Heaps: Have the Seahawks found the answer at CB in rookie Tre Brown?

The Seahawks suffered a tough 23-20 overtime loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers to drop to 2-4, but there were definitely some positives to take away from the game.

Carroll on Seahawks’ run game, improving D, state of season

On offense, the run game excelled against a tough Pittsburgh front and while backup quarterback Geno Smith had a costly late fumble, that was really the lone mistake he made filling in for Russell Wilson.

On the other side, the defense had arguably its best game of the year, limiting the Steelers to under 350 total yards and under 225 passing yards despite failing to generate much pressure on quarterback Ben Roethlisberger.

A real standout on defense was the emergence of cornerback Tre Brown, who was thrust into a key role in his first NFL game.

After missing the Seahawks’ first five games of the year with a knee injury he suffered in training camp, the rookie fourth-round pick made his NFL debut in Pittsburgh. Sidney Jones got the start opposite D.J. Reed, but Brown came in and played well in the Steelers’ second series. Jones returned to action after that, but he suffered an injury and Brown filled in the rest of the way.

He looked sound in coverage, was aggressive and made a key tackle in overtime to stop Pittsburgh a yard short of a first down for one of his three tackles.

Going forward, is Brown the answer at cornerback opposite Reed? And does that stabilize a key position group for the Seahawks? Here’s what former NFL quarterback Jake Heaps had to say Monday morning on 710 ESPN Seattle’s Jake and Stacy.

“I don’t know if they’ve found the answer in terms of, ‘Tre Brown’s come in and solved all of our problems and here are our guys moving forward – D.J. Reed and Tre Brown,'” Heaps said. “But in terms of the short-term (future)? Yeah, Tre Brown is your guy. He is the guy right now that is going to play opposite of D.J. Reed.”

But whether that remains the case is dependent on a Week 7 primetime showdown against the New Orleans Saints in Seattle at Lumen Field on Monday Night football.

“We’ll see after getting a start and playing the majority of the game against the Saints if he can maintain that, if he can hold that,” Heaps said. “(And we’ll see) if we’re still saying the same things about Tre Brown with his physical play, his aggressive play in a positive way in the passing game.”

So what exactly did Brown do that stood out to Heaps?

“What I saw from him … was somebody that played extremely confident and that also ran the routes of the receivers,” Heaps said. “That takes instincts, that takes guts, that takes confidence as a corner to do that. And to step in and do that as a rookie coming off of (injured reserve) is really, really impressive. So we’ll see if this is who Tre Brown is or if he had one really good moment against an offense and quarterback that is past his prime. We’ll see. But (his play was) very, very encouraging and hopefully D.J. Reed and Tre Brown is your answer at cornerback in a positive way at this point moving forward in the season.”

Listen to the full second hour of Monday’s Jake and Stacy at this link or in the player below.

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