RENTON, Wash. - Coming off the best statistical season of his NFL career, Tre Brown isn't being cautious setting lofty expectations for himself as he enters the final year of his rookie contract with the Seattle Seahawks.
After playing a career-high in snaps while starting seven games for Seattle last season, Brown has been a fixture in the team's first-team defense throughout the offseason program into training camp, seeing the bulk of the snaps at left cornerback opposite of Riq Woolen in nickel and dime sets. Believing his best football has yet to come, he's eager to show what he can do in a new defensive scheme implemented by first-time head coach Mike Macdonald.
"I want to be the best on the field this year," Brown proclaimed before Friday's third training camp practice. "I got high standards, Pro Bowl, All-Pro, nothing less."
When healthy, Brown has performed at a high level for the Seahawks, including recording 10 tackles and a pass breakup in five games after bursting into the starting lineup as a rookie. That season, he allowed just a 47.1 percent completion rate and 59.7 passer rating on 17 targets, looking the part of a potential long-term starter on the outside.
But the former fourth-round pick out of Oklahoma suffered a patellar tendon injury midway through his rookie season and a lengthy recovery limited Brown to only six games and 21 defensive snaps in 2022, putting his status in the secondary up in the air, especially after the team invested a top-five pick in Devon Witherspoon in the 2023 NFL Draft.
Bouncing back thanks to a normal offseason without rehab, Brown wound up beating out incumbent Mike Jackson for the starting left cornerback job last summer. Even with him taking on a diminished role for the Seahawks in the second half after struggling with defensive penalties, he set new career-highs with 34 tackles and two interceptions, returning one of those picks for a crucial defensive touchdown in a Week 2 win over the Lions, along with adding two forced fumbles and a sack.
Since the start of spring practices in May, Brown has looked quite comfortable in Macdonald's defense, regularly getting his hands on the football for pass breakups in team and 7-on-7 sessions. In Friday's third practice, he frequently jostled with DK Metcalf, winning several battles between the two in the red zone period, including deflecting a goal line fade. He's also taken on a more vocal role in the secondary with communication being emphasized by Macdonald and the rest of the coaching staff.
"It's been a lot to learn," Brown explained. "But it's really simple, a lot of things that you just see out there. Everything is really kind of like simplified in terms of the defense and it builds confidence in everybody as a whole because, even though he throws a lot at us, but when you can see how we can do it, it brings so much more to the defense."
As far as fit is concerned, Brown's strengths should mesh quite well with what Macdonald has asked his cornerbacks to do in the past as the Ravens defensive coordinator, including playing aggressive press coverage on the outside. Per Pro Football Focus, Brown ranked first among qualified cornerbacks with an 88.5 coverage grade in press coverage, intercepting two passes and forcing five incompletions on 22 targets.
In a very limited sample size, Brown has produced a sack on two blitzes, and given Macdonald's penchant for sending defensive backs in blitz and sim pressure packages, he could have more opportunities to showcase that aspect of his game in 2024. Aside from leaving a few too many tackles on the field, which plagued Seattle's entire defense the past two years, Brown has also been a serviceable run defender in his three NFL seasons with 64.0 or better grades the past two years via PFF.
With much still to prove and free agency looming next March, Brown isn't thinking about his NFL future and he's solely focused on controlling what he can control in the present with another opportunity to show what he can do in front of a new coaching staff.
"I say it all the time, I'm a really nice player," Brown said confidently. "I'm a player who makes plays, especially in crunch time, you always see me show up. And you're going to see more of that this year."
Looking towards a crucial season, Brown will be counting on a clean bill of health, as durability has been the biggest factor that has held him back from fulfilling his potential to this point. His knee injury suffered in 2021 ultimately cost him a full season's worth of games, setting back his development and preventing the organization from fully investing in him as a starting option. He will also have to beat out Jackson, who started 21 games over the past two seasons, for the second time in as many years.
Assuming he can avoid the injury bug that plagued him earlier in his career, the 26-year old Brown hopes to demonstrate better consistency as an all-around player and in turn, earn the trust from a new coaching staff that he didn't from the previous regime. Coupled with a scheme that he believes will best accentuate his strengths and skill set, he's hoping to finally enjoy the breakout season he has been on the cusp of since breaking into the league.
"I'm still coming back from not having played for so long, so now that the game is slowing down for me, you're gonna see a lot more of the production you saw from me last year."
