Fantasy Football: 3 Bold Predictions for Week 17

Rashaad Penny Will Have His Real Breakout

I won't lie and say the Seattle Seahawks made a good pick with Rashaad Penny when they selected him in the first round of this year's draft, but I do think he's about to have a turning point game in Week 17. You know, the kind of game that will leave us wondering where to draft him next fall with an offseason of uncertainty.

Chris Carson has been an incredibly solid running back this season. He has the fifth-highest juke rate -- a metric that tracks how often a back breaks or evades a tackle when presented the opportunity -- among qualified running backs on PlayerProfiler.com and a very impressive 42.6% Rushing Success Rate, our in-house metric that tracks the percentage of a back's carries that add value to his team's expected points total.

But while he has been impressive, he's battled with a litany of injuries dating back to his college days at Oklahoma State, where he never had more than 131 carries in a season. He's dealt with hip injuries this year and even missed two games. The Seahawks clearly like Carson as their starter, so it stands to reason that they want him healthy for the postseason. And since they're already locked into a wildcard spot, that means Carson could see a significantly lightened workload in Week 17.

With Penny practicing in full after missing the last couple games, this would be the team's perfect chance to really see what they have in their first round draft pick. He'd been showing well since the team's bye, averaging 6.47 yards per carry in that time and a ridiculous 7.27 over his last two games, not to mention his very good 31.1% Juke Rate, 10th-best in the league.

Penny's 39.53% Rushing Success Rate in that time is decent -- it's the lowest of the Seahawks' three main backs, but still just about at the league average -- but he shouldn't face much adversity against an Arizona Cardinals defense that has been shredded for a near league-high 4.8 yards per carry and has allowed the most rushing yards in the league. Penny's skills should be especially evident at home against the rushing defense allowing the fifth-most Rushing Net Expected Points (NEP), or the total number of expected points opposing teams have added to their team's points total on the ground.

Perhaps Penny's most impressive quality in his rookie season is his own Rushing NEP since the team's bye. He's averaged 0.21 Rushing NEP per rush over those seven games. On a season-long scale, Gus Edwards leads the league in that metric, with 0.18 Rushing NEP per rush. It's a small sample size but undeniably intriguing.

The Seahawks seem perfectly set up to test out their rookie running back in what should be an easy and low-stakes matchup with the Arizona Cardinals. Penny has come on strong in the second half of the season and will finish the regular season out as Week 17's leader in rushing yards.