How Seahawks are planning for Devon Witherspoon to make a bigger impact
RENTON, Wash. – As the fifth overall pick in the 2023 NFL draft, Seahawks cornerback Devon Witherspoon was hardly unknown to opponents as a rookie.
Still, it’s one thing to understand what a player might be able to do on a field. It’s another to see it happen and be able to react to it.
Now that Witherspoon is in his second season in the NFL, after making the Pro Bowl as a rookie, he says opponents definitely know where he is at all times.
Especially when he comes close to the line of scrimmage with the potential to rush the passer.
“Teams are sliding to me as soon as I get in the box,” Witherspoon said Thursday, meaning offenses shift their offensive line his direction.
He called it “way different” than the attention he got last season.
“They going 21 (his jersey number) first,” he said. “They ID me and then just go down (the line). So it’s kind of hard this year. But hey, that’s what comes with it. (Former Seahawks safety) Jamal (Adams) told me it was going to be like that.”
Adams set an NFL record with 9.5 sacks as a defensive back in his first year with Seattle in 2020 and didn’t get another sack in the next 22 games he played before his release last March.
Witherspoon had just one sack last season. He also had 10 total pressures in 30 pass-rush snaps in 14 games, emblematic of a season in which he always seemed to be around the ball.
This year, Witherspoon has no sacks and three pressures in 23 pass-rush snaps in nine games, emblematic of an odd sophomore campaign.
By some metrics, Witherspoon is playing as well as ever.
Via Pro Football Focus, he has allowed just a 42.9% completion percentage and 57.1 passer rating when in man coverage, numbers among the best of any corner.
On a team that has struggled mightily against the run, Witherspoon has the top run defense grade of any Seahawk and fourth best of any corner in the NFL.
When the Seahawks took him as the second defensive player drafted, they raved about his playmaking ability.
In terms of the most basic stats, Witherspoon simply hasn’t made as many this year. He has just one pass defense and no interceptions compared to 16 pass defenses and one interception (returned for a 97-yard TD that broke open a win against the Giants in New York) as a rookie.
That’s come with Witherspoon being targeted more on average this year.
He has allowed 37 receptions on 50 targets this year for 323 yards and no touchdowns compared to 39 receptions on 68 targets for 369 yards and four TDs in 2023.
Explanations aren’t easy to determine.
Witherspoon has the same role this year under new coach Mike Macdonald as last year under Pete Carroll, starting as the left cornerback in the base defense and moving inside to play nickel when they bring on a fifth or sixth defensive back.
His breakdown of snaps inside and out is similar – 279 in the slot and 207 wide this year compared to 421 and 348 in 2023, via PFF.
Asked this week to assess Witherspoon’s play, Macdonald said he’s doing everything asked, and that it’s up to the coaches to make sure they are putting him in the best position to make a consistent impact.
“I’ll tell you what, this guy, talk about force multipliers on your football team – that is Devon Witherspoon,” Macdonald said. “This guy, he’s an elite competitor. He’s a guy that hopefully, he’s leading the charge for us for a long time here. This guy, we talked about this at length, but he’s worth a shout-out. He’s so intelligent, he can play all the multiple spots, all the energy we feed off this guy and how competitive he is. Plays the way we want to play.
“You kind of want to play him everywhere, and so that’s probably my biggest compliment to him. It’s trying to figure out how we can play him the best to make him affect the game. We’re thinking through that lens, and frankly, it’s nothing that he’s not doing that’s not creating production. You could probably put it on me to get him into better spots so he can go affect the game. But that’s definitely a focus.”
Macdonald cited getting Witherspoon more chances to rush.
“I think I need to get him more ops,: Macdonald said. “He’s one of the guys that from off the ball has won one-on-one rushes. I think he has really good timing, really good feel for the game, and we’ve got to give him more opportunities.”
The Seahawks’ moves at the inside linebacker spot the last few weeks, notably releasing weakside backer Tyrel Dodson on Monday, might help make that happen.
While Macdonald said rookie Tyrice Knight will step into the starting WLB role beginning with Sunday’s game at San Francisco, he said, “We could look at some different personnel packages as well.”
Those could involve using Witherspoon more closer to the line of scrimmage, especially now that the cornerback spot appears back to being fully healthy, giving the Seahawks more flexibility in how they deploy personnel in the back end.
Witherspoon knew the moment the Seahawks drafted him the plan was to use him inside and outside and at times as a rusher. Carroll compared him on draft day, in playing style and temperament and ability to impact the game, to hall of fame safety Troy Polamalu.
Witherspoon said he continues to like being used in multiple roles.
“I think I’m versatile and they are trying to use me as much as they can, so whatever they need me to do they put me in that spot and I feel like I can just do it,” he said.
As for Macdonald’s comment that the coaches need to figure out how to put him in the best spots to make an impact, Witherspoon said: “That’s up to him. He’ll watch film and go over and look at it and see. So that’s ultimately his job. He decides that.”
It’s not as if each hasn’t seen Witherspoon’s playmaking come to life in Macdonald’s defense.
The highlight of the preseason may have been the team’s trip to Tennessee for joint practices with the Titans in August, which Witherspoon capped with two interceptions of Will Levis on the final day, including what would likely have been a pick-six had not the play been blown dead, after which Witherspoon began playfully jawing at Adams and handed him the ball.
As the Seahawks try to get their season back on track in the final eight games, they’ll hope for a few more similar moments.
“He expects himself to make the play no matter where it is,” Macdonald said. “If we have 11 guys with that mentality all the time, then we can be a dangerous group.”