Why Carroll seemed to praise one Seattle Seahawks rookie the most

Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll had a lot of compliments for players who took part in the team’s rookie minicamp over the weekend, but his praise for one particular player jumped out to Brock Huard.

Salk’s Seattle Seahawks rookie minicamp observations

This is what Carroll had to say Saturday about safety Jerrick Reed II, the sixth-round pick out of New Mexico:

He’s a stud now. He’s really built, he’s really quick. You know, I needed to see him in person to see how physical he is, see how he can play as physical a style as he has. He’s a stud now. He’s really built and he’s fast as (heck).

So why did that perk up the ears of Huard, a former Seahawks quarterback and current FOX college football anlayst? He shared Monday during the Blue 88 segment of Seattle Sports’ Brock and Salk.

“You could just tell from parsing Pete through these years, and we’ve heard him talk about different guys, to me (out) of all the sound –and there was a lot of it from the weekend – this one resonated from Coach Carroll,” he said. “When Pete drops a double stud – he gave a double stud to Jerrick Reed right there – that resonates.”

The 5-foot-10, 192-pound Reed has drawn comparisons to Seahawks Pro Bowl free safety Quandre Diggs, and Huard believes that Reed proved to Carroll that his measurables – including the ability to run the 40-yard dash in 4.4 seconds – show up on the field.

“As far as running and moving and leveraging, what Pete is saying right there is, ‘OK, he ran 4.4 in his pro day. Let me see that if it’s real. Let me see how that really looks. It’s one thing to do it at New Mexico. Let me see it out here on this field,'” Huard said. “Oh, it looks good. Oh, he looks explosive. He is a little stud. Get ready, vets, because he’s coming for you. He’s not coming for your starting job, but he’s coming for your special teams reps to start.”

Is Pete Carroll sending a message?

That last thing that Huard said caught the attention of his co-host, Mike Salk, because he thinks Carroll had an ulterior motive with his comments about Reed.

“So he’s a safety. He’s the guy that Pete chose to really praise above everybody else,” Salk said. “… ‘He’s a stud now. He’s really built. He’s really fast. He could really play for us.’ I will admit that my mind went a little bit to ‘Are they messaging?’ Is that a little message to the other safeties out there? … ‘Hey, nobody’s job’s safe now. Make sure you show up for minicamp. Make sure that you’re here, make sure that you’re back as soon as possible.’ Again, I don’t know this, but it did make me wonder if some of that was a message.”

Huard said if that’s the case, the message may even extend to the nickel cornerback position.

“He is a guy that’s not just a safety, he’s a nickel, too,” Huard said of Reed. “So you’re talking to Coby Bryant, as well. … I mean, that is the essence of what (Carroll) wants to do, man. He is a puppeteer of competition. He loves orchestrating that. He doesn’t have to do it a lot verbally, those guys will know, but that certainly reinforces the point that there’s some young ones coming.”

Listen to the full conversation in the final segment of the podcast below.

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