RENTON, Wash. -- Rookie Jadarian Price is ready to lead the Seattle Seahawks’ backfield while it waits for Zach Charbonnet to return. Or at least as ready as he can be.
Except for the week he missed with a minor injury, Price has had a strong summer, displaying the vision, decisiveness and athleticism that made him the Seahawks’ choice with the 32nd pick in April’s draft. He has looked as good as advertised -- and in some ways better.
But that all comes with the caveat that when Price steps onto Lumen Field for Seattle’s Sept. 9 opener against the New England Patriots, the team’s presumed RB1 will be making his NFL debut having not played a single snap in the preseason. Getting Price as prepared as possible for actual football has been trumped by the Seahawks’ desire to preserve him for the long haul.
“He’s done a great job. He really has -- all three downs,” coach Mike Macdonald said last week. “He’s a rookie in terms of, there’s going to be things that we’re going to attack in his game that will show itself in games. We haven’t been afforded the luxury of having the bodies right now at running back to give him the reps in a [preseason] game that we would normally give to a rookie runner.”
The best guess is that the Seahawks are planning, for now, to roll with Price as their lead back while mixing in a heavy dose of George Holani, whose receiving and pass-blocking skills seem perfectly suited for third-down work.
Emanuel Wilson will be the power complement to those two, though the free agent addition is on the mend from an undisclosed injury that sidelined him for the last couple of weeks and kept him out of Seattle’s preseason finale Friday against the Kansas City Chiefs. Wilson has been running off to the side with trainers during practice, suggesting he won’t be out for long.
Whatever plan Seattle has going into Week 1 will start to change once Charbonnet returns.
Last year’s co-starter appears to be in the closing stretch of his recovery from February surgery to repair an ACL tear he suffered in January. He’s still on the physically unable to perform list, meaning he will miss the first four games of the season at a minimum.
Whenever Charbonnet is all the way back, it’s easy to envision the Seahawks splitting the work in their backfield fairly evenly between him and Price the way they did last season with Charbonnet and Kenneth Walker III.
Price may not have the same fifth gear as Walker, but he looks like he can replicate at least some of the explosiveness Seattle’s backfield lost when the Super Bowl LX MVP signed with Kansas City in free agency.
“He’s good, man,” linebacker Ernest Jones IV said early in camp. “Mature for his age, you can tell. You don’t get too many words out of him, but he’s working. He got me today, man. He had a hell of a route on me today. ... I think he’s going to help us. He’s doing everything right and he’s got a great group of backs in front of him that’s kind of teaching him the way.”
Jones was referring to how Price had beaten him for a touchdown during a 7-on-7 rep, getting open behind the 2025 second-team All-Pro before making an over-the-shoulder catch on a deep ball from Sam Darnold. Price’s ability to contribute in the passing game was one of the biggest questions about his skill set after he finished his Notre Dame career with only 15 receptions over three seasons as a backup. But he’s answering it.
“He’s a special player,” Darnold said after the Seahawks’ Aug. 21 joint practice in Nashville, Tennessee. “He’s a really special player. He brings a different facet to the offense that only a guy like him can bring. Whether it’s catching passes out of the backfield, catching screens, running in between the tackles, outside the tackles. He can really do it all, and I know he’s just going to continue to get better and learn.”
Holani got much of the work with the No. 1 offense that day, with Price still ramping back up. The cautious, long-game approach the Seahawks have taken with their top pick could mean even more growing pains out of the gate than they’d usually expect from a rookie. But they seem willing to live with that for the trade-off of keeping him healthy.
“He’s shown that we’re really confident in him going into Week 1,” Macdonald said. “He’s earned that decision for us to feel good about it. Even though in just about any other circumstance, you’d definitely want really any rookie to get preseason exposure and experience.”
