Rashaad Penny, Darrell Taylor could be a couple weeks from finally returning to Seahawks
The long, awaited paths Rashaad Penny and Darrell Taylor have been grinding through to make their season debut may be ending.
Maybe.
Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said Penny, the team’s second running back behind Chris Carson until he tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his knee in December, and Taylor, Seattle’s top rookie pass rusher and second-round draft choice, are perhaps a week or two away from getting on the practice field.
“We are getting to the verge of those guys coming back now,” Carroll said this week. “Both guys, they are running hard. They are working hard. They are wearing out the trainers. So they just have to close in on it right now, close in on being absolutely ready to do football movements and football reactions and things like that.
“We’ll see here how this goes. Really, it’s been week to week here as we’ve evaluated, but yet these guys are ready to go.
“So we’re a week away, or two weeks away, probably, from something happening here with these guys. Would love to see those guys come back and be part of next week, even, possibly.”
The Seahawks now have a mini-bye following their home game Thursday night against Arizona. They don’t play for another 11 days, until Monday night, Nov. 30 at Philadelphia.
Penny hasn’t played since last Dec. 8, when his knee buckled in the open grass field of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum after catching a pass in a game against the Rams.
The Seahawks’ first-round draft choice in 2018 has played in 24 games in parts of two NFL seasons, with 789 yards and five touchdowns rushing.
He would have been Seattle’s featured back the last four games. Carson and Carlos Hyde have been out injured since Oct. 25. The team signed Hyde to a one-year contract in the spring knowing Penny would miss much of this season.
He posted on his social-media account last week he was in “the home stretch” of his knee rehabilitation. He remains on injured reserve, but eligible to come off it and join the active roster at any time he’s ready.
The Seahawks traded up and selected Taylor in the second round of the NFL draft in April with their medical staff believing he was cleared of issues from leg surgery in January. Taylor played defensive end in his final season at the University of Tennessee in 2019 with a stress fracture in his lower leg he got in August.
He played through Tennessee’s bowl game and the Senior Bowl college all-star showcase for NFL scouts in January, then had surgery Jan. 30. Surgeons inserted a Titanium rod into his leg to fix the fracture.
“My leg feels as healthy as a horse,” now, Taylor said in April.
Yet he hasn’t participated in a football practice since the operation. He’s remained on Seattle’s non-football-injury list, the NFL’s place for a roster exemption for injuries that occur outside a team’s training camp or season.
Taylor was supposed to be Seattle’s “Leo,” weakside pass-rush defensive end on a line that has failed for most of two seasons to generate consistent pressure on opposing quarterbacks. His injury and the defensive front’s inability to pass rush effectively led the Seahawks to trade last month for two-time Pro Bowl end Carlos Dunlap.
Dunlap was playing his third game with Seattle Thursday night, when the Seahawks (6-3) were hosting the Arizona Cardinals (6-3) in a key NFC West game at newly renamed Lumen Field.
This story was originally published November 18, 2020 at 2:46 PM.
