Too Spoon?
Devon Witherspoon's age is not just a number and most NFL players know that in football it's either now or never
Checking in on other leagues once in awhile, I feel like times never change in the NBA or MLB. Hearing a name pop up like “here comes Jerry Stackhouse” or “now batting: Albert Pujols” seems crazy, but not totally impossible. LeBron was drafted the same year as Marcus Trufant.
But despite a couple of recent exceptions at quarterback, the NFL is quite heavily young-loaded.
Oftentimes teams are not drafting their future, they’re looking for investments that pay immediate dividends. In the case of the NFL’s most recent champions, the Philadelphia Eagles drafted all of these players in the post-pandemic era:
QB Jalen Hurts
WR DeVonta Smith
DT Jalen Carter
C Cam Jurgens
G Landon Dickerson
DT Jordan Davis
LB Nakobe Dean
DT Milton Williams
CB Quinyon Mitchell
CB Cooper DeJean
EDGE Nolan Smith
RB Kenneth Gainwell
Most of these players proved vitally important to a Super Bowl champion and the majority of them also played key roles on another Super Bowl team in 2022. Statistically speaking, the odds are far greater that they have played in their last Super Bowl than the chances that they will play in another.
The Eagles can’t simply rest on their laurels and expect the same players to take them to Super Bowls in 2025, 2026, 2027, and beyond. Every draft is another opportunity to find the next set of players who will make that version of the Eagles the best team THAT YEAR, no longer worrying about whether or not last year’s version of the Eagles is still the best team now in the ever-changing landscape of the NFL.
Super Bowl teams that failed to reload in the draft — aka the 2013-2014 Seattle Seahawks — soon found out after that season that last year’s best players are rarely next year’s best players.
Aside from Kevin Williams, who only played in 45% of the snaps, the oldest starter on the 2014 Seahawks was 29-year-old Michael Bennett and 16 of Seattle’s 22 “starters” were 26 or younger.
The best Seahawks team of all-time was a young Seahawks team.
Per Mike Sando in 2013, the Seahawks had the youngest offense in the NFL at final cuts that year, releasing 30-year-old Michael Robinson before later bringing him back for a minor role. Nobody on the roster was older than 31.
Compare that to the current Seahawks:
Jason Myers, 34
DeMarcus Lawrence, 33
Johnathan Hankins, 33
Jarran Reed, 33
Cooper Kupp, 32
Leonard Williams, 31
The Seahawks are not old — they got six years younger at quarterback, 10 years younger at left guard, and also released 33-year-old Tyler Lockett — but unlike the 2013 team, John Schneider is willing to invest some of his chips in players over 30. But not many of them.
It will still be players under 27 who are most responsible for Seattle’s eventual win-loss record and playoff success, if they get that far.
This is why Devon Witherspoon, a prime candidate to become Seattle’s best player in 2025, is such an important cog in the Seahawks present. Getting eight years out of Witherspoon is a fantastic idea and we’re all for it, but past cases like Shawn Springs and Richard Sherman serve as examples of cornerbacks we’re familiar with who peaked (and peaked HARD) within the first few years of their careers.
Witherspoon has been awesome in his first two seasons, but has also left room for us to imagine a world in which he’s even better. Significantly better.
However, this is football and that means that talent is a sports car, not a work of art: It depreciates over time. Value is lost and continues to sink from the moment you invest in it.
Of course there are always exceptions — Bobby Wagner played like a Super Bowl champion for many more seasons after when he actually won it — and if Witherspoon wins Defensive Player of the Year or Jaxon Smith-Njigba gets consideration for the offensive award, hopefully the Seahawks are only starting to tap into careers that continue to stack All-Pro seasons.
But don’t lose sight of the fact that if players such as Witherspoon, JSN, Byron Murphy, Kenneth Walker, and/or Derick Hall have other-worldly seasons in 2025 that it’s not just about “the start of something special”; if they’re special NOW, then the team needs to be special NOW.
These moments are fleeting, these opportunities are rare, and the best players from a draft that happened five years ago are not necessarily going to be the best players today.
(Is Nick Bosa (2019 draft) a better pass rusher than Micah Parsons (2021 draft) and is Parsons a better pass rusher than Aidan Hutchinson (2022 draft) and is Abdul Carter going to out-sack them all over the next four years?)
With that out of the way, here’s another new Seahawks All-22 film breakdown from our friend of the same name.
In this segment, you’ll hear why Witherspoon and Marlon Humphrey of the Baltimore Ravens are the two most unique cornerbacks in the NFL today.
Today Humphrey’s credit, he had a career-year in 2024 (six interceptions, first-team All-Pro) after suffering multiple costly injuries in 2021 and 2023. Humphrey’s only other All-Pro season came in his third season, which coincidentally happens to be the stage that Witherspoon is at right now in his career.
Can Mike Macdonald build on his first year with Witherspoon to create a cornerback who is even better than Humphrey?
With Witherspoon’s rare ability to press receivers both on the outside and in the nickel, Macdonald could have a versatile secondary weapon who is able to accumulate the interceptions, sacks, and forced fumbles that have mostly evaded him thus far.
Both All_22 and Cody Alexander of MatchQuarters have recently highlighted how important Macdonald’s “3 cornerback system” could be devastating to opposing offensive coordinators, especially now that Seattle has added Shaquill Griffin as another option who might allow Witherspoon to play more inside this upcoming season.
