The fantasy football community rarely agrees on much. Yet, everyone agrees that Jonathan Taylor is the RB1 in dynasty, and Justin Herbert has awesome hair. However, no one agrees on the Seattle Seahawks backfield.
Since the 2022 NFL Draft wrapped up, the fantasy football world has debated back and forth whether Rashaad Penny or Kenneth Walker is the better fantasy football asset. Most will agree Walker is the future of the Seattle backfield, but what about for the upcoming season?
After coming off a great five-game stretch to end the 2021 season, will Penny will be the lead or even featured running back for Seattle this season? Don’t count on it.
Rashaad Penny’s History
When the Seahawks used the 27th overall pick in the 2018 NFL Draft on Penny, many people called the selection idiotic. Not only was Penny not a first-round talent, but the Seahawks had several other needs at the time. Yet, they used the pick on a running back.
Since he stepped foot in the NFL, Penny has dealt with injuries. Over the first three years of his career, Penny played only 56.3% of the games. The inability to stay on the field led to the Seahawks declining Penny’s fifth-year option last offseason. Furthermore, Penny didn’t play in seven of the first 11 games last year.
The calendar just turned to June, and surprisingly, Penny is already dealing with an injury.
Penny has struggled to produce when on the field. He has never had a season with over 120 rushing attempts. Furthermore, Penny had under 90 rushing attempts in each of the first three years of his career. By comparison, Penny had 92 rushing attempts in his famous five-game stretch last season.
Per game basis, Penny has never received a heavy workload. During the five-game stretch last season, Penny had 16 or more rushing attempts in four of them. The exception was in Week 15 against the Los Angeles Rams, where he received only 11 rushing attempts in the game. By comparison, Penny had only two career games with over 12 rushing attempts before that stretch last season.
Some will point to Penny’s new deal with the Seahawks. Yes, they re-signed him this offseason. However, it came in the third wave of free agency and after several other running backs got signed. The average annual value (AAV) on his contract is $5.8 million for one year. By comparison, Leonard Fournette and James Conner signed multi-year deals for at least $7 million AAV.
Meanwhile, Chase Edmonds, who has nine career rushing touchdowns, earned a two-year deal from the Miami Dolphins with a $6.1 AAV. Furthermore, J.D. McKissic signed a two-year deal with an AAV of $3.5 million despite only being a passing catching running back. Even after his “historic” run to end the year, NFL teams didn’t want to pay Penny.
Rashaad Penny’s Splits
Further looking at Penny’s success from last year, it doesn’t match his career production. He averaged 7.3 yards per rushing attempt during that stretch. By comparison, Penny averaged 4.8 yards per rushing attempt in his other 32 career games.
Over the first 32 games of his career, Penny had only two 100-yard rushing games (6.3% of the time). By comparison, Penny rushed for over 100 yards in four of the five-game during his stretch run last season. Furthermore, his touchdown rate more than doubled during that run. Penny’s touchdown rate was 6.2% during that five-game stretch. It was only 2.9% for the rest of his career. Moreover, Penny had as many rushing touchdowns during that stretch (six) on 97 rushing attempts as he did during his other 206 career rushing attempts.
Despite being a first-round pick, Penny couldn’t get on the field when healthy. Chris Carson was a seventh-round pick and entering his second year in the NFL when the Seahawks drafted Penny. Yet, Penny averaged only 14.1 snaps per game during the first 32 games of his career. By comparison, he averaged 35.6 snaps per game during his five-game stretch.
After scoring only 140.6 total fantasy points in the first three years of his NFL career, Penny scored 118.7 fantasy points in 10 games last season. However, 107.7 of his fantasy points from last season came over the final five weeks of the year (90.7%).
Rashaad Penny’s Five Game Stretch
Diving deeper into his “historic” stretch to close out the 2021 season, Penny faced several awful run defenses.
Penny faced the Houston Texans in Week 14, scoring 26.8 PPR fantasy points. However, the Texans gave up the 13th most fantasy points (20) and the most rushing yards (121.6) per game to running backs last season.
The following week he faced the Rams, scoring only 6.4 fantasy points. Los Angeles gave up the fifth-fewest fantasy points (15.6) and the ninth-fewest rushing yards (78.5) per game to running backs last year.
