The Seattle Seahawks have signed Christine Michael back to their 53 man roster. Micheal was previously with the Seahawks before being traded to the Dallas Cowboys. Dallas cut him and he found his way on the Washington Redskins practice squad before being cut on Tuesday, December 15th.

Micheal was Seattle’s second round pick back in 2013. In his two plus years in Seattle, Michael appeared in 14 games carrying the ball 52 times for a total of 254 yards (4.9 yards per carry). He always found himself at third in the depth chart behind Marshawn Lynch and Robert Turbin.

Micheal was traded to Dallas for their seventh round pick after undrafted rookie Thomas Rawls surpassed him on the depth chart. The only reason Christine is back with the Seahawks is because Lynch is recovering from sports hernia surgery and Rawls broke his ankle this past Sunday against the Baltimore Ravens.

The Seahawks now have four running backs on their 53 man roster. They have Fred Jackson, Bryce Brown, Derrick Coleman and Michael. It should be noted that Coleman is a fullback, but will be getting looks at running back.

It’s hard to tell who will get the bulk of the carries this coming Sunday against the Cleveland Browns. After Rawls went down, Jackson had seven carries for 15 yards (2.1 ypc). DuJuan Harris got the bulk of the carries with 18 and just 42 yards (2.3 ypc) and a fumble in the red zone. Harris was cut this past Tuesday and Brown was re-signed for the third time this season.

Michael’s biggest issue during his time in Seattle has been his inconsistency and fumbles. In 2014, he fumbled twice in the preseason (23 carries, 89 yards) and then once during the regular season (10 carries, 34 yards). This past preseason, he carried the ball 32 times for 118 yards and a fumble. So in two plus years in Seattle, he has carried the ball 66 times for 241 yards and four fumbles. It may not seem to be a lot, but it is when you compare him to other running backs in the league.

As a quick example, let’s look at Rawls and Lynch’s numbers. Obviously with Rawls it is a very small sample size. In 2015, Rawls carried the ball 147 times for 830 yards. He fumbled once and that was in week 13 against the Minnesota Vikings. Since 2013, Lynch has carried the ball 692 times for 2,980 yards and has fumbled seven times. That’s a fumble every 99.9 carries for Lynch compared to Michael fumbling every 16.5 times he carries the rock.

Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll has this to say about Michael coming back to Seattle, "He’s been with us for a long time, so he does have a lot of background. That doesn’t mean that he’s going to be the featured guy or starter or anything like that, he’s coming in here to try to help us out and we’ll see how that works out. But it is good to be able to pull somebody in that has that kind of background.”

In this writer’s opinion, this signing is a mistake by Seattle. You already have three, maybe four, guys that can run the ball. You have Jackson, Coleman, Will Tukuafu and recently re-signed Brown. Is Michael really going to make a big difference? No, he will not. Sure he might go out and put up over 100 yards on the Browns if he gets enough carries. It’s the Browns; they give up 131.3 yards on the ground per game so far this season. Seattle’s next opponent, the St. Louis Rams, give up 115.9 yards a game. It would be nice to see what he could do against a top tier opponent like the Arizona Cardinals. The Seahawks will play them in week 17 and they only give up 87.7 yards per game.

If anything, Seattle is a winner in this entire thing. They received a seventh round pick for him before the season and if it doesn’t work out, they can cut him again and still have that pick. We all know how well the Seahawks do in the middle and late rounds of the NFL Draft.

Don’t get your hopes up Seattle; Michael will once again be a disappointment to you. Watch, he will probably fumble within his first five touches of the football on Sunday, if he plays that is.