Former Seahawks RB Christine Michael had a dismal XFL debut

Week 1 of the XFL is in the books, and it’s safe to say that the Saturday slate of games was much more entertaining than the Sunday session.

Of note on Sunday was the XFL debut of former Seattle Seahawks running back Christine Michael, whose well-known struggles (and defense of his talents from the uh... C-Mike stans) sent him out of the NFL. He had his chance to get his career back on track as a member of the St. Louis Battlehawks — he’s been out of action since the 2016 season — and, well, it was bad.

That play was everything the Seahawks coaching staff presumably didn’t like about Michael. He slipped by himself, got back up, had the ball knocked free and recovered by the Dallas Renegades. XFL’s review system overturned this from down by contact to a lost fumble.

Michael had eight touches and lost yards or had no gain on six of them. His longest carry gained a grand total of three yards. This was clearly not a case of “well the offensive line wasn’t getting anything going for him,” as that same line successfully gave Matt Jones a halfway decent 85 yards on 21 carries. He looked slow, I’m almost certain that he broke zero tackles, and showed off none of the speed that made him a promising second-round pick in the first place. Such is life for someone who is 30 years old later this year and plays at running back.

As for other notable former Seahawks in the XFL, wide receivers Jazz Ferguson (Dallas Renegades) and Keenan Reynolds (Seattle Dragons) did very little of note, combining for four catches for 14 yards. The standout former Seahawk was actually St. Louis linebacker Terence Garvin, who had a sack and two TFLs.

We’ll be keeping tabs on the Seattle Dragons and former Seahawks throughout this XFL season.