Seahawks replacement for C.J. Prosise: Former WR/CB George Farmer

With C.J. Prosise (scapula) probably out for the rest of the regular season, and Troymaine Pope (ankle) at least out this week, the Seattle Seahawks needed to add a running back to the 53-man roster who could help on third downs. As I wrote this week there were literally dozens of reasonable options available, and as a reply to someone in the comments who asked what the chances were that the replacement would be none of those guys, I said, “100%.” Sure enough, the solution was none of those guys.

Instead, it will be a player familiar with the Seahawks and Pete Carroll: Former USC wide receiver and Seattle cornerback George Farmer. Who is now a running back that will likely get some snaps against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday after the team promoted him to the 53-man roster on Wednesday.

Farmer was the number one wide receiver recruit in the nation in 2011, choosing to play for the Trojans a couple years after Carroll would have had the chance to recruit him. (He was also a high school teammate of Paul Richardson.) He did play running back some as a freshman, but his career was slowed down by a spider bite during the summer before his sophomore year. He next tore his ACL and MCL, limiting him to 30 catches during his college career. Such is the danger of projecting high school recruits as anything more than that; great recruits with uncertain futures, all of them.

After going undrafted in 2015, Farmer signed with the Dallas Cowboys, then was waived in August and signed by the Seahawks and converted to cornerback, a position switch not uncommon to Carroll, but also not super successful as of yet. He spent last season with the practice squad and then was converted back to running back in August after injuries once again paved the way for weird moves to happen, such as the one we’re seeing now.

He seemed to do pretty well in the preseason but obviously there wouldn’t be a place for him at the time, as even Pope got released after playing even better than Farmer. Now the team will call upon him to get touches in regular season action as the only active running backs this week are Thomas Rawls, Alex Collins, and Farmer. It would seem reasonable to assume that Rawls will get almost all of the action with Collins as a replacement only in case of injury, while Farmer is more suited to get action on third downs. Consider this: That sounds like a lot of work, but how many third downs are there really per game? It’s often like 12-18 third downs on a normal day, less if things are going really good or really bad. Out of those, Farmer will mostly be in there to block. He might get 3-5 touches.

And who’s to say that he won’t do really well? Inability hasn’t held Farmer back, injuries have. Now he’ll get a shot to prove what he can do because of someone else’s injuries.