Seahawks reportedly turned down trade offer for Rashaad Penny

Sunday afternoon the Detroit Lions and Dallas Cowboys faced off in a game between two teams that many consider to have underperformed relative to expectations for this season. The Cowboys ended up victorious in the game, defeating the Lions 35-27 in spite of only 45 yards from starting running back Ezekiel Elliott. Elliott, in fact, wasn’t even the leading rusher in the game, as that honor went to Lions running back Bo Scarbrough.

Scarbrough, of course, was with the Seattle Seahawks late during the 2018 season, and then through training camp in August. However, at the deadline to trim the roster down to 53 players, Scarbrough was waived and not brought back to the practice squad. He remained unemployed until the Lions added him to their practice squad on November 6, and then was promoted to the active roster this past Saturday afternoon in time to be active for the game against the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday.

Thus, it appears the Lions may have addressed their running back position with a former member of the Seahawk, after earlier trying to address their running back position with a different former Seahawk. Per reports, the Lions offered the Seahawks a third round pick for second year running back Rashaad Penny, but the Hawks demanded more compensation so the deal never happened.

When the trade deadline passed, the Lions sat at 3-3-1, but have since lost three in a row to the Oakland Raiders, Chicago Bears and Cowboys. Thus, at this point, their third round pick is slated to be in the first ten selections of the third round, and with quarterback Matthew Stafford possibly sidelined for several more weeks with a back injury, it’s possible that pick moves up.

So, the interesting question is obviously what it would have taken for the Seahawks to move Penny. Would an extra Day 3 pick thrown in, say in the fifth or sixth round, have been enough? Or were the Hawks hoping for a better Day 2 pick, specifically a second round pick? We can’t know for certain, but the fan opinion on Twitter was pretty unanimous that the Hawks should have taken a third round pick.

In any case, a good portion of the Lions running back room is made up of Seahawks who couldn’t make the team’s 53 man roster this season. The Lions totaled 74 rushing yards from running backs Sunday against the Cowboys, as behind Scarbrough as the leading rusher for the team was fellow former Seahawk J.D. McKissic with 13 yards. That is 68 of the 74 rushing yards by running backs from players who spent training camp in Seattle, but were waived in the cuts to 53. Speaking of McKissic, this tweet from a Seahawks fan provides an interesting bit of trivia about Penny and McKissic. (Author’s note: Since the tweet is from Sunday, it does not include the 13 rushing yards McKissic contributed against the Cowboys.)

If the reports are true that the Lions offered a third round pick for Penny at the trade deadline, is that an offer Seattle should have accepted?