Seahawks rookie Thomas Rawls shines in first career start

The end result was a familiar one for Seattle’s running game as was the punishing style with which it was reached. The only difference as the Seahawks ran for a season-high 159 yards in their 26-0 win over Chicago on Sunday was that it was undrafted rookie Thomas Rawls who led the charge and not Marshawn Lynch.

Making his first career start, Rawls rushed for 104 yards on 16 carries while Lynch played sparingly because of injuries.

“He ran really hard and really tough and gave us a real kind of personality about the way we like to run the football,” coach Pete Carroll said of Rawls. “He comes downhill at you. It’s what we’ve been seeing, what we were excited about when we hooked him up a while back. Really didn’t get a good feel in the preseason, but today it was really evident that he could be a factor and help us out.”

Lynch was a question mark entering the game because of a calf injury he sustained last week at Green Bay. He had a hard time getting loose during pregame warmups, the team said, and missed Seattle’s first two series. Rawls started the game and finished it once Lynch was knocked out in the first half because of a hamstring injury after carrying five times for 14 yards.

“He just told me to hold it down for him, and I told him, ‘I’m going to hold it down for you.’ He just said, ‘Keep running,’ and every time I came to the sideline he would say something in my ear just to keep me going,” Rawls said.

Lynch’s absence gave Rawls the chance to show the promise that helped him overcome some long odds to stick with the Seahawks. He went undrafted despite rushing for 1,103 yards and 10 touchdowns while playing in only nine of 13 games as as senior last year at Central Michigan. He was buried on Seattle’s running-back depth chart for most of the offseason, sitting fourth behind Lynch, Robert Turbin and Christine Michael. But Rawls played well enough during training camp and the preseason to warrant a spot. He secured one after Turbin was injured and Michael was traded.

Rawls’ 104-yard performance on Sunday marked the first time a Seahawks running back other than Lynch topped the century mark since Turbin did so in a 2012 blowout win over Arizona. You could say that Rawls did his best Lynch impression against Chicago, but then again, the hard-charging style he showed Sunday was nothing new.

“The way he ran today was exactly the way we had seen him in college,” Carroll said. “Very aggressive, very downhill, really stomping those feet and running at people, and showed the ability to make people miss. Today, he (had) 16 carries for 100-something yards – that’s a fantastic day for this kid. The guys were really fired up for him. He’s a fantastic competitor, tough guy. Everybody loves everything about him, and he got his chance and he came through.”

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