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USA Today Sports Media Group
USA Today Sports Media Group
Sport
Doug Farrar

Tariq Woolen is faster than everybody else, and the Chiefs just found that out

Around about 2015, I asked Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll why safety Earl Thomas was so important to his defense. Everybody already knew that Thomas was a key part of the Legion of Boom, one of the NFL’s all-time greatest defenses at his peak, but I wanted Carroll to give us something we didn’t already know about Thomas.

Carrol’s answer was unusually succinct: “When was the last time you saw anybody complete a deep post against us?”

It was a fair point.

Carroll doesn’t have Thomas anymore, but he does have rookie cornerback and Pro Bowler Tariq Woolen, and that might be just as good. With 3:30 left in the first quarter of the Seahawks’ game against the Kansas City Chiefs, Patrick Mahomes decided to test Seattle’s defense with a deep post to Justin Watson.

Ordinarily, that would have been an explosive completion. In this case, it would have been a touchdown, and that would have put Kansas City up, 13-0.

But ordinarily, defenses playing Mahomes don’t have a cornerback standing 6-foot-4, weighing 205 pounds, and running at a sub-4.3 clip. The Seahawks, however, have Just That Guy.

Not only did Woolen catch up to Watson on the play, he signaled a check to a fellow defender along the way. That, friends, is some serious swagger.

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