With the New England Patriots coming to town to take on the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday Night Football, the Hawks were light at defensive tackle with just Jarran Reed, Bryan Mone and Poona Ford on the roster. Thus, in order to address that, on Saturday afternoon the team elevated defensive tackle Anthony Rush to the expanded active roster.
Rush entered the league as an undrafted free agent out of UAB, signing with the Philadelphia Eagles after the 2019 NFL Draft, but not making it past late July with Philly before being waived. At that point the then Oakland, but now Las Vegas Raiders signed him, but he was released at final roster cuts and spent the first few weeks of the season on the Raiders practice squad.
However, in late October, the Eagles decided they were of need of his services, signing the 6’5”, 350 pound nose tackle from the Oakland practice squad to their active roster. Rush then remained with Philadelphia through the end of the season, but was released at roster cuts. At that point he then chose to sign with the Seahawks practice squad, and he will now be active for the Week 2 contest against the Patriots under the rules in the CBA which allow for teams to elevate practice squad players to the active roster for gameday and allow them to be returned to the practice squad without exposing them to waivers. This is the second time in two weeks Seattle has taken advantage of this feature, after elevating Chad Wheeler for the Week 1 victory over the Atlanta Falcons with depth at tackle having been question heading into the game.
With 54 players on the roster, and Seattle likely to keep eight offensive linemen active, this means there will be just six inactives for the Seahawks on Sunday when they face off against Bill Belichick and the Patriots with someone other than Tom Brady under center for the first time in a very long time. How much Rush is able to contribute in helping the Hawks try to stop Cam Newton remains to be seen, but with Rasheem Green unlikely to play and minimal depth at the defensive tackle position, Rush could certainly earn some snaps Sunday.
