Carroll: Rashaad Penny has ‘significant’ knee injury; Seahawks players react ominously
UPDATE: Rashaad Penny out for rest of Seahawks season. C.J. Prosise, Travis Homer up next
The Seahawks are praying for Rashaad Penny.
That and much more the players said late Sunday sounded like more than a sprained knee ligament.
Coach Pete Carroll said the initial word he got on Penny’s injury from the fifth play of Seattle’s 28-12 loss at the Los Angeles Rams Sunday night at the Memorial Coliseum is a sprained anterior cruciate ligament. The Seahawks’ running back and 2018 first-round draft choice injured his knee when it appeared to buck at the end of a catch and run on a screen pass.
“He’s got an ACL sprain,” Carroll said, “and we don’t know how serious it is.
“But it’s significant.”
After the first loss in six games for Seattle (10-3), Penny’s teammates said they were praying for him. They talked of Penny’s long road of rehabilitation ahead.
The tone and words suggested an ultimate diagnosis could be more serious than a relatively shorter-term sprain in the knee’s important ligament.
Chris Carson, the lead back ahead of Penny in what had increasingly become an effective rushing duo for the Seahawks in recent games, was the last player to talk to Penny on the field. That was before he limped off the sideline all the way around the end zone and up the long ramp to the Coliseum’s visiting locker room during the first quarter.
Carson had his rookie season with the Seahawks end with a broken leg in his fourth NFL game.
“Every player faces adversity at some point; I went through it my rookie year,” Carson said. “Like I told him, this is going to make you stronger. I already planned working out with him in the offseason, so I told him that, you know, he is going to get right in the offseason.
“But his mindset is always the same. I mean, he always loves to compete, always likes to get better. I told him to keep his head up. We are all praying for him.”
Carson said “of course” Penny “was upset at first” with the injury.
“He’s going to overcome this,” Carson said.
That sounds like more than a sprained knee.
So does this:
“It’s tough man. It’s tough,” Pro Bowl left tackle Duane Brown said. “He was having a good year, coming off a career game (last month at Philadelphia), really feeling his rhythm, having his confidence.
“It’s tough. It’s tough. We’ve got his back, though. I know he’ll rehab, do whatever’s needed to come back stronger.
“Praying for him.”
The recently resurgent Penny caught a screen pass from Russell Wilson on the game’s opening drive and ran for 16 yard before Rams safety Taylor Rapp hit him with a routine-looking lower-body tackle. Penny landed on his torso face down, then limped off to Seattle’s nearby sideline.
He sat on the bench bouncing back and forth in pain for a moment while a doctor looked at his left knee and leg. He eventually limped into the observation tent behind the bench, then off the field into the Seahawks’ locker room with a team doctor at his side.
The team announced Penny was out for the rest of the game with a knee injury.
That left lead running back Carson, rookie Travis Homer and third-down back C.J. Prosise as Seattle’s options in the backfield behind Wilson.
Carson gained 76 yards on 15 carries, but fell out of the play calling after the Seahawks fell behind 21-3 in the second quarter and Wilson trying to pass for bigger chunks and scores took priority.
Prosise had eight injuries his first three years with Seattle. The Seahawks’ second-round draft choice in 2016, a former wide receiver from Notre Dame, has mostly been a third-down, receiving back in his 23-game career in the NFL with Seattle. He’s been inactive fis six of the 13 games this season.
Sunday, Wilson tried to hand the ball to Prosise in the first half on a read-option play. Prosise never took the ball, as if he wasn’t expecting it.
He carried it only one time after that, for 2 yards.
It may be time for the Seahawks to take a longer look at rookie sixth-round draft choice Travis Homer as the primary backup to Carson. Homer’s one carry this season was last week against Minnesota, a 29-yard run past some surprised Vikings on a fake punt.
Penny had 35 snaps to Carson’s 39 as both combined for 176 yards rushing in that win over Minnesota six days earlier.
“That’s just unfortunate, and it’s part of the game, unfortunately,” Wilson said of Penny and his injury. “But I got to talk to him afterwards, and he had his head up. He’s looking forward to where he is going next, and just fighting through the rehab of it all. And we’ll be right there with him.
“But, yeah, it was tough, obviously, when you lose one of your key players, a guy that you love to play with like Penny—he’s been playing good football, too, for us.
“That was tough.”
This story was originally published December 8, 2019 at 10:48 PM with the headline "Carroll: Rashaad Penny has ‘significant’ knee injury; Seahawks players react ominously."
