For all that he’s accomplished in a future Hall-of-Fame career that few people could have imagined when he was a lightly recruited wide receiver at A.C. Davis High School in Yakima, Cooper Kupp still can’t help feeling envious watching teammate Rashid Shaheed run with the football.
It isn’t just that Shaheed is fast. It’s the effortless nature of his running style. It’s almost like a glide – it’s efficient and deceiving. Shaheed isn’t one of those athletes that looks like he’s trying to run fast – he just is.
“He’s a cheat code,” Kupp said. “I’m so angry at him for being so fast. It drives me crazy. Just jealous at the end of the day, because he’s special. I remember the first day he got to the facility, I remember asking him, ‘Is it cool, lining up and knowing that you can run past anyone that lines up across from you?’ And he says, ‘Yeah, it’s pretty cool.’ ”
That unencumbered style of running surprises defenders, who often find their pursuit angles incorrect. It also allows him to stay balanced, allowing him to shake off arm tackles and even the foot of 49ers kicker Eddy Pineiro, who blatantly tried to trip Shaheed in a last-ditch effort to stop his scintillating 95-yard touchdown return on the opening kickoff of Saturday’s NFC divisional playoff game.
“I felt it,” Shaheed said. “It was crazy. I was like, ‘Did I just feel a foot?’ ”
He could also feel Lumen Field shake as most of the 68,579 fans in attendance celebrated in a mixture of chaotic glee and disbelief.
“On this particular play, I did kind of hear the crowd a little bit,” he said. “It just kind of erupted.”
Shaheed knows exactly where that relaxed running form comes from.
“I give track all the credit for that,” he said. “I grew up on the track, and that’s something that I always knew that would help you out with football, so I stuck with it.”
His parents were track athletes at the NCAA Division I level. His father, Haneef, ran sprints for Arizona State, while his mother, Cassondra, specialized in the 400-meter hurdles at San Diego State. His two sisters, Amirah (University of Oregon) and Aysha (Texas A&M) compete in track.
While he stuck with track through high school, Shaheed eschewed scholarship offers to run for then-Pac-12 schools such as USC. He opted to play football at Weber State – the one NCAA school to offer him a football scholarship.
He blossomed into a four-time Football Championship Subdivision All-American for Weber State. He set an FCS record with seven career kickoff returns for touchdowns. In 53 games for Weber, he amassed 5,478 all-purpose yards. He even ran track for the Wildcats in his freshman year.
But after suffering a torn ACL at the end of the 2019 season and a second time in his final collegiate game, his draft stock dissipated. He signed as an undrafted free agent with the New Orleans Saints. Once healthy, he became an All-Pro punt returner and versatile wide receiver with the ability to stretch the field and pick up yards on jet sweeps and reverses.
Acquired from the Saints in a midseason trade, Shaheed has elevated the Seahawks’ return game – punts and kickoffs – from good to “big play waiting to happen.”
In 10 games with the Seahawks, he has two kickoff returns for touchdowns and a punt return for a touchdown. In his first nine games with the Saints, he only returned one kick for 29 yards – the game before he was traded. New Orleans went with running back Devin Neal and wide receiver Mason Tipton as returners, likely trying to keep Shaheed healthy following season-ending knee surgery in October 2024.
“When I came here, that’s when I finally got the opportunity to get back there,” Shaheed said.
With the new “dynamic kickoff” rules in place, allowing for more return opportunities, the Seahawks wanted Shaheed to get back to returning kicks. Knowing the strategy changed with the kickoffs, he simply followed the game plans of special teams coach Jay Harbaugh.
“So I knew that I just had to stick with the game plan and just follow the 10 guys,” he said. “I knew that this group is super special and they put in a lot of effort throughout each and every week. So all I got to do is just follow those guys and they handle the rest.”