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Seattle Waived a Running Back. He’s Going Back to College.
The Seahawks waived running back Anthony Hankerson on Monday. He is not looking for another NFL job. He is going back to college football.
Hankerson is one of 16 players who graduated high school in 2022 and became eligible for a fifth college season because of a Louisiana court order issued last week, per the Associated Press. Once he clears waivers, the transfer portal is open to him, and On3 reported Monday that returning to college is the plan. Somewhere there is a general manager reading that sentence twice.
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Players who graduated high school in 2022 and gained a fifth season of college eligibility through last week’s Louisiana court order.
He is not even the only one. T.J. Harden, the running back Seattle waived last week after he played in the Dallas preseason opener, was also granted a temporary restraining order by the same Louisiana judge. Two Seahawks running backs, one courtroom, zero of them interested in your practice squad.
Hankerson’s entire Seattle career lasted eight days. He signed a week ago after Miami waived him, played 24 snaps Sunday night in Nashville, ran five times for 10 yards and caught two passes for nine. Before that he put up back-to-back 1,000-yard seasons at Oregon State and scored 24 touchdowns there, with two years at Colorado in front of it.
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The bottom of an NFL roster used to be the only door in football. Now it’s the pay cut.
I don’t blame him even slightly. He looked at the 89th spot on a Super Bowl champion’s offseason roster, looked at what a productive Power Four running back can now earn on a campus, and did the arithmetic that the league has spent two years pretending nobody would do.
SOURCES →
Injury
Mason Richman Went Down on the Opening Drive and Isn’t Coming Back Soon
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Richman is a second-year player who started at left guard in Nashville, which is exactly the kind of body a team burns through in September and never thinks about in June. He was insurance. Now Seattle needs insurance for the insurance, five days before the roster has to be a real roster.
“We have had three heartbreaking injuries this week,” Macdonald said, per ESPN. Jake Bobo’s knee on Friday, Clark’s ankle and Richman’s leg on Sunday. Three players who were all going to be part of this season, gone inside 72 hours, with HBO’s cameras rolling on every bit of it.
The interior line was the quiet part of this roster nobody worried about. It just got loud, and every guard on the bubble who thought Sunday was the end of his summer now has a reason to answer his phone.
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AROUND THE COOP
Around the Coop
Jacardia Wright took a first-quarter handoff up the middle and ran 69 yards with it, finishing with eight carries for 81 yards against Tennessee’s starters. The depth chart says Holani, Price, Wilson. Wright is answering a question nobody asked him. Seahawks.com
One way Seattle gets more out of its $33-million-a-year cornerback is apparently just sending Devon Witherspoon at the quarterback more often, an idea Macdonald endorsed to ESPN. Pay a man record money to cover receivers, then ask him to stop covering them. I love it here. ESPN
Hard Knocks Episode 4 lands at 6 p.m. PT tonight, built around the Tennessee trip. So HBO has footage of the worst night of Bud Clark’s young career, and the finale next Tuesday is the cuts. This show has stopped being fun. SI
The league’s cut tracker went live Monday with the 53-man deadline set for Aug. 30, meaning roughly three dozen names leave this building in five days. Friday at Arrowhead is the last job interview, and the interviewer already filled out the form. NFL.com
NFC WEST SCHADENFREUDE REPORT
RAMS
Los Angeles put cornerback Zech McPhearson and edge rusher Keir Thomas on injured reserve Monday, waived a linebacker with an injury designation, and refilled the holes with edge rusher Devean Deal and cornerback Steven Gilmore, the younger brother of Stephon. Deal is a former Seahawks undrafted signing. So the deepest team in football answered a bad Monday by shopping our cutting-room floor and the Gilmore family tree.
NINERS
San Francisco owner Jed York was arrested Sunday in East Palestine, Ohio, and pleaded no contest Monday to misdemeanor disorderly conduct and possessing criminal tools, paying $1,150 in fines after prosecutors amended the original charge as part of a plea deal. The 49ers said it is a legal matter. Three weeks from opening the season in Australia, and the guy who has to sign off on the travel budget is the one in a county courthouse.
CARDINALS
Arizona waived running back Trey Benson on Monday, a 2024 third-round pick out of Florida State, after two injury-plagued seasons. The roster spot went to activating Josh Sweat off the PUP list. The Cardinals spent this offseason importing an entire new backfield, and the guy they drafted 24 months ago to be the future is the one clearing out his locker in August.
SEACHICKENS TRIVIA
This Georgia Tech wide receiver was taken 59th overall by the expansion Seahawks in 1976, caught 68 passes across six seasons in Seattle, and has spent the decades since behind a microphone instead. Who is he?
Tap to Reveal the Answer
Steve Raible. He totaled 1,017 receiving yards and three touchdowns as a player, then joined the radio booth as a color analyst in 1982 and eventually became the team’s lead announcer.
Got a Question? Ask It.
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Hard Knocks at six. Watch who the cameras follow. — The Rooster