RENTON, Wash. — All Coby Bryant needed was an opportunity.
Now he’s performing like one of the best players on a top-10 defense. This might sound surprising to those following the Seattle Seahawks from afar, but the people who have watched him transition from cornerback to nickel to safety since entering the league in 2022 knew it was only a matter of time before Bryant started to shine.
He entered the starting lineup in Week 7 as an injury replacement and hasn’t looked back. Since then, Bryant has recorded 41 total tackles, one tackle for loss, one forced fumble, five passes defended and three interceptions, which is tied for the league lead among safeties in that span. His presence in the secondary beside veteran safety Julian Love has helped stabilize a defense that fell off midway through the season in part because of struggles at the second and third level.
Coach Mike Macdonald’s Seahawks have gone from worst to first in the division since returning from their Week 10 bye week, and the defense’s turnaround has been the driving force behind the team’s four-game win streak, which the Seahawks (8-5) will try to extend against the Green Bay Packers (9-4) on Sunday night at Lumen Field. Since Week 11, Seattle’s defense ranks second in opponent points per drive and No. 1 in EPA per play, bringing its season ranking to seventh and eighth, respectively, proving the unit has legitimately turned a corner (all stats provided by TruMedia unless otherwise noted).
Bryant’s impact plays have been an important part of the story. His 69-yard pick six in Week 12 (which earned him player of the week honors), the game-ending quarterback pressure in Week 13 and his first-quarter interception in Week 14 are among the splash plays that have directly contributed to Seattle’s defense playing like a contender in the last month.
“You feel comfortable in the back end knowing that him and J Love are back there,” linebacker Ernest Jones IV said. “He’s a baller.”
Bryant’s opportunity is an example of Macdonald being a man of his word. He came to Seattle as a first-year head coach preaching the importance of “stacking days,” with the understanding that players who did so would get a chance on game days. This has been the case with practice-squad elevations for guys like cornerback Josh Jobe and receiver Cody White, as well as the ongoing battle for the starting right guard job, which was recently taken by rookie Sataoa Laumea.
Bryant, already a two-time game day captain, has become the poster child for one of the key components of Macdonald’s culture in that regard: Everything is earned.
“Coby is a great example of how we want to build this thing,” Macdonald said. “Come in, work, compete, do the things every day, stack all the great reps, get the confidence, get an opportunity, take advantage and run with it. Then let your abilities go from there.”
Love has been Bryant’s shoes before.
Like Bryant at Cincinnati, Love was a star cornerback in college. He was a ball hawk at Notre Dame who was a consensus All-American and set the school record with 44 passes defended. Bryant won the 2021 Jim Thorpe Award and finished No. 2 in school history with 45 passes defended.
Like Bryant, Love was a fourth-round pick who was asked to play multiple positions early in his NFL career. Upon entering the league as the 108th pick in the 2019 draft, Love played corner, nickel and both safety positions for the Giants before they eventually shelved him at the latter spot behind guys like Logan Ryan, Jabrill Peppers and Xavier McKinney. He wasn’t a full-time starter until 2022, the final year of his rookie deal.
Bryant, pick No. 109 in 2022, came in as an outside cornerback, then moved to nickel, an unfamiliar position, during training camp and played in sub packages. After training in the offseason to be a better nickel in Year 2, he reported to camp in 2023 and learned he’d be cross-trained at safety, which he hadn’t played since his freshman year of college. He ended up a backup at both nickel and safety but was limited to just 140 defensive snaps across six games because of a toe injury.
There were times in New York when Love wondered why he wasn’t getting many opportunities to show what he was capable of. “It was hard my first few years in it, I can’t lie about that,” he said, adding that upon reflection, making it through those tough times is one of the most satisfying parts of his career.
“I knew I had to tap into a good mental state to get through that,” said Love, who has since made the Pro Bowl and signed a $33 million extension. “I know (Bryant) did, too.”
The similarity in their paths explains why Love was one of the players advocating for Bryant to play. Seattle jettisoned veteran safeties Quandre Diggs and Jamal Adams this offseason and replaced them with Rayshawn Jenkins and K’Von Wallace. Bryant began the regular season as the fourth safety, but after a couple of weeks of inactivity, he started to see snaps in Seattle’s dime package, a reward for stringing together multiple days of quality preparation and production in practice. Macdonald said with the way Bryant conducted himself, the staff had no choice but to put him on the field.
