Robert Henry Jr. couldn’t have picked a better time for a promotion and a raise.
For the first four game weeks of this NFL season, the rookie running back from Texas-San Antonio was on the Washington Commanders’ practice squad. He was earning $13,750 per week.
Monday night, the Seahawks called. They told him they were signing him from Washington’s practice squad onto the Super Bowl champions’ active, 53-man roster in Seattle.
Per the NFL’s collective bargaining agreement, Henry immediately jumps to a weekly salary of $49,167 with the Seahawks.
Cha-ching!
In addition to being a standout in the Commanders’ preseason and a ball carrier who averaged 6.9 yards per rush his final college season at UTSA, Henry is a new dad. His son Dante turned 1 last month.
That raise of $35,000 a week can buy A LOT of diapers.
So the 24-year-old father isn’t minding dropping everything and moving his young family across the continent on no notice this week.
“Oh, no, not at all,” Henry said Wednesday, with a smile. “Not at all.”
He was speaking before his first practice as the Seahawks newest running back. Henry is their roster answer to rookie first-round draft choice Jadarian Price going on injured reserve and being out into November, at least.
Emanuel Wilson, coming off a 21-carry, 81-yard game in Seattle’s win over the Los Angeles Chargers Price missed last weekend, is poised to be the Seahawks’ lead back again this week.
Since Henry is taking a spot on the active roster, and since he’s been practicing every day since the start of Washington’s training camp in late July, he is likely to make his Seattle debut behind Wilson Sunday. That’s when the Seahawks (3-1) host the San Francisco 49ers (4-0) for the NFC West lead at Lumen Field (1:25 p.m., channel 13 locally).
Henry acknowledged he was swimming mentally Wednesday 24 hours into receiving Seattle’s offensive playbook for intense studying this week.
“Yeah, I am,” he said. “It’s a learning process.”
So, no, Henry isn’t going to be exploring his new Seattle city this week.
“Every day I get an opportunity to get in the playbook every night. That’s what I’m going to be doing,” he said.
He said the playbook “is way different, for sure,” than the Commanders’ offense. He said Washington’s play calls under Commanders offensive coordinator David Blough are shorter.
He said what’s different in the playbook of Seahawks offensive coordinator Brian Fleury is every play has a second play attached to it, a “kill” call if quarterback Sam Darnold sees at the line of scrimmage a defensive look that warrants him to change the call in an audible to the second, alternate play.
“So the play (call’s verbiage) is much longer, because you’ve got two plays.”
The Seahawks scouted Henry his last couple seasons at UTSA. They liked his speed, his fit for Seattle’s outside-zone rushing and blocking system plus his ability to catch the ball out of the backfield. Seahawks running backs coach Thomas Hammock talked to Henry multiple times before the draft this past spring, including on Zoom calls remotely.
The Seahawks, like the rest of the NFL, didn’t draft Henry likely because of his history of some fumbling in college, and because he is 5 feet 9 and under 200 pounds (196).
Henry sees Fleury’s outside-zone system as perfect for his skills as a running back.
“I’m a speedy back…so outside zone fits me perfect,” he said.
He noticed the importance of “pressing your landmark,” a back sticking his foot in the ground and cutting sharply, quickly through the zone outside the offensive tackle through the running lane.
That quickness and decisiveness in cutting is why the Seahawks drafted Price. But now he’s out until at least the team’s game Nov. 2 at Chicago because of what general manager John Schneider said last weekend is an “upper-rib” injury.
The 5-foot-10, 226-pound Wilson is more of a pounding, less of a speed back.
Henry is here to be the compliment, and counter, to that. He was a quarterback his final two seasons at Lumberton High School in Lumberton, Mississippi. He rushed for more than 7,000 yards and 99 touchdowns in his fourth seasons of varsity high school football.
So he can run. He may be doing it Sunday for the Seahawks against the 49ers.
“(He’s) someone that we had a solid evaluation with throughout the process of him coming out,” Seattle coach Mike Macdonald said. “Looking forward to seeing what he can do. He’s here and practicing and we’ll see how it goes.
“He’s got good vision, got good burst, got good acceleration. A lot of good stuff.”
What happened to Joe Mixon?
Henry was going to be part of a Seahawks double add at running back.
Two-time Pro Bowl rusher Joe Mixon had a tryout with Seattle Monday. He was set to sign with the Seahawks, for the practice squad, Macdonald said Monday hours after his tryout.
Then the 30-year-old veteran, who missed all of last season because of a mysterious foot injury following a 1,000-yard season for Houston in 2024, had his physical examination with the Seahawks. The physical is the standard, final step before a player signs a contract with a team.
By Tuesday, Macdonald and general manager John Schneider had reversed course. They didn’t sign Mixon. He remains an unsigned free agent.
What happened?
“Didn’t work out,” Macdonald said Wednesday. “Probably the most we should say about it with respect to the process.
“Those things happen and it’s a part of the process.”
All signs are Mixon failed the Seahawks’ physical, from that mysterious foot injury. It reportedly had him telling his former Cincinnati Bengals teammates during his sidelined 2025 he would never play again.
Chief Sealth star now a hometown Seahawk
The Seahawks pivoted to signing running back Seattle native Dontae McMillan to the practice squad instead of Mixon.
The 5-foot-10, 204-pound McMillian was a 1,000-yard rusher for Eastern Michigan last college season. He signed with Baltimore as an undrafted rookie free agent this past offseason. The Ravens waived him among their final cuts of the preseason on Aug. 30.
McMillian was raised in West Seattle. He starred at Chief Sealth High School, another Seahawks team in the city. As a senior for the Chief Sealth Seahawks, McMillan rushed for 2,019 yards. He scored 44 touchdowns that season and became the Metro League offensive player of the year.
Coach Mike Macdonald doesn’t want to detail why the #Seahawks did not sign RB Joe Mixon to the practice squad, after all.
Details what they like in new RB Robert Henry Jr., rookie signed off WSH’s practice squad.
Says he trusts GM John Schneider bringing in guys, esp runners https://t.co/tNZ6UYH3tx
— Gregg Bell (@gbellseattle) October 7, 2026