With Plan A Chris Carson likely to get paid elsewhere, Seahawks Plan B Carlos Hyde is gone
There goes Plan B for that Seahawks renewed running game to improve Russell Wilson’s pass protection.
Running back Carlos Hyde has agreed to leave Seattle after one backup season to sign with the Jacksonville Jaguars. The deal on the first day of NFL free agency is for two years and $6 million, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter Monday evening.
The Seahawks’ Plan A, lead running back Chris Carson, is shopping the market as the top available free-agent rusher available. That’s after Green Bay re-signed 26-year-old lead rusher Aaron Jones to a four-year contract worth $48 million Sunday.
Seattle coach Pete Carroll has said Carson, also 26, has earned the right to find his worth in free agency. It might be at least $8 million per season. That was the average of the top nine running backs in pay last season.
The Seahawks entered Monday with $17.1 million of salary-cap space. That was 17th-most in the 32-team league. The Seahawks chose last week, at the league’s deadline, not to use their franchise tag or transition tag to keep Carson from free agency.
Hyde is four years older; he turns 31 in September. He is coming off a debut season for the Seahawks in which he rushed just 81 times for 356 yards while backing up Carson and missing six games with injuries.
Seattle signed Hyde to a one-year contract at $2.75 million before the 2020 season. That was with him coming off the first 1,000-yard rushing season of his career, with Houston.
He’s getting incrementally more than that per year for two seasons from Jacksonville. A second year over Seattle offering one year again could have been the decisive factor.
The thought was the Seahawks could bring back Hyde more cheaply than they can Carson, and with what Carroll sees as a thumping style similar to Carson’s. The Seahawks’ offense is seeking to return to the run more with new offensive coordinator Shane Waldron in from the run-based Rams for 2021, one of many ways the team expects to improve Wilson’s pass protection.
“I really like Carlos,” Carroll said in January. “Carlos and Chris, really they’re the kind of the epitome of hardball running guys. They bring you attitude. They bring you a connection to the physical part of the game the way we’d love it.
“Carlos is right in there. He’s one of our guys. We’d love to have him back.”
It makes sense Carroll would want bring back at least one of his two top backs so he isn’t starting over completely at the position.
Monday, it felt like both top backs are going to be gone.
That would leave Rashaad Penny as the Seahawks’ apparent lead back for 2021, before the team perhaps signs another outside free agent. Seattle’s first-round draft choice in 2018, Penny is coming off reconstructive knee surgery. That kept him off the field from December 2019 into December 2020.
This is the final year of Penny’s rookie deal. The Seahawks have to decide by the first days of May whether to give Penny a guaranteed fifth-year contract option at about $4.5 million for 2022. Doing that would also guarantee Penny’s $1.95 million base salary for 2021.
Guaranteeing more than $6 million to a player who is 15 months removed from reconstructive knee surgery and from which he did not return until this past December would be a big leap of faith by Carroll and Schneider.
Their faith in Hyde re-signing is gone.
He became the second player the Seahawks lost in free agency for 2021. Wide receiver Phillip Dorsett agreed to sign with the Jaguars earlier Monday.
Dorsett signed with Seattle 12 months ago yet did not play a game for the Seahawks. He had foot pain late in training camp then surgery in November.
This story was originally published March 15, 2021 at 5:08 PM.