Bryant had become the embodiment of one of Macdonald’s beliefs that you can’t bulls–t the players because they know who the good players are. And the Seahawks have considered Bryant to be in that category for years.
“He’s always been a really great player,” said tight end Noah Fant, who arrived in Seattle the same offseason as Bryant. “He’s always had a knack for finding the ball, a knack for getting the ball out. He’s getting that opportunity to be in that starting safety role, and he’s taking advantage of it. That’s something I’ve always seen from his rookie year on, so it’s not a surprise to me, and it’s not a surprise that he’s going to keep going and keep flourishing.”
Bryant was so impressive as a rookie that receiver DK Metcalf started calling him Ed Reed. Yes, the former Baltimore Raven, Super Bowl champion and Hall of Famer who is arguably the best safety of all time.
“I know it’s a stretch, but just hear me out,” Metcalf said, explaining the nickname. “No offense to Ed Reed or anything, but just the way that (Bryant) tracks the ball, he’s always near the ball. Just going back to when he was a rookie, he’s always had a nose for the ball, whether that was punching it out, catching picks or making an open-field tackle. I just thought he had the complete package to be a great defensive player.”
Reed comparison aside, the gist of Metcalf’s sentiment reflects the feeling of most inside the building. They saw Bryant play nickel for the first time in his career and force four fumbles as a rookie. In Macdonald’s scheme, they’ve watched him put big hits on tape in the preseason and make plays on the ball in practice. As Bryant started to get comfortable at safety, players such as Love started to be more vocal about getting him more playing time.
“Everybody knew in the locker room that Coby was a good player,” Love said. “Everybody knows. I just think it was situationally getting him his moment so people felt confident in him with the game plan fully at safety. Then they let him spin.”
Bryant wears No. 8 and is named after the late NBA legend Kobe Bryant, famous for his “Mamba Mentality.” When defensive backs coach Karl Scott thinks of that mindset, he pictures someone like Coby, who doesn’t allow external factors like draft status, playing time or placement on the depth chart to affect his preparation.
“He’s a guy who is serious about his work,” said Scott, who was hired a couple of months before Seattle drafted Bryant. “You talk about pride in performance, he has a good ego. Whether he’s the third-string guy, fourth-string, first-string, whatever, he’s going to carry himself the way he does now. And he carries himself like he’s the baddest dude in the world. And he prepares that way, too.”
Preparation paired with natural ability is why Bryant works so well next to Love in Macdonald’s defense. Safeties shoulder a significant burden in this scheme. They’re heavily involved in the run fits and pass coverage, and although Seattle often presents a two-high shell before the snap, Macdonald’s scheme regularly calls for post-snap rotations. Either safety might be responsible for buzzing to the flat, covering a tight end one-on-one, manning the middle of the field or rolling down to the intermediate area to eliminate seam and crossing routes.
Occasionally they’ll blitz, which was the case on fourth-and-15 when Bryant forced Rodgers into an errant throw to end the Jets game. They also must clean up any mistakes in front of them, which is what happened when a busted coverage required Bryant to sprint across the field and pick off Kyler Murray on Sunday.
With so much on their plate, Love and Bryant must always be on the same page. The way they communicate has contributed to their production. There’s a rhythm to understanding how to properly relay information to one another, and when Bryant became the starter “it was a really seamless transition because we talk pretty fluidly off the field,” Love said.
Their skill sets also complement one another. Both take pride in their tackling, as that is a prerequisite for being the last line of defense. But Love is more of a finesse player whereas Bryant has a penchant for violence. He has demonstrated a good feel for when to go for a kill shot or make a smart, safe play to get a ball carrier on the ground, but when there’s an opportunity, Bryant likes to bring the boom.
“He errs sometimes on the side of being a run-through-somebody’s-face player, which you need,” Love said. “You need that balance.”
Macdonald’s scheme doesn’t work without versatility, physical and attitude at safety. Bryant and Love have provided all of that and more. The contract Love signed in July was evidence Seattle believed in his ability to be an impact player. Bryant just needed a chance to prove that he could be one, too.