Tariq Woolen is faster than everybody else, and the Chiefs just found that out

Seahawks cornerback Tariq Woolen is faster than you, no matter who you are. Patrick Mahomes just discovered that on a deep post.

Around about 2015, I asked Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll why safety Earl Thomas was so important to his defense. Everybody already knew that Thomas was a key part of the Legion of Boom, one of the NFL’s all-time greatest defenses at his peak, but I wanted Carroll to give us something we didn’t already know about Thomas.

Carrol’s answer was unusually succinct: “When was the last time you saw anybody complete a deep post against us?”

It was a fair point.

Carroll doesn’t have Thomas anymore, but he does have rookie cornerback and Pro Bowler Tariq Woolen, and that might be just as good. With 3:30 left in the first quarter of the Seahawks’ game against the Kansas City Chiefs, Patrick Mahomes decided to test Seattle’s defense with a deep post to Justin Watson.

Ordinarily, that would have been an explosive completion. In this case, it would have been a touchdown, and that would have put Kansas City up, 13-0.

But ordinarily, defenses playing Mahomes don’t have a cornerback standing 6-foot-4, weighing 205 pounds, and running at a sub-4.3 clip. The Seahawks, however, have Just That Guy.

Not only did Woolen catch up to Watson on the play, he signaled a check to a fellow defender along the way. That, friends, is some serious swagger.