Seahawks’ Tariq Woolen on critics: ‘I don’t give a (blank) anymore.’ His coach seeks focus

Oh, yes, Tariq Woolen hears his critics.

He’s even loved one.

“Sometimes I like to see some of the comments. There’s some funny stuff,” the Seahawks cornerback said Wednesday just outside the locker room before practice.

“Somebody told me: ‘Go play in Beijing. Get ready to play in Beijing.’

“That was funny.”

Funny because there is no NFL football in Beijing.

Yet some fans let Woolen know online they want him to be playing in the capital city of China following the Seahawks’ 30-13 home loss to Green Bay last weekend. He was in on four plays that led directly to 20 Packers points in a game Seattle lost by 17.

Green Bay’s Romeo Doubs beat Woolen inside off the ball on a slant route, caught a pass on him then ran through Woolen’s arm tackle plus through teammate Julian Love the final 4 yards after his catch for a touchdown. Woolen then gave up a 36-yard catch over his head to Christian Watson on a pass it appeared Woolen was in position to knock down if not intercept. That misplay set up a field goal. Woolen got beaten two steps off the ball on a go route then, fearing a touchdown pass behind him, and pulled down Doubs before the pass arrived for a 34-yard interference penalty. That last play gifted the Packers three more points.

The Seahawks’ loss severely damaged their chances to win the NFC West.

Woolen began the game by needlessly pushing Jordan Love in the back and to the ground immediately after the quarterback threw a short dump-off pass. That 15-yard roughing-the-passer penalty sparked Green Bay’s first drive of the game to a touchdown.

Woolen allowed a passer rating against of 136.7 in the game. A rating of 100 for a quarterback is very good. Perfect is 158.3.

“I can say I can be better on plays, yeah,” Woolen said. “It’s tough. But, I mean, that’s just what comes with it.

“I don’t give a (****) anymore. I really don’t care. I mean, when you do good, they gonna love you. When you do bad, they gonna talk about you.”

Riq Woolen’s up-and-down career

In his three NFL seasons with Seattle Woolen has been very good, beloved and now, by some, reviled.

He was the Seahawks’ breakout Pro Bowl star as a raw rookie in 2022. He led the league with six interceptions. He was defensive rookie of the week. He finished third in voting for defensive rookie of the year. Woolen wowed with his speed and skills on passes in the air against the many offenses that challenged the new guy in Seattle’s secondary that season. He allowed barely a completion rate against him of barely 50% as a rookie. His passer rating against was just 48.7.

He was just three years removed from his former coach at Texas-San Antonio, Frank Wilson, converting him from wide receiver to cornerback. Then-Seahawks coach Pete Carroll saw Woolen’s 4.26-second speed in the 40-yard dash at 6-feet-4 and 210 pounds and made him a starter almost the day he drafted Woolen as a project in the fifth round in 2022.

In 2023, opponents ran at Woolen. They tested his slight build with running plays and receivers catching routes in front of and bulling into him. He struggled and got overrun. His rate of missed tackles nearly doubled, from 7.4% as a rookie to 14.5% in year two. His passer rating against rose from 49 to 80, according to Pro Football Reference.

This season, he’s allowed a career-high five touchdown passes and a career-most passer rating against of 94.5. He’s missing tackles at a rate of 10.9%.

After the Seahawks’ loss to the Packers, Woolen’s critics reached a crescendo.

He heard it.

“Man, it’s just what come with it,” Woolen said. “I signed up for this, and this is the type of lifestyle that I wanted. So I mean, of course, it’s gonna be stuff like that, but I don’t care.

“I mean, those are the same guys, if they came out and played football and they were playing corner, they would get burnt toast, too.

“So, I mean, I really don’t care. So I just go out there and play my style of play. I’ve been playing good. It’s just a couple plays. They don’t define me.”

Mike Macdonald on Woolen

Woolen’s coach said the cornerback’s issue this season, and in the Packers game, has been maintaining his focus.

“It’s a play-to-play mentality,” Seahawks rookie head coach and defensive guru Mike Macdonald said Wednesday. “When he’s locked in, he’s as good as it gets.

“And then when he’s not as locked in, that’s when some technique errors show up.

“But it has nothing to do with his ability. It all about just the approach pre-snap.”

Last month, the Seahawks ended a six-game losing skid to San Francisco and beat the 49ers in Santa Clara to start a four-game winning streak. After that win the head coach praised Woolen for his “locked-in-ness,” his focus and attention to detail in one of the cornerback’s best games.

Now, with the season on the line, he just had one of his worst. This week, the Minnesota Vikings’ elite wide receivers Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison are Woolen’s next challenge, Sunday at Lumen Field (1:05 p.m., channel 13). And Macdonald is saying Woolen needs more focus.

How does the coach emphasize that for a player in such a critical position on the team in this pass-happy league?

“We’ve doing it with him, and the rest of the team, every day,” Macdonald said. “We have to take the field with the right intent, whether it’s fast-(change) start period (in practice), a walk-through, that’s how we do business. It’s not an uptight thing. It’s a, hey, we’re going to operate a certain way and have a certain standard when we take the field, or we’re in meetings, and we’ve all decided we’re going to operate like that.

“It’s our job as coaches to hold guys accountable when we fall short. It’s not a...it’s a tell-’em-the-truth-tell-’em-the-love-type of approach...

“Just trying to be the best you can be, at all times.”

The News Tribune asked Woolen about his coach’s assessment of needing to focus more before every play.

“I can say I can be better on plays, yeah. But other than that, I mean, I still feel like I’ve been locked in,” Woolen said. “I still, I’ve been playing at a high level.

“It’s just that whenever you have a bad play where you ain’t playing to a level that you’re used to playing in, then your coach is gonna say that — just because he knows how great of a player you are and how my work showed that I am one of the best.

“It’s just the fact that, shoot, in the game I may have had plays I wasn’t focused, and that stuff like that happened. But it is part of the game, for real.”

Woolen reasons if focus was an issue for him, “then I probably would have been, like, not even playing.”

“But I’ve done put in a body of work to the point where, I mean, they know the standard, you know what I’m saying?” he said. “I’ve played to a standard that’s not the usual standard. I mean, I may be not locked in because I’m not playing to that standard.

“But that’s what happens when you are a great player. You’ve got to play at a standard. And I just didn’t play to that standard versus Green Bay.”