As we gear up to the start of the NFL season, Football Absurdity is going to bring you a comprehensive breakdown of every notable player that will be available in fantasy football drafts. The Seattle Seahawks took Rashaad Penny in the first round in 2018. He’s done virtually nothing to live up to that draft price, though injuries likely played a role in that failure. Fortunately, Rashaad Penny is fully he—What’s that? I’m getting word that Rashaad Penny is still hurt. Oh boy.
Rashaad Penny ADP and AAV:
Standard Scoring ADP: RB47, 138 overall
PPR Scoring ADP: RB57, 186
Average Auction Value: $1
Rashaad Penny Statistics:
| Year | 2019 | 2018 |
| G | 10 | 14 |
| GS | 0 | 0 |
| Ru Att | 65 | 85 |
| Ru Yds | 370 | 419 |
| Ru TD | 3 | 2 |
| Tgt | 11 | 12 |
| Rec | 8 | 9 |
| Yards | 83 | 75 |
| TD | 1 | 0 |
| Touches | 73 | 94 |
| Opp | 76 | 97 |
| Total Yards | 453 | 494 |
| Year | 2019 | 2018 |
| YPC | 5.69 | 4.93 |
| Ru Att/G | 6.5 | 6.1 |
| Ru Yd/G | 37.0 | 29.9 |
| Tgt/G | 1.10 | 0.86 |
| Rec/G | 0.80 | 0.64 |
| Catch% | 72.7% | 75.0% |
| Yds/Tgt | 7.55 | 6.25 |
| Yds/Rec | 10.38 | 8.33 |
| Touches/G | 7.30 | 6.71 |
| Opp/G | 7.60 | 6.93 |
| Yds/G | 45.30 | 35.29 |
| Year | 2019 | 2018 |
| Std Pts | 67.3 | 61.4 |
| HPPR Pts | 71.3 | 65.9 |
| PPR Pts | 75.3 | 70.4 |
| Pts/G | 6.73 | 4.39 |
| HPPR Pts/G | 7.13 | 4.71 |
| PPR Pts/G | 7.53 | 5.03 |
| Pts/Touch | 0.92 | 0.65 |
| Pts/Touch (HPPR) | 0.98 | 0.70 |
| Pts/Touch (PPR) | 1.03 | 0.75 |
Rashaad Penny Overview:
Penny missed two games his rookie year, and six games last year. If you know anything about Pete Carroll’s player evaluations, they’re always rosy and always sunny. The hit FXX program should not take place in Philadelphia, but rather, Pete Carroll’s mind when he talks about players. Even Pete Carroll says that Penny should likely start the season on the physically unable to perform list (PUP) from his 2019 ACL tear and recovery. That’s certainly not good, though Carroll, in his typical happy-go-lucky fashion, noted that it was fine and that it was just because it was a late-season injury.
Rashaad Penny, owner of the knee with the torn ACL, noted that it was “more than just a normal ACL tear.” The Seahawks also went out and signed Carlos Hyde, kicked the tires on Devonta Freeman, and drafted DeeJay Dallas in the middle rounds. That’s certainly not great when you look at those moves as proxies for how they feel about Penny recovering from his ACL tear.
None of this is to say that a healthy Rashaad Penny hasn’t flashed potential. It’s just that “a healthy Rashaad Penny” has been the problem. In 2019, 11 of his 73 touches went for 10+ yards, which is incredible efficiency. To put that a different way, that’s about three of every twenty plays, meaning that if he had a full starter’s workload, he rips off three 10+ yard plays per game.
Rashaad Penny Draft Strategy:
Rashaad Penny Auction Value: $1
Draft Ranking: Find out for your league settings in a Beersheet! (coming late June)
You can’t go broke betting against someone coming back from an ACL tear. There’s a reason why guys like Adrian Peterson and Cooper Kupp stick out in our brains: they came back from ACL tears to perform well the next season. We mostly forget about guys like Ryan Tannehill, who had a lost 2018, or NaVorro Bowman, whose career was never the same after his knee injury.
That’s how I feel about Rashaad Penny. Let someone else put their chip on that square; I’m not going to be the one monitoring Pete Carroll’s weekly press conferences for news on if and when Penny will return from injury to enter a rotation with Chris Carson and Carlos Hyde. No, thank you. Much like the Seahawks at the goal line in Super Bowl XLIX… I’ll pass.
Best Case Scenario:
Rashaad Penny comes gets back up to form around mid-season, and is a force down the stretch. You can pick him up in week five and have the same impact on your team as if you drafted him.
Worst Case Scenario:
The PUP becomes a gameday inactive becomes one-or-two games before he goes back on IR, needing a cleanup procedure.
[Statistics are sourced from pro-football-reference.com and airyards.com]