The MatchQuarters Macdonald analysis
MatchQuarters posted a breakdown of the Mike Macdonald defense and how it differs from the end of Pete Carroll’s tenure, called Inside Macdonald’s Seahawks Defense: Modern Concepts & How They Attacked the Rams.
I got the subscription to read behind the paywall and it would be reprehensible of me, as a person who makes a partial living at Substack, to share the premium information with you. But some of what you’ll learn are about the following Macdonald defensive plays:
Cover 1 double rat (drop-8)
‘Boat’ (Double-B) Hot Palms
Cover 0 double rate ‘‘Tag’ pressure
And this quote is before the paywall:
A hallmark of a Macdonald system is to use different packages to match up with opponents on a weekly basis. Initially, the Seahawks brought Rayshawn Jenkins (current Brown) and K’Von Wallace (current free agent) to pair with Julian Love and Coby Bryant. Having four safeties allowed Macdonald to ‘kick’ star Nickel Devon Witherspoon outside.
Coverage-wise, the Seahawks align with the NFL averages but lean more heavily into the split-field universe. Even though the Seahawks can run man coverage, they still feature more zone coverage, which aligns with league-wide trends.
For context, in Baltimore, Macdonald ran relatively high rates of split-field coverage. In 2024, that was no different; Seattle finished eleventh in MOFO coverage usage (41%).
While this is a tiny snippet of what Cody Alexander wrote after the paywall, highlighting that the selection of Nick Emmanwori means that “big nickel defense isn’t dead”:
“Macdonald loves to use packages. With this roster, the Seahawks can tailor-make their matchups each week.”
Get a free trial to Match Quarters and you can read the rest. But luckily, Alexander also appeared on this podcast to explain his article so you can watch this for a deeper dive on what he was writing about. It probably even allows you to skip the subscription:
Not everybody agrees with my argument that T.J. Watt is at the worst stage of a player’s career: Basically Watt wants his highest career earnings for his worst career seasons.
This is apparently a sentiment that the Steelers share, as Pittsburgh insider Gerry Dulac reported that the team is wary of a record-setting contract given his recent play in 2024.
Watt turns 31 in October, which would make him older than every single player on the 2013 Seattle Seahawks, which is arguably the best defense of all-time.
But it’s not about how much you pay or who you pay, it’s only about when you pay. The Seahawks do need to get better, but they don’t need to get older or more expensive. Can they trust that they already have a Defensive Player of the Year candidate on their roster who hasn’t been paid yet?
Or is it too spoon?
Seaside Joe 2313
'Spoon is my favorite player to watch in the league and I have receipts in this comment section that I wanted him over Carter. When I have watched him fall for a play fake or such, I have generally seen him recognize it the next time. He's so fun and energetic and smart and fast and strong and hits hard. My favorite type of defensive guy. But I have to admit that Carter is a guy who can play in any system down in and down out and be disruptive. Devon Witherspoon is arguably a more talented football player, but his strengths need to be utilized more than any DL's. Pick your favorite Hall of Fame DB, and he is more reliant on his assignments than a guy asked to run through a brick wall and tackle the man with the ball.
I used to think that I understood this game better than the average viewer, having played it most of my pre-adult life. But when I see terms such as:
Cover 1 double rat (drop-8) -Cover 1, got it. But REALLY, drop 8!?! 3 rushers and the rest of the TEAM drops into coverage? That would be suicide against a QB who has wheels -or even a good RB, which nearly all have. But I'm not thinking of modern high end NFL plays, as much as understanding watching the game in even the LOB era.
‘Boat’ (Double-B) Hot Palms -Am I holding a hot burrito fresh off of a food truck? Otherwise, I can't even think of an explanation for this. Let alone "boat," Double-B" or "rat."
Cover 0 double rate ‘‘Tag’ pressure - Cover 0: fine, I understand that. But "Tag" pressure? Are we sure they're not just making shit up?
I feel like a lot of analysts don't want to simplify, lest it makes them seem like less of a genius. Perhaps I'm just trying to make myself feel better for not understanding it but each team has its own terms for the same concepts. I watched a QB School where JT O'Sullivan broke down two AFC teams' offensive calls (I think Bengals and maybe Chargers), but it was two very talented QBs and JT pointed out the same concepts they were asked to run and talked about the difference in "verbiage," and that stuck with me. There aren't a lot of ways to vastly reinvent the wheel under current game rules, but coaches call them different things. And I don't desire to know "double x, y banana" as much as I just wish I grasped the more common intricacies in the modern NFL well enough to wrap my head around the things that seem to be more complicated than what I do actually understand. But for all the (probably hundreds) of hours of football I watch year-round; I have a job and family and enjoy movies and other things and I have a finite amount of attention to put towards my leisure.
Last year there was something not quite perfect about Witherspoon's play that feels like he will let it loose this year. Same sort of goes for Woolen. If Woolen reaches out with two hands to intercept a pass rather than take the sure PB with one hand he seems to favor, he could increase his INT rate quite a lot. Both of them seem to be on the cusp of greatness. If they both put it together at the same time, we could have a kick ass DB room with Love and Coby in the back end. And let's not talk about Josh Jobe taking the next step. Heck, if he even plays the same as last year, defenses will suffer forcing the ball his way.
Given we can expect a bit better pass rush this year than last, the back end will benefit from more bad throws. That is what complimentary football means within the defense itself, which requires what Pete always preached, it all starts with stopping the run.