Carson hires new agents for contract year. It’s a tricky one for him — and the Seahawks
Chris Carson is making changes for his first, big contract year.
The Seahawks have some decisions to make with him, too.
Their lead running back has new agents for 2020, the Octagon sports agency announced this week. Octagon’s Casey Muir and Murphy McGuire are now representing Carson.
Carson is entering the final year of his rookie contract he signed in 2017 as Seattle’s second of two seventh-round draft choices that year.
The 249th of 253 choices in that year’s draft is coming off back-to-back 1,000-yard rushing seasons. He’s the sixth rusher in Seahawks’ history to do that, after Curt Warner (1985-86), Chris Warren (1992-95), Ricky Watters (1998-2000), Shaun Alexander (2001-05) and Marshawn Lynch (2011-14).
Carson has more than 2,381 yards combined with 16 rushing touchdowns the last two years. His 1,151 yards in 2018 made him Seattle’s first 1,000-yard rusher since Lynch in 2014.
Only Ezekiel Elliott (14) has more 100-yard rushing games in the NFL the last two seasons than Carson (12).
So there’s no doubt Carson has in three years proven worthy of leading Pete Carroll’s run-based offense with a pounding running style that the veteran coach loves to feature. Carson’s indeed proven worthy of a new, megabucks contract extension beyond 2020, worthy of perhaps having a new deal already.
But he has not proven to be durable.
He broke his leg four games into his rookie season and had season-ending surgery. In 2018 he missed two games and also played through an injured hip and groin. His 2019 season ended in December with a cracked and displaced hip.
Last week, he posted video of him training in the Bellevue area east of Seattle, looking as he promised in January he’d be: ready for the start of the 2020 season in September.
Carson has not had a full, injury-free season dating to his junior-college days at Butler Community College in Kansas. Those were in 2013 and ‘14. In 2012, he tore his anterior cruciate ligament in his knee during his senior season at Lilburn Parkview High School in Georgia. That changed his plans of playing football for the University of Georgia. He had a hand injury that cost him games in 2016, his final one at Oklahoma State.
He plays at the position with the highest rate of injuries in the NFL. His backup the last two seasons, Rashaad Penny, is rehabilitating following reconstructive knee surgery this past winter. Penny may miss the first six games of this season
That’s why the Seahawks last month signed Carlos Hyde, a 1,000-yard rusher for Houston in 2019, to a one-year contract possibly worth up to $4 million including incentives.
Carson is scheduled to earn $2.1 million this year.
Hyde, 29, the former lead back for San Francisco, knows he’s the insurance plan behind Carson in Seattle.
“I think everybody knows who the starting running back is for Seattle,” Hyde said this month, “and that’s Carson.
“I knew that before I even signed with Seattle that he was the guy.”
Cautionary tales
Carroll and Seahawks general manager John Schneider don’t have to look far—within their division, the NFC West—to find a recent, infamous example of a huge, long-term contract to a running back that became a mistake.
Todd Gurley signed a four-year, $57 million extension with the Los Angeles Rams in July 2018. He was coming off being the NFL’s offensive player of the year. The 2017 and ‘18 All-Pro running back became the league’s highest-paid running back with his new contract after, like Carson, far outplaying the rookie deal he signed in 2015.
But by the end of the 2018 season, the Rams made the Super Bowl while having to preserve Gurley and his arthritic knee. Last season he had career lows in carries (223) and yards rushing (857). L.A.’s coaches again tried to preserve him and his knee. By March, while still only 25 years old and less than two years after they gave him the $57 million deal to become their franchise cornerstone, the Rams released Gurley. That saved them $10.5 million in guarantees they don’t have to pay him this year.
The Atlanta Falcons signed Gurley this spring to a one-year deal. It guarantees him $5.5 million — $16.45 million less than the guarantees in his last Rams deal.
Carson is 44 days younger than Gurley, who also had an ACL tear. Gurley’s was coming out of the University of Georgia into the 2015 draft.
That makes this buyer beware for Carroll and Schneider with Carson in the cold business of NFL contracts, especially rich, second ones to running backs.
The NFL has examples from every decade during the last half century of running backs whose production then careers ended quickly because of injuries. The list is sobering, if not just plain sad.
Gale Sayers was exquisite from 1965-69 with the Chicago Bears. Then he limped through 1970 and ‘71 and out of the league.
Earl Campbell had a romping, Hall-of-Fame start of his career with the Houston Oilers in 1978-80. He was out of the league by 1985, just flat worn out.
Billy Sims rushed for 1,300, 1,400 and 1,000 yards in three of his first four years with the Detroit Lions through 1983. He was a two-time All-Pro. But a knee injury in 1984 ended his career after just five seasons.
William Andrews galloped for 1,000, 1,300, 1,300 and 1,500 yards within his first five seasons for the Atlanta Falcons in the early 1980s. He was a Pro Bowl selection four consecutive years. In the preseason of 1984 he sustained a knee injury that included nerve damage. He missed two full seasons, tried and failed to come back with Atlanta in 1986 and never played again.
Terrell Davis was an All-Pro three consecutive years for the Denver Broncos, including when rushed for 2,008 yards and 21 touchdowns when he was the NFL MVP in 1998. Davis never played more than eight games, half a season, in any of his final three years after that. His career ended in 2001.
Not exactly a roaring rundown of running backs who started their careers so successfully.
The Seahawks have recent precedents with big-bucks extensions to top-of-the-market running backs.
Shaun Alexander became the NFL’s highest-paid rusher with an eight-year, $62 million deal with $15 million guaranteed from Seattle weeks after he was the league’s MVP for the team in 2005. He rushed for 1,880 yard and led Seattle into its first Super Bowl that season. The Seahawks cut him 26 months later. After he played just four games with Washington in 2008, Alexander was out of football.
More recently the Seahawks gave Lynch two extensions: a four-year, $30 million deal from 2012-15 and two more years at $24 million with $12 million guaranteed for 2016 and ‘17. Lynch was the soul of the Seattle Super Bowl-champion team in the 2013 season. He was a main reason the Seahawks returned to the Super Bowl the following season. He played only one season of the second, two-year contract then briefly retired in February 2016.
Reason for belief
The Seahawks and Carson both believe him avoiding surgery for his cracked and displaced hip he got in late December during a home loss to Arizona means he should be available for the start of the 2020 season.
“I’m thankful that I didn’t have to have surgery,” he said in January. “That’s the biggest thing for me, mentally.”
He said his goal is to be ready for the start of training camp July 28. The Seahawks are likely to take a cautious, conservative path with him this preseason.
His online video last week reinforced he should be available for week one.
He needs to be.
Should the coronavirus pandemic allow for a full, on-time NFL season, this September through December will be Carson’s proving time. He must prove to the Seahawks he is back from his latest injury, back to the plowing productivity of his first three, shortened years in the league for Seattle.
Or, possibly, it will be time for Carson to prove to the rest of the NFL he is worthy of a megabucks free-agent contract when the market opens in March. That would be if Carroll and Schneider decide to let it come to that.
Given Gurley’s situation and that of many others in the long and recent histories of the league at running back, Carson may not be able to count on as much as he’d want in free agency. No coach and team in the NFL values the running game — and running backs, specifically Carson — than Carroll in Seattle.
Carson is likely to be ultra-motivated to prove right away this season he deserves the Seahawks’ money before free agency. His new agents will be pushing Carson’s value while Carson pushes his way back from another injury.
“I mean, I’ve been through this before. I know how to attack it. I know the process, and how everything goes,” Carson said.
“So, I’m just ready to get back.”
This story was originally published June 24, 2020 at 9:08 AM.
