowed 137 yards on 17 targets. That equates to just 8.1 yards per target. Marshon Lattimore, who the Seahawks will see this week when they play the Saints, is one of the better corners in the league and in his rookie season of 2018, he allowed 9.8 yards when targeted.

Time will tell, obviously, if Woolen ends up being the Seahawks next Richard Sherman. But he, like Sherman, switched from receiver to cornerback in college, both were fifth-round choices, both are about the same size and now Woolen is playing a lot like Sherman. Let’s hope in 8 years we are talking as fondly about Woolen as we did about Sherman long into his Seahawks career.