Rashaad Penny, from stalled career to league honors — and essential to Seahawks for 2022?
This time last month, Rashaad Penny wasn’t sure if he’d have a job next season.
He had played in just four games with only 17 carries this season. It was more of the same. The Seahawks’ first-round draft choice in 2018 was on injured reserve yet again, from September to the end of October. Then he got hurt. Again.
Once healthy, he stayed on the bench for the entire game Nov. 15, zero snaps at Green Bay while Seattle got shut out for the first time in Russell Wilson’s career.
Now Penny is the NFC offensive player of the week. If there was an award for comeback player of the month, he’d have that, too.
And he’s getting mobbed by teammates celebrating his revival.
The previously given-up-on running back’s transformation has included rushing for 135 or more yards in three of the Seahawks’ last four games. He won the first player of the week award of his career Wednesday. That was after he romped for a career-high 170 yards with two touchdowns in Seattle’s rout of the Detroit Lions last weekend.
In just the first half against Detroit, Penny eclipsed his career high for a game of 137 yards set four games ago at Houston. He bolted for 144 yards before halftime against the Lions. That was the most yards ever by a Seahawks running back in a first half. It was the most rushing yards in any half by a Seahawks since Shaun Alexander’s 192 yards in the second half of Seattle’s win over the Raiders in a rainstorm at Husky Stadium in 2001.
That’s a long way from six injuries in four years, Penny’s legacy with the Seahawks until these last four, breakout games. He admitted last month after his first breakout in Houston he had internalized all the negativity people posted on social media about him.
“I always focused on what other people thought about me,” he said. “I started realizing half the people really don’t know who I am, don’t know who Rashaad Penny is.
“Everybody else would get hurt, and go on social media and put their names up and see what people are saying about you, some of the worst things possible. And it can tear somebody down. And that’s what it did to me a few years ago.
“Now, it’s like you are numb to it. Now it’s like you don’t care about it no more, because that’s not who you are. That’s not who I am.”
Pete Carroll liked one particular run by Penny against the Lions. He bounced an outside zone-read rush far into the Seahawks sideline among his teammates.
“He breaks it out, the play where he puts his head down. He’s running. He gets knocked out of bounds, and he’s sliding to the bench,” Seattle’s coach said. “There was a moment there where there were about six to eight guys that just all jump to him, in kind of a bevy around him, to help pick him up.
“I thought it was an indicator of guys connecting with him, cheerleading for him, excited for him, and protecting him, too.
“I’ve seen guys across the board be excited for him, partially because he is such a good player and a dynamic aspect of our team right now, but also because they know what he’s overcome and it’s been such a hardship for him to make it through.
“Everyone is cheering for him in that regard.”
Carroll calls Penny’s “a really good story.”
“He is a really humble kid,” said the veteran coach who could have but didn’t give up on Penny. “He just doesn’t seek any kind of praise or attention. He is really quiet and goes about his work.
“Guys have gone out of their way to make expressions towards him.”
Credit to Adrian Peterson
Repeatedly the last month, Penny has said “I’m thankful.”
Thankful, particularly, for Adrian Peterson.
Penny and Carroll credit Peterson with reviving Penny, his season and his stalled career.
The 36-year-old future Hall-of-Fame running back signed with Seattle Dec. 3. That was after the team lost Penny to a hamstring injury, lead back Chris Carson for the season following neck surgery and fill-in starter Alex Collins to an abdominal injury that eventually landed him on IR.
Peterson played one game for the Seahawks. On Dec. 5 against San Francisco he scored his 126th career touchdown to tie legend Jim Brown for 10th all-time in the NFL. He hasn’t practiced since. General manager John Schneider said on the team’s radio pregame show Sunday that Peterson went on injured reserve last week because he has “little bit of a disk issue” in his lower back.
Penny said Peterson talked to him in the last month about his recovery and return from a torn anterior cruciate ligament while Peterson was with the Minnesota Vikings in 2011. He came back the following year to rush for 2,097 yards and win the NFL’s most valuable player award.
Penny tore his ACL in December 2019. He didn’t return from that until Dec. 2020.
Peterson told Penny to go at opposing tacklers when he carried the ball, before they went at him.
“Which one is your injured knee?” Peterson said to Penny. “You attack them before they attack it.
“So it’s always just in the back of my head.”
The now-slashing, attacking Penny has 481 yards rushing and five touchdowns in the last four games after Peterson arrived.
“When you have a guy who has been running in this league for so long, and is on the verge of the Hall of Fame, it honestly gives you a boost, and you want to mimic everything that you see him do,” Penny said. “We kind of have (had) the same, similar type of injuries, so I’ve torn his ear off with all of the questions I’ve asked.
“Having him and seeing him work in walk-through — which is a walk-through —watching him practice, and watching him prepare for a game, it honestly saved a lot of our running backs. We’re happy that he came in and was a leader from day one and he continued to lead. That was something we missed in the running back room with Chris being gone.
“I can’t thank him enough, and I’m happy to have him around.
“I wish he could continue to be around.”
Contract ending
The season finale Sunday for Seattle (6-10) at Arizona (10-5) is the final game of Penny’s contract. In May the Seahawks declined their fifth-year option on him that would have contracted Penny to the team for 2022 at a guaranteed $4.5 million.
That was a steep and unnecessary sunk cost next year for a player at the most-injured position in the sport who had missed 13 of 16 games in the 2020 season. Penny had played in just 27 of the first 48 games over the first three seasons of his career.
This season, he got two carries in the opener at Indianapolis — then was out for nearly two months with a calf injury. He got a rare start Nov. 21 against Arizona, zoomed for 18 yards on Seattle’s first offensive play — then limped to the sidelines after that one carry with an injured hamstring.
He seemed finished in Seattle. Since he couldn’t stay on the field for most of four years in the league, there was legitimate doubt he could stay in the league without a contract for next season.
Not now.
During Penny’s plowing, wowing last four games Carroll has said of the Seahawks for 2022: “We need him.”
They do.
It’s far from certain Carson will come back successfully for cervical surgery. That’s tricky procedure and rehabilitation for any athlete, but particularly a running back, especially because Carson has yet to play a complete NFL season injury-free.
Collins’ contract will expire after Sunday. He’s ending the season on injured reserve.
Seattle signed Peterson only for the rest of this season. Carroll said Wednesday he has talked to Peterson about perhaps coaching, though the running back has told him he wants to keep playing.
Recent draft picks Travis Homer and DeeJay Dallas are the only running backs under contract with Seattle for 2022. They have started three games, combined, in their careers, and only as injury replacements. They have rushed for 173 and 137 yards this season, respectively.
So, yes, the Seahawks need Penny next season. He’s shown the last four games he can stay productive, and more than that, stay healthy.
Can he do Sunday against the playoff-bound Cardinals what he’s done romping through the woeful Texans, Bears and Lions? That is likely Seattle’s key to upsetting Arizona and ending the season with two straight wins.
But Sunday’s not going to change what Penny’s done to his career, and for his teammates, over the last month.
“He is just running with confidence. You can see the switch that he has had over the past few weeks,” veteran left tackle Duane Brown said after Penny shredded the Lions. “I think it is a combination of things, but Penny has been a force to be reckoned with over the last few weeks.
“The guys up front, I take pride in my guys. Whenever we dial up the run, we want to make it happen, so they continue to do it. To have him go over 100 yards in the first half, there is no better feeling in the world.”
This story was originally published January 6, 2022 at 6:45 AM.
