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Thomas Rawls is our Player of the Week

By Kevin Parvizi

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Undrafted free agent Thomas Rawls is no longer an unknown among NFL fans, and he’s drawing closer to becoming a household name. Who would have thought that Marshawn Lynch would miss a few games and Robert Turbin and Christine Michael would be on the outs, only for Fred Jackson and Rawls to give the Seahawks an even better backup duo behind their elite feature back?

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Rawls looked like the second coming of “Beast Mode” on Sunday, and even though the Seahawks lost to the still-undefeated Cincinnati Bengals in overtime, it isn’t his fault that Kam Chancellor and the defense shockingly blew the game to legit MVP candidate Andy Dalton and the Bengals steadily moving offense.

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There were several running backs (Devonta Freeman, Doug Martin, Justin Forsett, Le’Veon Bell, and Todd Gurley among them) who shined in Week 5, but Rawls led all of them with a whopping 169 rushing yards. His 325 yards from scrimmage currently lead the Seahawks, and his performance against the Bengals has given him two 100-yard games in three starts.

Lynch will be on the mend, but the Seahawks can rest easy knowing that they finally have a No. 2 running back who can actually live up to the preseason hype. Rawls looked strong and assertive out there, absolutely mashing the Bengals in between the tackles and picking up chunks of yardage after contact. That’s especially important for the Seahawks, because, as Lynch knows, succeeding behind this makeshift offensive line requires toughness and extra effort from whichever running back happens to have the ball in his hands.

If you needed another reason to give Rawls this week’s “Player of the Week” honors ahead of other extremely deserving candidates like Bell and Oakland Raiders two-interception safety Charles Woodson, look no further than the following stat. Rawls’s 169-yard performance is the best rushing performance of the season in terms of yardage, as he edged out Carlos Hyde‘s Week 1 Monday Night Football romping of the Minnesota Vikings by one yard, as well as Chris Ivory‘s obliteration of the rival Miami Dolphins in London.

Interestingly enough, Gurley’s and Freeman’s Week 5 performances are fourth and fifth on the list, so they could have made a splash if Rawls didn’t do what he did on Sunday.

While Bell and Freeman were instrumental in their team’s winning efforts, Thomas Rawls shouldn’t be docked because of the Seahawks failure to close out the game against Cincinnati. After all, Rawls is the sole reason why the ‘Hawks were in a position to win this game in the first place, and it’s never easy to beat a red-hot Bengals team that is absolutely rolling through their schedule. Their run defense has been awfully light this year, but putting up 7.3 yards per carry on 23 attempts with a touchdown to boot is impressive against any defense in this league.

The crazy thing is that, thanks to this week’s monster game, Rawls is the NFL’s 11th-leading rusher, and touted rookie Gurley is the only running back out of 29 with at least 50 carries to average more yards per attempt than Rawls’s 5.6.

He’s already become a fan favorite in Seattle, and it’s hard not to root for a no-name 22-year-old UDFA out of Michigan and Central Michigan who has suddenly become a standout. He’ll be buried behind Lynch when the Seahawks star returns, but hopefully we’ll get to see Rawls racking up yardage when he returns. His best games have been feasts against porous run defenses, but Rawls deserves plenty of credit for getting more than what’s been provided for him by his blockers.

Next: Has Russell Wilson fallen in our QB Power Rankings?

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