Chris Carson’s bullish Seahawks career abruptly ends after neck-fusion surgery
His mother feared for her child’s safety each time Chris Carson leaped over standing defenders while running with the ball.
“Stay on the ground!” Dina Rowe would implore to her guy when the Seahawks’ lead running back hurdled opponents, which was way too often for her comfort.
So Mom and son particularly realize what ultimately grounded Carson’s career with Seattle.
Months after Carson had surgery to fuse discs in his dangerously pained neck, the Seahawks will release the 27-year-old.
The team’s decision on reporting day for training camp Tuesday comes with a failed-physical designation. Per the NFL’s collective bargaining agreement, that will allow Carson to collect millions in the final year of his contract in which he won’t play for the team.
The final season of his two-year deal was to pay him $4.5 million in base salary, not guaranteed, plus $425,000 in per-game roster bonuses he won’t get.
This is why Carson sought — and every other NFL player, especially running backs seek — all the guaranteed money they can get when they can and are producing.
The end can be sudden.
The Seahawks confirmed the move to release Carson later Tuesday afternoon.
“Ever since the first time I saw Chris on film, I loved his style, and I was thrilled when we were able to get him when we did,” coach Pete Carroll said Tuesday, from a team release. “To see him grow and become such an impacting part of our program with such a great style and all of that, it was a thrill to watch. We’ll miss him and everything he brought to our program.”
Seahawks general manager John Schneider said Tuesday, through the team’s website, Carson has “been an incredible pro, a guy who brings an amazing energy about him.”
“His running style is what we’ve always wanted here in Seattle,” Schneider said. “He’s the type of runner that the whole team feeds off of. The type of player defensive players get off the bench to watch him run — they can feel his energy. He’s the type of runner whose style affects the whole team, not just the offense.
“It’s a big disappointment. We took it as long as we possibly could with him. He saw a number of specialists, but unfortunately he wasn’t able to pass our physical.”
This end for Carson is more a quality-of-life decision than a football one.
Doctors have not cleared him to play football again because he does not have enough range of motion in his neck to play safely. Or as relatively safely as NFL football can be for a running back, the sport’s most injured and attrited position.
The average career span of a running back in the league is less than three seasons. Carson played five, all for Seattle. That was after Carroll drafted his personal favorite with a unrelenting, bulling running style in the seventh round in 2017 out of Oklahoma State and a junior college.
Carson never played a full NFL season. His pain included a broken leg, three times onto the injured-reserve list and the neck injury early last season that ultimately ended his Seahawks career.
“It’s just hard on him,” Carroll said last month after he’d met with Carson at Seahawks headquarters to discuss his future, in life and football. “I mean, our guys love this game that they grow up playing, and when they sense that there may be an end to it, it’s hard.
“It’s difficult and it’s real.
“And we’re going to love him through it and help him as much as possible if that’s the case — like we do with everybody when it comes to the end of it. It’s inevitable. It’s coming, but it’s always too soon.”
Carson rushed for 1,151 yards and 1,230 yards with 18 total touchdowns over the 2018 and ‘19 seasons.
But he played more than 50% of the Seahawks’ offensive snaps in a season just once: while starting 15 of 16 regular-season games in 2019.
Tuesday’s decision was no surprise. The Seahawks and circumstances have been building toward this since before April.
That’s when Seattle, amid so many other needs following a 7-10 season and the trade of franchise quarterback Russell Wilson, drafted Michigan State running back Ken Walker in the second round. That was a big signal Carson might not play in 2022.
The Seahawks also re-signed Rashaad Penny, Carson’s great friend and understudy since Penny was Seattle’s first-round pick the year after Carson joined the backfield and team. Penny, who also has yet to play a full season because of injuries, got a big raise to $5.75 million for 2022.
He and Walker seem destined to be a 1 and 1A partnership in a rushing offense Carroll and play caller Shane Waldron want to rely upon more with Wilson gone and Geno Smith competing with Drew Lock to be Seattle’s quarterback.
Penny has been talking to Carson regularly as doctors were telling him he couldn’t play football anymore.
“He’s my best friend, really,” Penny said last month.
To know about Chris Carson, the man: Last spring soon after he re-signed with the Seahawks for two years and potentially more than $14.6 million, Carson purchased for his mother, Dina Rowe, the house she had been renting from a family friend. She’d been living in it since a fire burned down Carson’s family home in Lilburn, Georgia. That was in 2013, two days after Christmas, when Carson was home on break from a life detour at Butler Community College in Kansas.
A year after he bought Mom her house, he can’t play anymore.
“I thought Chris, when I first came in, he took me under his wing as a brother. First day. He made everything easier for me,” Penny said last month. “Having his support, and then him trusting my abilities and what I can do as a player also made it easier, just telling me to use my speed and do what I’ve done.
“He’s just always made things easier for me. I will always appreciate him for that.”
Burr-Kirven waived, hopes for IR
The Seahawks waived former University of Washington linebacker Ben Burr-Kirven with a failed-physical designation. He had reconstructive knee surgery last summer and missed all last season.
In the likely event he clears waivers he’ll go on injured reserve for the 2022 season.
Tre Brown on PUP list
The team put Tre Brown, a starting cornerback as a rookie in 2021 until a season-ending knee injury in November, onto the physically unable-to-perform list to open training camp. Rookie draft choice and edge rusher Tyreke Smith, former Army linebacker and 2021 special-team mainstay Jon Rhattigan (knee surgery in December) and tackle Liam Ryan will also begin camp on the PUP list.
That gives Seattle roster flexibility. Only players on the PUP list to begin training camp can be on it and roster exempt that way to begin the season.
Any player on the PUP list to begin training camp may return and practice at any time. The expectation is Brown will do that in the coming weeks.
All draft picks signed
The Seahawks announced they signed rookie second-round draft choices Boye Mafe and Ken Walker plus fourth-round pick Coby Bryant. That completed all nine of the draft picks signing in time for the first practice of training camp Wednesday afternoon.
What used to be holdout drama two collective bargaining agreements ago is gone. The NFL CBA now slots salaries for rookie contracts based on where they were picked in each year’s draft.
This story was originally published July 26, 2022 at 1:02 PM.
