Field Gulls
Woolen responded to his coach’s comments in a separate interview.
The Seattle Seahawks effectively gave themselves no chance to win with a poor start against the Green Bay Packers, and among those who had a nightmare opening half was cornerback Riq Woolen.
Just in the first half, Woolen committed an obvious roughing the passer penalty on the game’s second play, allowed a career-worst fifth touchdown of the season to Romeo Doubs, gave up a 36-yard pass to Christian Watson, and committed a defensive pass interference penalty on Doubs to give the Packers a chipshot field goal before halftime.
When asked on Wednesday about coaching points for Riq Woolen, Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald zeroed in on just one thing that perhaps is not surprising to fans.
“I think it’s just a play-to-play mentality,” Macdonald said. “When he’s locked in, I think he’s as good as it gets. When he’s not as locked in, then that’s when some technique errors show up. But it has nothing to do with his ability, it’s all about just the approach pre-snap.”
Even though Woolen has generally had a good season, he’s been prone to lapses in effort and concentration, as shown in his failed interception attempt against Matthew Stafford, and the lack of effort on a 3rd and 26 near-conversion against the New York Jets on the game’s final drive. His teammate Julian Love was seen calling him out for that particular play.
It’s easier to look at the negatives because those tend to show up on the TV copy more than the many plays when nothing happens for a positive reason. Ultimately, Woolen’s lowlights have felt a little too familiar to some of the issues that got him briefly benched by Pete Carroll last season. Woolen was asked about Macdonald’s comments by The News Tribune’s Gregg Bell.
“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 also admitted that he didn’t play to standard against Green Bay. In fairness to him, it’s not like many others did in the 30-13 loss.
The amazing rookie season for the 2022 fifth-round pick feels like a distant memory with some of the problems he’s had over the past two seasons. He’s by no means a bad cornerback who’s getting burned every other snap—when he does his job, he’s one of the most difficult corners...
