Yes, the Seattle offense still has questions. On Sunday, however, it finally obtained an answer: Rookie Chris Carson is the team’s top option at tailback.
Carson, in his second career game, gained 93 yards on 20 carries. Veteran Eddie Lacy was a healthy scratch, and Thomas Rawls (believed to be the guy entering the season) had four yards on five carries.
“Chris looked really good,” coach Pete Carroll told reporters after the game. “I thought Chris has shown us nothing but really positive stuff. There is a style about the way he runs that you might recognize. High knees and chomping and eating that ground up. He’s really downhill at you. We’ve seen it for a long time, and we just keep hoping to see it continue. I think we have something. I think he’s a really good football player.
“I say that because he’s a good pass blocker, and he’s a good catcher, and he’s a good route runner, and he can contribute on [special teams] too. That’s a lot of real positives for a first time guy. Really, he has very little background. A junior college kid, didn’t play much as a junior. I think he carried the ball 80-something times as a senior. He has not had a lot of football behind him, but you would never know it. That’s not what we’re seeing, and that’s not what we saw in the offseason in finding him. I’m really fired up for him.”
The praise is warranted, and possibly overdue. As one league source told PFT, some of Carson’s teammates believed Carson should have been the guy all along.
But he now is. And we’ll see where he can take the Seattle running game from here.
