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Seattle Went Running Back Shopping and Returned One
The Joe Mixon signing is off. Seattle worked him out Monday, Mike Macdonald said the team was “going through the process,” and the process turned out to include a physical. By Tuesday, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported the Seahawks would not sign him to the practice squad after all. Yesterday I told you Seattle came home with two running backs. Turns out one of them went back to the store.
Mixon is 30, a two-time Pro Bowler, and hasn’t played a snap since Houston’s January 2025 playoff run, thanks to a foot injury the Texans never really explained. Nobody has said what Seattle’s doctors saw. Nobody needs to. When a running back hasn’t carried the ball in 21 months, the physical isn’t a formality. It’s the whole interview.
1,016
Joe Mixon’s rushing yards in 2024, the last season he played.
The back who did stick is Robert Henry Jr., an undrafted rookie out of UTSA, plucked off Washington’s practice squad. He ran for 1,045 yards and nine touchdowns at UTSA last year and hasn’t appeared in a regular-season game yet. Because Seattle poached him, he has to stay on the 53 for at least three weeks. Washington took our winning streak. We took their practice-squad running back. Not an even trade, but it’s a start.
Somebody had to leave, and it was AJ Finley, waived nine days after his first NFL start. Jacardia Wright went to practice-squad injured reserve.
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When a running back hasn’t carried the ball in 21 months, the physical isn’t a formality. It’s the whole interview.
So against the unbeaten 49ers, the backfield is Emanuel Wilson, George Holani, Velus Jones Jr. and a rookie still learning where the cafeteria is. Charbonnet is practicing, but Macdonald already said he won’t play Sunday. Wilson carried 21 times against the Chargers. Somebody get that man a foam roller.
SOURCES →
Defense
Nick Emmanwori Is Back to Ruining Somebody Else’s Afternoon
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Look at the climb. Nine snaps in his season debut in Week 2. Thirty-six in Week 3. Fifty-six on Sunday. That’s a guy coming off July ankle surgery ramping up like a sensible workout plan, except the weights are other people’s quarterbacks.
9 → 36 → 56
Emmanwori’s defensive snaps in Weeks 2, 3 and 4.
“I’m still getting back to my normal self as far as getting used to the game speed,” Emmanwori told Wyman and Bob on Monday. “But physically, I feel good. I feel like myself.” After his 11-yard sack, the team’s social account went with “DEMONWORI.” I’m not saying that sticks. I’ve heard worse from people paid to invent nicknames.
The 2025 Defensive Rookie of the Year runner-up is basically all the way back, just in time for Brock Purdy to visit. Bad week to be a quarterback at Lumen.
SOURCES →
AROUND THE COOP
Around the Coop
The Chargers’ offensive line finished Sunday with a 13% pass-block win rate, its lowest in the 10 years ESPN has tracked it. Seattle pressured Herbert on 21 of 43 dropbacks. Somewhere a chiropractor in El Segundo cleared his whole Monday. Seattle Sports
Seattle has allowed the fewest yards in the NFL, 246.8 a game, per Bob Condotta’s quarter-pole grades. Opponents are also 6 for 6 on fourth down. Impossible to move for three downs, then suddenly very polite. Spokesman-Review
The practice-squad spot meant for Mixon went to Dontae McMillan, a West Seattle kid who ran for 2,019 yards and 44 touchdowns as a Chief Sealth senior. The toughest thing he’ll run through this week is the drive to Renton. West Seattle Herald
Third-round corner Julian Neal didn’t take a defensive snap Sunday, the third time in four games, though he did log 23 special-teams reps. Trevon Diggs played ahead of him. Rookie lesson one: the guy who got cut in August still outranks you. SI
NFC WEST SCHADENFREUDE REPORT
RAMS
The Rams signed Eric Kendricks to their practice squad Tuesday. He’s 34, an 11-year veteran, and the last time anybody saw him in a playoff game he was wearing 49ers colors in January. Rams On SI figures he can help a kickoff and punt coverage unit that has struggled all season. So the team that spent the summer assembling a dream defensive line is now fixing its special teams with a linebacker San Francisco already used up. Thrifty. I respect thrifty.
NINERS
San Francisco is 4-0, alone atop the NFC West, and still a 3-point underdog at Lumen on Sunday, per SI’s betting desk, with a +130 moneyline. Oddsmakers watched all four of those wins and decided they’d rather back the 3-1 team that just set a franchise record for penalty yards. That’s not an insult to the Niners. Okay, it’s a little bit of an insult. Bring a jacket, guys. And something for your ears.
CARDINALS
Asked whether Jacoby Brissett could be benched after the first three-interception game of his career, Mike LaFleur needed one word: “No.” That keeps Gardner Minshew and rookie Carson Beck behind him for Detroit this week. Three straight losses, and the crispest thing Arizona has produced all season is its head coach’s answer to that question. Something in the desert finally moved quickly.
SEACHICKENS TRIVIA
Seattle took this Texas A&M defensive end 10th overall in the 1980 draft, and he made back-to-back Pro Bowls in 1986 and 1987. Who is he?
Tap to Reveal the Answer
Jacob Green. He’s credited with 97.5 official sacks as a Seahawk, and that doesn’t count his first two seasons, because sacks didn’t become an official NFL stat until 1982.
THIS DAY IN SEAHAWKS HISTORY
1979
October 7, 1979
Seattle Walks Into Candlestick and Drops the 49ers to 0-6
Jack Patera’s Seahawks beat San Francisco 35-24 at Candlestick Park. Dan Doornink ran for two touchdowns and Sherman Smith added another as Seattle led 21-10 at halftime. The win got Seattle to 2-4 and left Bill Walsh’s 49ers winless through six games. Forty-seven years later, same opponent, same week of October. I’ll take the same result.
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Hold on to your receipts. — The Rooster