For a couple of guys who built a Super Bowl team with perhaps the best defense of the era a decade ago, Seahawks general manager John Schneider and head coach Pete Carroll have suffered through a distressing number of personnel whiffs in recent years. Bad drafts, questionable free-agent singings, and a couple of marquee trades that either have bitten, or could come back to bite (hello, Jamal Adams and Russell Wilson) have left this formerly great team in the lurch, with many questioning the continued viability of head coach and GM.
Fair points there, but we also want to give credit where it’s due. In October 2019, the Seahawks sent a 2020 fifth-round pick to the Lions for safety Quandre Diggs, and somehow got a seventh-round pick in the deal. There are people in Detroit still sticking pins in their Matt Patricia voodoo dolls over that one, and justifiably so. In his two full seasons with the Seahawks, Diggs has become one of the better deep-third safeties in the league, and he’s done it in a defense that replaced most of its coaching staff in the recent offseason. Diggs was great in Detroit’s misshapen defenses, and he’s been great in Seattle’s Legion of Whom iterations.
On Monday, Seattle got away with another felony by re-signing the impending free agent to a three-year, $40 million contract. Diggs suffered a broken fibula and a dislocated ankle late in the 2021 season, which likely affected his market value, but what the stats say, and what the tape shows, is that this is premier player at a crucial position — the deep cover safety who can erase passing plays, and create nearly as many takeaways as he allows catches. Considering that Adams is now playing on a four-year, $70 million deal (pretty rich for a 220-pound WILL linebacker with some blitzing ability and iffy coverage skills), the Diggs deal is ridiculous in comparison.
During his time with the Seahawks, Diggs has allowed just five touchdowns to 13 interceptions, and those interceptions are often the result of Diggs’ rare combination of top-tier athleticism and on-field acumen. This interception of a Matthew Stafford attempt to Cooper Kupp in Week 15 is an excellent example. If the ball is anywhere near Diggs’ area, it’s as much his as it belongs to the receiver.
This interception of a Stafford pass in Week 5 shows Diggs’ range and understanding of scramble rules — there are a lot of receivers in the NFL who don’t tilt to their own running quarterbacks as well as Diggs does here — he starts off by defending Robert Woods on the crosser away from the play, and somehow has the wherewithal to recover, run to the right side of the end zone, and it’s as if Diggs was Stafford’s primary target.
And if you want a guy who will sell out to stop the run in crucial spots… well, here’s Diggs upending Lions running back D’Andre Swift near the goal line in Week 17, and reminding his former team exactly what’s up.
“I don’t think there’s any doubt,” Carroll said at the scouting combine of Diggs’ readiness for the 2022 season. “That’s all he’s thinking about. He’ll be back before then, I would think.”
If that’s the case, the Seahawks have at least one echo of the Legion of Boom in Diggs. For a defense that has devolved from a room filled with alphas to the Beta Band all too quickly, the more Quandre Diggses you can have on your roster, the better off you’ll be.