UW Pro Day: Michael Penix Jr. sprints, soars, throws rainbows for Seahawks GM, most of NFL

John Schneider was standing on the sideline 10 yards up the field.

The Seahawks’ general manager who has drafted just two quarterbacks in 14 years for Seattle — the team owns the 16th pick in the NFL draft next month — was watching Michael Penix Jr.’s last of 60 passes to receivers. The final throw of Penix’s UW Pro Day Thursday was the one Penix is best known for. It was the throw at which he was the best and most accurate in college football the last two seasons for Washington. The one he may be best at of any QB in this draft.

The left-handed Penix took a snap from a staffer and rolled out to his right. He planted his feet in white shoes with golden trim and strikes. Then he launched the ball back across the field, to the left. His now-former Huskies teammate Jalen McMillan was running a post route deep down the field’s middle.

Penix threw from the 5-yard line.

The ball arced beautifully, another of his signature rainbows. McMillan raced. He reached and watched the pass land perfectly onto his hands. When he caught the ball, McMillan was approaching the opposite 20-yard line.

The throw soared more than 70 yards in the air.

The 17 other Huskies players embarking on pro-football careers this spring working out Thursday roared and cheered. Penix’s family, gathered on the sideline, recorded the moment on their mobile phones.

Penix pulled back his arm and pantomimed shooting an arrow from a bow. Yes, another of his signature moves.

The estimated 100 NFL personnel from at least 30 of the NFL’s 32 teams at UW’s highest-profile Pro Day in decades saw what they came to see.

Penix? He confirmed to himself what he already knew: He’s one of the top pure passers in this year’s draft — perhaps a first-round pick?

“For me, I was just proving myself right,” Penix said about 30 minutes after that pass. “I’m a competitor. I want to write my own narrative.

“I’m not chasing for someone else’s respect. I feel like the real ones know, the ones that really watch and they know football, they know. They know what I can do on the football field, off the football field.

“So it’s like, I just wanted to go ahead and write my own narrative today.”

He did.

Penix’s top Huskies target Rome Odunze, the wide receiver projected to be a top-10 pick in this draft, watched but didn’t do any of the drills at UW’s Pro Day.

Penix wasn’t here to watch. The 23-year-old QB who had four season-ending injuries his first four college seasons, at Indiana, excelled in his measurable drills Thursday.

As in, top-of-the-quarterback-draft-class excelled.

He began his morning on the field with the vertical jump. It was 36 1/2 inches. Had Penix elected to do that at the NFL scouting combine a few weeks ago it would have been the highest among all quarterbacks in Indianapolis.

Penix broad jumped 10 feet, six inches. That would have been five inches farther than the longest broad jump at the combine, by Joe Milton from Tennessee.

And Penix ran a 40-yard dash at UW’s Pro Day, shirtless and in orange running shoes. One scout at the finish line in the middle of the field at Washington’s Dempsey Indoor facility told The News Tribune he had Penix at 4.53 seconds.

That would have been the fastest 40 among quarterbacks at the combine.

When informed afterward of that, Penix said (as if he didn’t know): “For real?”

Penix declined the chance to run the 40 a second time Thursday, as some of the seven other Huskies who ran the sprint for the scouts did.

After the workout Penix, wearing a white UW hoodie with the logo “BE A PRO,” was not satisfied with that 40 time.

“I’m a 4.4 guy,” he said.

“It wasn’t what I wanted. I guess it was good enough, I guess. I just wanted to show that I’m athletic, and that I could do it with my legs if I have to.

“It unofficial,” he said, shrugging. “I just showed I could run.”

He smiled.

As for the vertical jump, “I wanted 38.”

He smiled.

“It’s all good,” he said.

Penix said he completed 57 of his 60 passes. They were an array of crossing routes, out routes, wheel routes to running backs Dillon Johnson (recovering from injuries late last UW season) and seam routes down the middle to tight ends Devin Culp and Jack Westover.

Two of Penix’s majestic long balls were too powerful, sailed too far. Those moon shots landed a couple yards past sprinting Ja’Lynn Polk and Pro Day support player Giles Jackson, 60-plus yards from where Penix threw them.

He wasn’t happy about that, either. He said he always wants to hit on all of his throws.

“I always want to prove myself right,” Penix said.

It’s been a week short of three months since Penix last played, for Washington in the Huskies’ loss to Michigan in the national championship game. That ended UW’s 21-game winning streak and Penix’s sixth and final college season that included him being the runner-up for the Heisman Trophy.

For Penix, it feels it’s been three years since he last played.

The News Tribune asked him Thursday what he’s learned through the grinding pre-draft process, he smiled.

“The wait,” Penix said. “I mean, I expected the wait. But it’s LONG.

“I’m just ready to see where I’m going, so I can help a team win football games.”

Most around the league see Penix with Oregon’s Bo Nix below the top three quarterbacks who are going get taken early in round one next month. Caleb Williams from USC, Jayden Daniels from LSU and Drake Maye from North Carolina are expected to go in the top 10. J.J. McCarthy from Michigan is getting growing attention as a fourth quarterback whom a needy team may select ahead of where Seattle is picking at 16 in round one.

It’s conceivable the Seahawks could do what Schneider has done with original first-round picks nine times in 11 Seattle drafts — trade down — to recoup the second-round pick his team doesn’t currently have, and find Penix still available late in round one or in round two.

Troy Fautanu and John Schneider

It’s also conceivable the Seahawks finally address their weak, thin offensive line with their first pick this year.

To that end, Schneider chatted during the UW Pro Day workouts on the field with Troy Fautanu, a tackle for the Huskies many in the NFL see as a ready-to-start pro guard. The Seahawks’ GM was conspicuously front and center in the middle of the field, arms folded across his chest and royal-blue Seahawks team hoodie, watching Fautanu and departing Huskies offensive tackle Roger Rosengartner do drills with personnel from the Pittsburgh Steelers and Los Angeles Chargers.

Rome Odunze watches

Odunze isn’t likely to be available for the Seahawks to choose. He’s too good.

The Huskies’ All-American wide receiver said Thursday he met last week with the New York Giants, who pick sixth in the first round. Odunze said he is scheduled to visit next week with the Chicago Bears, Arizona Cardinals and New York Jets.

“It’s a long process,” Odunze said, “but it’s fun, going through it with my guys.

“Just enjoying it.”