RENTON, Wash. – Coming off the best statistical season of his NFL career, Tre Brown isn’t being cautious setting lofty expectations for himself as he enters the final year of his rookie contract with the Seattle Seahawks.

After playing a career-high in snaps while starting seven games for Seattle last season, Brown has been a fixture in the team’s first-team defense throughout the offseason program into training camp, seeing the bulk of the snaps at left cornerback opposite of Riq Woolen in nickel and dime sets. Believing his best football has yet to come, he’s eager to show what he can do in a new defensive scheme implemented by first-time head coach Mike Macdonald.

“I want to be the best on the field this year,” Brown proclaimed before Friday’s third training camp practice. “I got high standards, Pro Bowl, All-Pro, nothing less.”

When healthy, Brown has performed at a high level for the Seahawks, including recording 10 tackles and a pass breakup in five games after bursting into the starting lineup as a rookie. That season, he allowed just a 47.1 percent completion rate and 59.7 passer rating on 17 targets, looking the part of a potential long-term starter on the outside.

But the former fourth-round pick out of Oklahoma suffered a patellar tendon injury midway through his rookie season and a lengthy recovery limited Brown to only six games and 21 defensive snaps in 2022, putting his status in the secondary up in the air, especially after the team invested a top-five pick in Devon Witherspoon in the 2023 NFL Draft.

Bouncing back thanks to a normal offseason without rehab, Brown wound up beating out incumbent Mike Jackson for the starting left cornerback job last summer. Even with him taking on a diminished role for the Seahawks in the second half after struggling with defensive penalties, he set new career-highs with 34 tackles and two interceptions, returning one of those picks for a crucial defensive touchdown in a Week 2 win over the Lions, along with adding two forced fumbles and a sack.

Since the start of spring practices in May, Brown has looked quite comfortable in Macdonald’s defense, regularly getting his hands on the football for pass breakups in team and 7-on-7 sessions. In Friday’s third practice, he frequently jostled with DK Metcalf, winning several battles between the two in the red zone period, including deflecting a goal line fade. He’s also taken on a more vocal role in the secondary with communication being emphasized by Macdonald and the rest of the coaching staff.

“It’s been a lot to learn,” Brown explained. “But it’s really simple, a lot of things that you just see out there. Everything is really kind of like simplified in terms of the defense and it builds confidence in everybody as a whole because, even though he throws a lot at us, but when you can see how we can do it, it brings so much more to the defense.”

As far as fit is concerned, Brown’s strengths should mesh quite well with what Macdonald has asked his cornerbacks to do in the past as the Ravens defensive coordinator, including playing aggressive press coverage on the outside. Per Pro Football Focus, Brown ranked first among qualified cornerbacks with an 88.5 coverage grade in press coverage, intercepting two passes and forcing five incompletions on 22 targets.

In a very limited sample size, Brown has produced a sack on two blitzes, and given Macdonald’s penchant for sending defensive backs in blitz and sim pressure packages, he could have more opportunities to showcase that aspect of his game in 2024. Aside from leaving a few too many tackles on the field, which plagued Seattle’s entire defense the past two years, Brown has also been a serviceable run defender in his three NFL seasons with 64.0 or better grades the past two years via PFF.

With much still to prove and free agency looming next March, Brown isn’t thinking about his NFL future and he’s solely focused on controlling what he can control in the present with another opportunity to show what he can do in front of a new coaching staff.

“I say it all the time, I’m a really nice player,” Brown said confidently. “I’m a player who makes plays, especially in crunch time, you always see me show up. And you’re going to see more of that this year.”

Looking towards a crucial season, Brown will be counting on a clean bill of health, as durability has been the biggest factor that has held him back from fulfilling his potential to this point. His knee injury suffered in 2021 ultimately cost him a full season’s worth of games, setting back his development and preventing the organization from fully investing in him as a starting option. He will also have to beat out Jackson, who started 21 games over the past two seasons, for the second time in as many years.

Assuming he can avoid the injury bug that plagued him earlier in his career, the 26-year old Brown hopes to demonstrate better consistency as an all-around player and in turn, earn the trust from a new coaching staff that he didn’t from the previous regime. Coupled with a scheme that he believes will best accentuate his strengths and skill set, he’s hoping to finally enjoy the breakout season he has been on the cusp of since breaking into the league.

“I’m still coming back from not having played for so long, so now that the game is slowing down for me, you’re gonna see a lot more of the production you saw from me last year.”

Seattle Reign FC confirmed on Friday that defender Ryanne Brown tore her anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and meniscus and has been placed on the Season-Ending Injury (SEI) list. Brown was injured toward the end of the first half of last Friday’s match against the Utah Royals, going down without contact as she chased a ball out of bounds.

Brown will undergo surgery to begin her recovery, which can vary depending on the severity of the injury but typically ranges from nine months to a year.

