Anyone who has played fantasy football knows that if you have two of the top performing fantasy quarterbacks in a given year, you don’t just cut one of them because you need a streamer tight end. Cutting a player because you don’t need them could make another team stronger and hurt your chances of winning a championship. Judging by this rule I can tell you that ladies and gentlemen, Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll never played fantasy football.
Waiving Christine Michael Could Come Back to Get the Seahawks
Let’s step aside from the fantasy quarterback metaphor and look at a real life running back. Christine Michael is a real life pick-up and stash player. The Seahawks decided to cut him, because with the return of Thomas Rawls, his already diminishing role made him expendable. While I can’t speak to the role of the 53rd man on the Seahawks roster, I can tell you that there is one team in the NFL where Christine Michael could play a major role. And if he ended up in a certain city in Wisconsin this role could stand directly in the way of the Seahawks’ run to Super Bowl LI, and unfortunately for the Seahawks, that is where he ended up.
I think we can all agree that the biggest threat to Seattle heading to Houston for Super Bowl LI is the team that makes its home 266 miles north in Dallas, but there is a sleeping giant much farther north. The Green Bay Packers: When they struggled early in the season, Aaron Rodgers told us all to “relax.” Things definitely looked better for Green Bay with the return of Jordy Nelson, but how good can things really look when your running back is wearing #88?
Eddie Lacy has been a huge loss for the Packers. I give a lot of respect to their coaching staff for their use of Ty Montgomery and how they have tried to overcome this adversity, but it certainly wasn’t an ideal situation. The return of James Starks at least gave them a player more accustomed to the position, but so far this season Starks has been limited to 75 yards on 31 carries. This 2.4 yard average is not the sort of thing that will take an awful lot of heat off of Aaron Rodgers and the dangerous Packers passing attack. What’s more is that Starks longest run was only 11 yards and he has yet to score a touchdown this season. Granted that Starks was injured and gives us a limited sample size, but Christine Michael presents numbers that are more encouraging. Michael has run for 469 yards on 117 attempts for an average of four yards per carry. He has also scored six touchdowns and has a much more threatening long of 41 yards.
Obviously this isn’t a direct comparison. The two backs up to this point in the season have been running behind a different offensive line and have had a different person calling the plays. However, the addition of Michael to the roster certainly can’t hurt. Maybe him being in the backfield will present enough of a threat that Aaron Rodgers can “relax” in the pocket just a little bit more. Will adding this piece be enough to help the Packers win the NFC North? And if they do, will they be able to win enough games to earn the second seed in the playoffs, possibly forcing Seattle out of the bye week? Only time will tell. But given the running back situation in Green Bay, I think the Seahawks may have been well-advised to stash Christine Michael.
