Four key Seahawks that could be casualties of salary cap cuts
By Lee Vowell
Rashaad Penny
Releasing Rashaad Penny wouldn’t save the Seahawks a ton of cap space (about $1.4 million) but let me ask you about what might be used with the limited cap space Seattle would save. A lot of Penny’s salary could be spent on signing players to the practice squad. Or possibly paying D.K. Metcalf’s entire salary next year. Will Dissly’s salary would be another.
Penny hasn’t yet proven that he can be good late in the season or even healthy. He has played in one game in the postseason and that was in 2018 when he had 4 carries. 2018 feels like a lifetime ago. Since then, Penny was injured late in 2019 and couldn’t play in the playoffs and even though he came back late in 2020, he wasn’t healthy enough to play in the postseason for Seattle this year.
From what I can tell, Penny is a decent dude with a lot of physical ability. But the NFL is a business and many times the quality of human one is or the possibility of production doesn’t get a player paid season after season. Whether this is right or wrong is a discussion for another day, but the fact is players get paid due to production and Penny hasn’t been healthy enough to be consistently productive.
Seattle does need healthy and good running backs in 2021 and releasing Penny might mean the Seahawks don’t have Penny or free agents Chris Carson and Carlos Hyde to begin next year. But maybe Seattle uses the $1.4 million they would save by releasing Penny as part of the money needed to re-sign Chris Carson.