RENTON, Wash. -- Quite a bit is different for Riq Woolen this training camp compared to last year's.
Let's start with his role. After playing exclusively on the right side his first two seasons in the NFL, the Seattle Seahawks' cornerback has been venturing across the field, preparing to travel with certain receivers in new coach Mike Macdonald's defense.
He's also healthy, which was not the case for part of last summer after he suffered a knee injury in the spring that required surgery.
There's more feistiness to Woolen's game than he's shown in the past, apparent in his camp scraps with receiver DK Metcalf and running back Kenneth Walker III.
And whereas Woolen entered 2023 coming off a Pro Bowl rookie season as a fifth-round pick -- with all the newfound fame from his sudden success and the elevated expectations that came with it -- he heads into 2024 on the heels of a sophomore slump.
It briefly cost him his starting job but gave him valuable perspective.
"It was part of the journey, for real," an introspective Woolen said earlier in camp. "I done been [through] ups and downs. I've been to the Pro Bowl. I done been on the bench before. So it was just all part of the journey to me. I felt like as a young player I had to go through that just because it shows me that [there's] some places I don't want to be and [there's] places that I do want to be, and that's being a Pro Bowler, that's to help me team get to the Super Bowl and just be a great player."
This time last year, Woolen was still getting his feet back under him after surgery in May to repair a knee injury, which sidelined him for Organized Team Activities and minicamp as well as the first two weeks of training camp. It was no small setback for a young player who at that point had only played three full seasons at cornerback -- having transferred from wide receiver during his sophomore season at UTSA -- and thus needed all the offseason reps he could get.
Woolen made it back for the opener but hurt his shoulder in Week 2, suffering an injury that kept him out of Seattle's next game and continued to give him trouble.
By the time his second season was over, Woolen allowed a 79.2 passer rating and a 56.7% completion rate as the nearest defender in coverage, according to NFL Next Gen Stats. Those figures ranked 24th- and 23rd-best among defensive backs who were targeted at least 50 times. Each was a dropoff from his 2022 marks, when he allowed a league-low 49.8% passer rating and the 13th-lowest completion rate at 52.2%.
To be sure, Woolen made some rookie mistakes in 2022. But he offset them with big plays, tying for the NFL lead with six interceptions and returning one of them for a touchdown. He picked off two passes last season, with 11 passes defensed compared to 16 as a rookie.
The dip in ball production drew heightened scrutiny on Woolen's inconsistent tackling. After he was pulled during an ugly loss to the San Francisco 49ers on Thanksgiving following a missed tackle, then-coach Pete Carroll said his shoulder was the reason he was taken out of the game -- even though he had remained in on special teams.
Two weeks later, after two more lousy performances by Seattle's defense, Mike Jackson got the start at right cornerback. Woolen played only 19 snaps on defense. When he returned to the starting lineup a week later and helped seal a three-point win by leveling a Tennessee Titans ball-carrier on their final snap, Carroll was eager to celebrate the tackle, proudly calling it "the hit of a career."
"Honestly I just felt like last year was a great year for me," Woolen said. "To some people, they may have their own opinions, but those are the same people that are not playing the game, so it's OK with me. I feel great and I feel like this year will be even better."
Macdonald does not liberally dole out praise like Carroll did, but Woolen got some from his new coach after a strong first day of joint practices against the Titans in Nashville, which included a textbook coverage rep vs. Calvin Ridley in one-on-ones. Woolen had a similarly impressive rep vs. Ridley in the same drill Thursday, along with an interception in a seven-on-seven period. In Seattle's preseason opener, Woolen ended the Los Angeles Chargers' first two drives with sticky coverage on third down, also showing off his 4.26 speed to break on a crossing route for a near interception on another play.
Woolen has still lined up on the right side the majority of the time, but whereas Carroll almost exclusively kept his perimeter cornerbacks to one side of the field or the other, Macdonald is moving him around. Woolen has downplayed the difficulty of the adjustment, noting he went back in forth in college as a boundary corner.
"I see iron sharpening iron out there when he's going against the wideouts, especially DK," Macdonald said. "Just someone that's on a mission. He's responding to the coaching and he's bought in and I think the players are excited about him. I don't want to oversell it right now, but I think you can sense our excitement about him."
If complacency was a factor in Woolen's 2023 struggles, as some in the organization theorized, then he seems to be in a different frame of mind now, to hear those around him describe it.
"I think Riq has a point to prove," cornerback Devon Witherspoon said. "A lot of people say he had a down year last year and I think he took that to heart. He really don't pay attention to it but I feel like he wants to prove ... to himself that he's better than what he was, what he put on tape last year."