Seahawks Rashaad Penny in tears, on crutches with walking boot after another major injury

The tears in Rashaad Penny’s eyes said more than any words could.

Tyler Lockett came over to the Seahawks’ no-luck, lead running back seated on the bench. The taut, see-sawing game plus the roars inside the Superdome swirled all around them.

All Penny could do was drop his head and wonder, “Why?”

All Lockett could do is tap his teammate who knows more than any other Seahawk what he’s in for now on his back.

They didn’t say much.

“I was just trying to be there for him. I mean, there’s not really any perfect words you can really just say. Sometimes, you just have to sit with people,” Lockett said.

“It sucks.”

That summarizes the mood of every Seahawk player, coach and staffer who have known the resilient, earnest Penny for more than a day following Seattle’s costly, 39-32 loss at the New Orleans Saints Sunday.

The defeat cost them Seahawks (2-3) first place in the NFC West. And it cost them Penny, likely for the rest of the season. He was carted into the locker room during the second quarter, after he landed awkwardly on his left leg at the end of a 6-yard run into the Seahawks’ sideline.

There is concern within the team Penny fractured his leg, his tibia (shin bone).

The former first-round draft choice had most of his first four seasons ruined by injuries. He was on crutches again Sunday evening, with a boot over his lower left leg on his way onto the Seahawks’ bus to the New Orleans airport.

“He hurt his ankle. Seriously,” Pete Carroll said.

His tone was as solemn as Seattle’s usually sunny coach ever is.

Rookie second-round pick Ken Walker will replace Penny as Seattle’s featured runner. He scored his first career touchdown, a 69-yard run, in the second half Sunday after Penny got hurt.

Walker is likely to be replacing Penny for the rest of this season.

“We’ll see,” Carroll said. “I don’t want to make any statements because I really don’t know exactly, yet, until they get all the MRIs and stuff. But he’s got a bad, bad ankle.

“He’s in trouble for getting back (this season).”

Making bad worse for Penny, the 26-year-old’s contract may have essentially ended Sunday. He signed for only one year back with Seattle. The free-agent market this past spring didn’t have a multiyear deal available for a running back who played only 37 out of 65 regular-season games the first four seasons of his career.

It won’t have the security of a multiyear contract for Penny next spring, either.

He has already been through a major knee reconstruction that took much of two years to return from, into 2021.

He’d cemented himself as a top NFL running back with five days with at least 135 yards rushing in his last nine games entering Sunday. He had a 32-yard run as part of his eight carries for 54 yards in the first 1 1/2 quarters Sunday.

Now Penny is out again with another major injury.

Hence, the tears. And not just from Penny.

“Yeah, this has been a journey for him, and for us, too,” Carroll said. “Really, I feel in love with the fact he emerged and showed us the great player he is and what he can mean to the game and our team. For it to come down to another setback...

“He’ll be back. But it’s a setback that...it just breaks my heart. He was having so much fun. He’d been so rewarded. So fulfilled. He knows he belongs. He knows he can be ‘The Man.’ He knows he can (make) an impact in this league.

“To lose that chance...

“We are going to love him up.

“He’s crushed.”

Lockett knows the feeling, though not as well as Penny.

Few do.

The Seahawks’ captain and veteran wide receiver broke his leg in December 2016 in a game against Arizona. It took him until the following summer to get back close to right.

He knows Penny flew home to Seattle from Louisiana with his mind racing behind those tears.

“As you get older that’s the questions that you start to ask yourself: ‘Is it worth it?’” the 30-year-old Lockett said. “I mean, that’s just the hardest part. In this game, they say it’s (a) 100% injury rate.

“When I broke my leg I had some good days — and I had a whole lot of bad days. It’s mentally tiring and mentally draining. And you’ve just got to be able to keep fighting, just be able to try to make it out to that other side.

“But there are a lot more hard days than it is good days.”