Seahawks Coach Pete Carroll on Chris Carson: ‘He’s a Beautiful Looking Athlete’

Former OSU running back Chris Carson earned the starting job for the Seattle Seahawks last season, a gig that didn’t last long after he broke his leg in early October.

Now that he’s healthy again though, he’s ready to re-earn his job again this fall. Carson has taken first team reps in training camp — ahead of first-round draft pick Rashaad Penny — and impressed his head coach with his physique.

“He has been remarkably fit,” Carroll said via The News Tribune. “[He’s a] beautiful looking athlete out here.”

There are worse things to be called than a beautiful athlete from your head coach, I’m certain. (Have you seen Last Chance U?!) Carroll’s compliment is more evidence of the hard work Carson has put in to get back to competition after a gruesome injury that was NSFW viewing.

“He’s just worked so hard and so well conditioned and so strong that he really, he’s tearing it up,” Carroll continued. “And so we’re real excited about it. Where we left off, he was just getting going last year and I think he would’ve been a very impacting football player on our team and we missed him, terribly.

“But he’s picked up and he’s way ahead of where he was.”

Carson praised himself, too, for his efforts in getting back healthy for training camp. The most physically imposing running back of the lot, he attributes his underdog mindset for fueling him to get better and get back.

“My mindset is ‘Steady Hustlin,’ ” said Carson. “So I always want to come out and prove somebody wrong, because me being a seventh-round draft pick a lot of people passed me up.”

Carson will have to stave off Rashaad Penny, who thus far has been Seattle’s No. 2, as well as C.J. Prosise, Mike Davis and J.D. McKissic for reps this season. But thanks to an (apparently beautiful) physique and a workhorse mentality, he’s emerged as the clear-cut favorite to re-gain his footing as Seattle’s starter in 2018.