Seahawk Rashaad Penny looks great but doesn’t totally feel it, because Chris Carson’s gone

Rashaad Penny has had better starts to training camp.

No, it’s not his physical condition. That’s the best it’s been with the Seahawks to begin a preseason — and Penny’s finally healthy for the start of a camp. After an offseason of running in sand near his home in Temecula, California, he weighs 237 pounds. That’s what he weighed at the end of last season, when he had his best four rushing games of his four-year NFL career.

It’s not his running, either. Penny looks smooth and decisive with the ball — albeit rushing into defenders ordered not to hit or tackle any ball carrier so far.

It’s as if Penny never had seven injuries in his first four seasons, or came within weeks of his contract ending last December, going unsigned and without a job for 2022.

This isn’t the best start to a training camp for Penny because his best friend isn’t here. And he isn’t coming back.

Penny is shocked and distraught fellow Seahawks running back Chris Carson, his self-described “best friend,” has been forced to retire at age 27 following neck surgery.

“Yeah,” Penny said, “I was pretty much heartbroken.”

He shook his head.

“Because I don’t think it really hit any of us,” Penny said. “We all huddled as running backs and it seemed like this is the end. But his locker is still here, so I think that still means a lot.

“He deserves all the flowers after all the stuff he did. He set the standard for who a running back is for the Seahawks. So we all just follow what he did. ...”

Carson had discs fused in his neck during last season, after he played in only four games. He and Penny talked regularly while Carson went across the country this spring seeking medical opinions on the still-limited range of motion in his repaired neck.

Penny’s challenge

That dangerous lack of motion is why Carson failed a Seahawks physical. It is why Penny is Seattle’s new lead running back.

For now, that is. Penny has yet to play a full NFL season. He played in only 37 of a possible 65 regular-season games in his career, at a brutal position with the shortest career span of any in the league (less than three seasons).

“It’s bigger than football to me,” Penny said. “When people talk about injuries, I don’t think anyone understands that as running backs, our lifespan is so short. But that’s what we all have to deal with...

“I don’t know how much he’s going through it because it’s over. But it’s different when you can come back from an injury and rehab and you know you’re going to play that next week, or whatever. So I don’t really know if it’s hit him yet.”

It began hitting the Seahawks early this spring that Carson wasn’t coming back. Deciding to draft running back Ken Walker, the prolific rusher from Michigan State, in the second round in late April amid the team’s many needs reinforced Carson’s predicament.

Walker has looked fast and decisive early in training camp. Practicing in pads for the first time this week will be a truer indicator of whether Walker is ready to the share the rushing load with Penny. The surest way for a rookie running back to earn immediate and substantial playing time with Seahawks coach Pete Carroll is by proving he can effectively ram into charging defenders and pass block to protect the quarterback.

That’s how Penny broke a bone in his hand during his rookie training camp, months after Seattle drafted him in the first round in 2018. That set him back to start his career.

He’s also had a sprained knee then a strained hamstring. Torn knee ligaments and reconstructive surgery sidelined him from December, 2019 into December, 2020. A strain in that same knee kept him out of Seattle’s loss to the Rams in the wild-card playoffs in January 2021.

A strained calf after two rushes for 8 yards in last season’s opening game at Indianapolis sent Penny onto injured reserve. That cost him six weeks. He returned to play in two games, than did not get on the field Nov. 14 when the Seahawks lost 17-0 at Green Bay. Penny had an 18-yard run on his first play starting the game against Arizona Nov. 21. He strained his hamstring on that run and limped off the field to the sideline. He missed the next week, Seattle’s loss at Washington.

Peterson changed Penny

Then Adrian Peterson arrived, late last season.

The future Hall-of-Fame running back tore his knee ligaments early in his career, as Penny did. Peterson returned to rush for 2,000 yards and the NFL’s most valuable player award in 2012 with Minnesota.

Peterson played in only one game for the Seahawks, but he changed Penny’s career. He told Penny to protect his reconstructed knee by attacking defenders before they could attack the knee. Penny ran with new aggression and decisiveness.

The previously given-up-on running back’s transformation included rushing for 135 or more yards in three of four games upon his return from IR. He won the first player of the week award of his career. That was after he romped for a career-high 170 yards with two touchdowns in Seattle’s rout of Detroit. In just the first half against the Lions, Penny eclipsed his career high for a game of 137 yards set four games earlier 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 Seahawk 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.

It earned him a one-year contract to return to the Seahawks with $5 million guaranteed.

It’s a long way from six injuries in four years, Penny’s legacy with the Seahawks until Peterson’s advice transformed him.

He admitted after his first breakout in Houston late last season he had internalized all the negativity people posted on social media about him.

Now 26, he says he’s barely on his Instagram account, Twitter and the like.

“Yeah, I feel like as I get older, I don’t really care about it anymore,” he said. “People’s words really don’t hurt as much as they used to.

“I feel like a lot of people really didn’t know what they were talking about. It’s just now I ignore them.”

What he can’t ignore: Carson not being with him in the locker room, on the team bus, on the team plane and in the Seahawks backfield anymore.

“Yeah, we’re really close. That’s my guy,” Penny said. “Anything I ever needed as far as football, or just life in general, I always went to him. He gave me the upmost positive feedback and I know, personally, I’m going to miss him. I know everybody else will and everyone feels the same way about who he is as a person.

“I think that’s more importantly what I’m going to miss.”