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Seahawks @ Browns: A Game Decided in April 2018


It doesn't happen very often. When a team makes a frighteningly horrific draft decision, all we're left to know is that it will hurt the overall ability to win games in the future- but in a very ambiguous and indirect way. It's hard to watch a game, point to one player and say "The acquisition of that guy right there is the reason we lost this specific game and the other team specifically won it."

This coming Sunday, unfortunately, we will likely be able to do just that.

It was late on April 26th, 2018, and the Seattle Seahawks were on the clock at the Annual Player Selection Meeting. Having moved down to the 27th pick from 18 earlier in the night ostensibly for the right to take a player in the 3rd round that eventually became "the still developing" Rasheem Green, the Seahawks passed up on a handful of players that have proven to be really good complimentary pieces for their respective teams (Jaire Alexander, Leighton Vander Esch, Frank Ragnow, DJ Moore, Calvin Ridley). But that's ok- it's what they do.

As I stood in front of a television, hearing but not listening to the talking heads whom only familiarize themselves with each team at surface level and therefore don't know NOT to mock CB's to the Seahawks in round 1 because of Pete's (warranted) insistence on being able to coach up players acquired through low-capital spending, the names of candidates I thought would be the one called by the commissioner started spinning about my grey matter.

Would it be an o-lineman? Could be Austin Corbett- he reminds people of Joel Bitonio coming out of Nevada. Maybe it's Will Hernanadez, the beefy road-grader from UTEP. Wait- I know- it's probably an EDGE. Yeah- gotta be Harold Landry or Kemoko Turay. Or wait- what about a WR? Courtland Sutton or Christian Kirk could be nice targets for Russ. Probably not a RB, but if it is, it has to be Chubb. Hmmm...

Then it happened.

"With the 27th pick in the 2018 NFL Draft, the Seattle Seahawks select... Rashad Penny, running back, San Diego State."

Oh no. No no no no no no no no no no no no.

After screaming in horror at what I'd just heard, thoughts on Penny were immediately recalled after watching him throughout the better part of two years and then I hit the youtubes to find what it was I'd been missing on Penny all this time.

Well, as Bobby Boucher once said to his mom when asked whether anyone had found the escaped gorilla that he claimed punched him in the eye and blackened it, "The soych continues, momma."

What I saw was a back with good straight-line speed but poor vision, decent return ability but little wiggle. In other words, I saw a guy. A draftable player, but one that looked like an early day 3 pick and certainly not impactful.

After nearly a year-and-a-half in the league, I can safely say I was wrong. This guy STINKS.

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Rashaad Penny stumbles around

Rashaad Penny is arguably the softest back in football. No inside run with Penny is ever successful for two reasons: he has awful-to-no vision for a running back and an aversion to contact that makes Shaun Alexander look like Clubber Lang. Penny approaches the line of scrimmage like a nine-year-old entering a room in a haunted house for the first time; scared out of his wits of what's about to happen.

While he's marginally more successful on outside runs because he can use his fright to propel him to the safety of the sidelines in quick fashion, he ultimately fails in the way that separates great backs from others- the ability, or in his case inability, to break tackles. It's hard to do when you're curled up in a ball at all times.

It's here that Penny most disappoints, because Pete mentioned a stat after Penny was drafted that clued us in on why the Seahawks mistakenly selected this player. Per PFF, Penny was among college football leaders in yards after contact when hit at or behind the LOS. And let's face it- that happens a lot in Seattle. The Seahawks assumed that stat would carry over to the NFL. Clearly it hasn't and clearly it won't. But why?

The answer is simple. The tackles Penny broke at San Diego St were attempted by WAC (Mountain West, whatever) players. In other words, players whose abilities were not representative of NFL talent. The gap between the two is wide. So, you are going to get one of two things- a player whose talent, drive, passion and aggressiveness rises along with the gap that exists between the WAC and the NFL to help him succeed, or a player who has been shell-shocked by that same difference and consistently cowers from what awaits. Those of you secure enough to be able to criticize a player on your favorite team when it's warranted knows which player the Seahawks got.

If that wasn't bad enough, only eight picks after Seattle blew theirs, the Cleveland Browns turned in their draft card with the name "Nick Chubb" on it. Uh oh.

Just under 18 months later, all Chubb has done is prove to be a bulldozing stud with the ability and will to run around and through tacklers, and gallop over 22mph when left untouched. He is a franchise RB1 that came out of nowhere could have been seen as such from as far away as Neptune. After a dominant beginning to his collegiate career at Georgia and then an absolutely horrific knee injury that forced him to return for his senior season instead of declaring as a surefire first round pick after year three, Chubb went on to show no ill-effects of the injury and then prepared for the NFL draft.

To supplement his elite game film, Chubb turned in a 38.5" vert and a 10'8" broad jump at the Combine. So what, you say? Those traits reveal a player's explosiveness relative to others at the same position. Chubb's numbers were a full 6" better in the vert than Penny and 8" better in the broad jump though they are similar in height and weight. Guess what- IT SHOWS ON THE FIELD.

Nick Chubb has been, is and always will be a superior back to Rashaad Penny. If the Seahawks were bent on taking a back early in the 2018 draft (they shouldn't have been, especially considering they got Chris Carson in round 7), they should have taken Nick Chubb over Rashaad Penny. That's not second guessing- it's first guessing supported by functional eyeballs and any metric or game film you wish to look at.

These occurrences have now led us all to Sunday, October 8, 2019 when Rashaad Penny and the Seahawks travel to Cleveland to face Nick Chubb and the Browns.

Every positive play for the Browns that involves Nick Chubb will be one that shouldn't have ever happened. Every play that directly involves Penny (all 6 of them) will by definition be negative for the Seahawks, as will the indirectly failed plays that may not have happened had a different player been selected on 4/26/18. In totality, the likelihood of the above plays adding up to a Browns win is high. Chubb is that good and you have to think Cleveland's coaching staff will lean on him after their debacle in San Francisco. If this does in fact lead to a Seahawks loss, this particular L can be pinned directly onto the chest plate of the front office for making a boneheaded decision almost as dumb as kicking an extra point to go from a 12 to a 13 point lead late in the 4th quarter.

Never mind- that one's for another day.

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