Rashaad Penny was not on the inactives list for the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday, but he might as well have been. The Seahawks’ running back, rookie, first round pick played zero snaps on offense and one meaningless snap on special teams for kick return coverage. The good news is that Seattle didn’t really need Penny.
Wait, that’s bad news.
I’ve been criticizing the use of first round picks on running backs for years, but even I managed to come up with a defense for the Seahawks using one on Penny in 2018: he was only a late first rounder — not nearly as costly or detrimental as passing up a quarterback, pass rusher, offensive linemen, cornerback, or the like at the top of the draft — and I assumed that Pete Carroll saw Penny as an elite back that Seattle would have for five seasons.