Seattle Seahawks: 5 Players who need to improve in 2019 season

The Seattle Seahawks have proven they can make the playoffs, but now this team needs to show they can make an impact in the postseason.

Pete Carroll and the Seattle Seahawks would love for a number of their players to step up in the 2019 NFL season, but our focus here will be on five specific players who either have a lot to prove or could make enormous impacts by taking the next step in their careers.

It’s worth noting that a list like this will become more accurate and specific as the season grows nearer and the depth chart begins to shape up more, so you can expect a second edition of this article sometime in the preseason.

It’s a little bit harder entering 2019 to find five players because there have been so many offseason acquisitions and I don’t want to include rookies or free agent signees. Instead, I want to focus on players who have been with the Seahawks for a little while now and have experience in the team’s system.

The reason for doing this is because I don’t believe it’s fair to put rookies or new acquisitions on a list like this given that they haven’t even played a game for their new team. It’s much more reasonable to ask for more from players who have been with the team for a few years and know everything they could want to about their situations.

With that in mind, let’s get into these five players that must be better in 2019.

Shaquill Griffin, CB

When the Seahawks and the Legion of Boom were running through the rest of the league, the team’s most vocal and visible player was cornerback Richard Sherman. The Seahawks experienced their greatest amount of success during the five-year stretch where Sherman either made the Pro Bowl or an All-Pro team. If the team wants to reach that level of dominance again, then they’ll need another shutdown cornerback. And the only player on the current roster who could fill that need is Shaquill Griffin.

The older Griffin brother will be entering his third NFL season this year, putting him at an important crossroad in his career. Usually, it’s at this point where the stars begin to show their true colors and the average players begin to dull a little as their development stagnates.

Griffin, a former third-round pick, has great athleticism, but he’s yet to prove he’s capable of handling a starting, let alone a star, position on the defense. Pro Football Focus (subscription required) gave him a 50.7 grade last season, ranking him 111th among all cornerbacks and putting him in the “below average” category.

While analytics aren’t everything, they’re pretty telling in Griffin’s case. He’s yet to imprint his stamp on the league, underwhelming in his statistics and playing style. For example, Griffin recorded just two interceptions last season and they both came in Week 2. That means Griffin didn’t intercept a pass for the final 14 games of the season, which is crazy considering it wasn’t a case where teams were avoiding his side of the field. You expect low interception numbers from the Darrelle Revises, Patrick Petersons and Shermans of the world, not a player like Griffin.

2019 will be a very telling season for Griffin. The Seahawks will have to decide if they’re comfortable moving forward with him as a starting cornerback in the near future and this year will be the key argument for or against keeping the young corner.

For more grades, advanced statistics and more at Pro Football Focus, subscribe to PFF’s EDGE or ELITE subscriptions at ProFootballFocus.com.