Brown, in her second full season with the Reign, started four games and played in 10 matches across all competitions this year. All her starts came in June and July as she worked her way into a starting role. Brown was part of a backline that corrected earlier defensive mistakes and gave up just three goals in the last four matches she started.

“We’re heartbroken for Ryanne,” said head coach Laura Harvey in a team release. “She has consistently been a player who works hard every day to help the team as much as possible. Her performances on the field this year have shown how much growth there has been in Ryanne’s game. We will be fully supporting her throughout this journey.”

After the Reign’s Summer Cup win against Utah, Harvey shared her frustration with the fact that the Reign had to play on Friday and couldn’t start training until Monday following a seven-day CBA-mandated break.

“The fact that we’ve been asked to play four days, five days after the mandatory break, I don’t think is the most player health and safety thing that we’ve ever asked the players to do. Tonight was always going to be tough. Playing on a Friday after a mandatory break outside of a FIFA break is close to absurd if you ask me, and unfortunately, we have a player that got injured because of it.”

Reign forward Bethany Balcer shared a similar sentiment on Twitter this week, commenting on the news that Sam Staab will miss the rest of the season with a torn Achilles tendon.

In an escalation of tensions between two local governments over how to handle misdemeanor crime, a representative for King County Executive Dow Constantine is pushing back on the claim that booking restrictions in the downtown jail are heightening public safety issues in Seattle, pointing the finger instead at City Attorney Ann Davison’s office.

Davison, as well as Seattle City Council President Sara Nelson and interim police Chief Sue Rahr, have argued the county’s restrictions, in place since 2020, mean they’re limited in their ability to combat public disorder and repeat shoplifters.

In a message to Metropolitan King County Council members sent Wednesday, Penny Lipsou, director of council relations for county Executive Dow Constantine, said Davison’s claims are misguided. Lipsou said the jail makes exceptions to booking restrictions when there is a compelling reason. Davison’s office has been ineffective at making those arguments in court, she said.

“Rather than attacking the jail (and in past months, the judges), she should first get her own shop in order,” Lipsou wrote in her message Wednesday.

The message goes on to invite Seattle to cancel its contract with the county for jail space.

“The County is more than willing to immediately release the City from any further obligations under the 2012 contract. This would ameliorate [the Department of Adult and Juvenile Detention]’s staffing challenges, and allow the County to focus on the more serious (felony) suspects and offenders, who are the County’s responsibility under state law,” Lipsou wrote.

King County has been restricting bookings in its downtown jail since the beginning of the pandemic, first for public health reasons, then due to staffing shortages. While violent offenses and DUIs are still eligible for booking, property destruction, trespassing, shoplifting and others are not. Seattle, which pays the county about $20 million a year for roughly 200 beds in the downtown jail, has only been able to access between 70 and 80 since 2020.

In response, Mayor Bruce Harrell recently announced a plan to jail people in a Des Moines jail, owned and operated by South King County cities, known as the South Correctional Entity, or SCORE. The proposal, which would put Seattle into new territory after exclusively using county-run jails, comes as Davison and members of the Seattle City Council have increased pressure on Harrell to find new jail beds.

In a City Council meeting Wednesday, Davison told officials her office couldn’t book more than half the misdemeanors listed in the city’s code.

“If somebody smashes a plate-glass window at one of our storefronts, I can’t get them booked into King County Jail,” Davison said.

Nelson, meanwhile, has repeatedly said the city should demand its money back from the county until it’s afforded all 200 beds.

Lipsou said the restrictions are not policy driven, but a response to low staffing levels which do not allow the county to operate its jails at full capacity. Hiring has picked up, but is still well below the number of staffers needed.

Seattle can request exemptions from the restrictions — which it has done several times, according to Lipsou’s email, including as recently as last week to allow Seattle police officers to book more people from downtown and its surrounding neighborhoods. News website PubliCola earlier reported on the exemption request.

“[The Department of Adult and Juvenile Detention] has made it clear to Seattle and other partner agencies that it will grant exceptions to booking restrictions based on special emphasis patrols, special events, and place-based enforcement, up to and including a recently requested exception for all of downtown Seattle,” Lipsou wrote.

As for the money, Lipsou said the county is already subsidizing misdemeanor bookings and the city is not paying the full cost, even with the limitations in place.

“There is no money to return, despite the city council president’s assertion,” wrote Lipsou.

Amy Enbysk, press secretary for Constantine, confirmed the authenticity of the email, which was intended to be internal.

“The Executive is extremely frustrated that these issues are being discussed at a City Council meeting without an opportunity for the County to be present, as it provides a one-sided perspective of a complex challenge,” she said.

A spokesperson for Mayor Bruce Harrell said the city remains in conversation with the county about its booking restrictions. A spokesperson for Davison declined to comment.