Getty Tre Flowers has bloomed for the Cincinnati Bengals.
The Seattle Seahawks won Super Bowl XLVIII off the backbone of their hard-hitting and stellar secondary, reasonably nicknamed the “Legion of Boom”. Ever since their stellar run, due to injuries and retirements, the Seahawks have failed to establish their defensive identity in the secondary.
The heart of their defense is still alive, with Bobby Wagner still breaking records and having career years at the linebacker position, and second-year linebacker Jordyn Brooks breaking Wagner’s records on the way to becoming one of the league’s leading tacklers at the position.
However, in the secondary, it has been a round-robin of cornerbacks looking to establish their place in the post-Legion of Boom landscape. The Seahawks traded Ahkello Witherspoon to the Pittsburgh Steelers, where he has had an instant impact on their playoff defense. The Seahawks let go of their defensive coordinator Ken Norton Jr. and are in search of their next defensive leader.
After being named the starting cornerback for the Seahawks for the season in 2021, Tre Flowers was waived after week 5. He was picked up the next by the Cincinnati Bengals. He has since been blooming for a defense that ranked above the Seahawks according to Pro Football Focus, and finished 10th in coverage on the season. He is now headed to Super Bowl LVI alongside the Cincinnati Bengals as the Seahawks secondary watches on their couches.
Tre Flowers Bloomed in Cincinnati
Flowers has seen limited snaps on the defensive side and makes a lot of his impact on special teams. However, when he does get in on defense, he has been a strong addition to the Bengals.
In the AFC Division Game in 2021 against their rival the Tennessee Titans, he graded out at 89.3 overall, his best ranking of this season according to PFF. Although he didn’t reach interception numbers that will jump off of a stat page, his coverage numbers still proved that he was a functional piece of the Bengals defensive puzzle.
Flowers was a serviceable cornerback for the Seahawks during his tenure, even starting 40 games. However, head coach Pete Carroll knew it was time for Flowers to get a fresh start elsewhere, even though he enjoyed Flowers as a player and as a person.
“It was time for a change for him,” Carroll said in an interview on Seahawks.com. “He had a couple of guys who were getting playtime ahead of him. I love that guy, I love the kid. I’ve been working with him as close as anybody I’ve worked with since I’ve been here, and I feel better for him to get out of here and get going again. There’s a lot of teams that need corners, and I hope he gets a great shot.”
Flowers got his shot and is now headed to the Super Bowl with his Bengals teammates.
Seahawks Need to Find their Defensive Identity
In the post-Legion of Boom era, the Seahawks need an answer in their secondary. The team went 7-10 on the season, their worst record since 2011. Before the start of the 2022 season, the Seahawks need to address glaring weaknesses in their game, especially on the defensive side of the ball.
Former Seahawks defensive end Cliff Avril spoke about this on former Seahawks cornerback and Legion of Boom founder Richard Sherman’s podcast.
“There’s a lot of things that need to happen. You gotta find your identity. What is your identity going to be? When we were playing lights out, we knew what the game plan was every week, there was no question. It wasn’t changing every week. We were going to play our same coverage, our same front on defense and the team was going to rely on us to shut things down and we’re going to run the mess out of the rock. That was just our identity. Now I’m not saying necessarily they need to get back to that, but they need to figure out what it’s going to be.”
The Seahawks have been lacking a consistency that their top defenses in the past held. With different defensive players and coaches coming in and out of the door, it’s difficult for the team to stick to one single game plan.
“I felt like they changed too much throughout the season and they didn’t know who they were going into the season.”
The Seahawks will have to find a way to earn the league’s defensive recognition once more if they want to get another taste of the playoffs and another crack at the Super Bowl.