In Week 16, Penny scored 19.5 fantasy points against the Chicago Bears. They gave up the 14th most fantasy points (19.8) and seventh-most rushing yards (107.8) per game to running backs in 2021.
Penny then took on the Detroit Lions in Week 17 and scored 32.5 fantasy points, a career-high. However, the Lions gave up the fifth-most fantasy points (23.3) and fifth-most rushing yards (113.5) per game to running backs last season.
To close out the 2021 season, he took on the Arizona Cardinals and scored 25 fantasy points. Arizona gave up the 19th most fantasy points (19.3) and 12th most rushing yards (97.2) per game to running backs last year.
While good players take advantage of bad defenses, Penny struggled against the Rams and their elite run defense. Furthermore, Carson hadn’t played since Week 4 because of a neck injury. Can Penny keep up that elite play (or anywhere near it) next season for all 17 games? Don’t count on it.
Kenneth Walker vs. Rashaad Penny’s College Careers
Both running backs had productive college careers. However, the competition they faced was dramatically different.
PlayerProfiler has Walker’s best comparable as LaDainian Tomlinson. While he isn’t anywhere near the player Tomlinson was, Walker’s 40-yard dash (4.38 second) ranked in the 98th percentile, while his speed score (114.7) ranked in the 96th percentile. By comparison, Penny ranked in the 87th and 93rd percentiles.
Penny faced several weaker schools in his final year at San Diego State. While he averaged 7.8 yards per rushing attempt, Penny struggled against Boise State. The Broncos ranked 21st in the country that year, giving up 2.61 yards per rushing attempt. Penny averaged 2.5 yards per attempt against Boise State.
Meanwhile, Walker faced several top-tier schools in his lone season at Michigan State. He averaged 6.2 yards per rushing attempt, the 28th highest in the country. Yet, Walker had the best game of his college career against Michigan. The Wolverines ranked 17th in the country last year, giving up 2.35 yards per rushing attempt. However, Walker tore them apart and averaged 8.6 yards per rushing attempt against Michigan.
Kenneth Walker’s College Success
Walker had an impressive final year in his college career. His 18 rushing touchdowns in 2021 were the second-most in the Big Ten and the eighth-most in the country. Furthermore, his plays from scrimmage (276) were the third-most in the Big Ten, while his 1,725 scrimmage yards were the most in the conference.
More importantly, Walker had a 53.9% breakaway run percentage last season, the fourth-highest in the country. He also had averaged 4.5 yards after contact per attempt last year, the sixth-most in college football. Furthermore, his college dominator was 50.2% (99th percentile), according to PlayerProfiler.
Even during his time at Wake Forest, Walker was a dangerous running back. Walker averaged 5.3 yards per rushing attempt in his two years at Wake Forest. Furthermore, Walker averaged a touchdown once per every 14.6 rushing attempts in 2021 at Michigan State. By comparison, he averaged a touchdown once every 12.8 rushing attempts during his time at Wake Forest.
Conclusion
Even after re-signing Penny to a one-year deal, the Seahawks used a top 41 draft pick on Walker despite having several other needs on the roster. Some will argue Walker got drafted to replace Carson. However, the Seahawks haven’t released Carson despite his neck injury and uncertain future. Furthermore, if Penny couldn’t beat Carson out for playing time, what guarantee will he beat out Walker for playing time?
Penny has never finished as a top 40 running back any year in his career. At 26 years old, it is very unlikely that Penny will break out and turn into a fantasy star at this point in his career.
If not for his five-game stretch to close out the year against four awful run defenses, Penny would likely have no fantasy value at all. Could Penny turn into a consistent fantasy player in 2022? Yes. However, that is very unlikely given the struggles in his career and the high investment the Seahawks made in Walker.
Even if Walker fails to pull away with the lead (or possible featured) role during training camp, it is only a matter of time till Penny suffers an injury. Once Penny is on the sidelines in street clothes, Walker will take over, secure the lead role and outperform his ADP.
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Mike Fanelli is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Mike, check out his archive and follow him @Mike_NFL2.