Surprised the Seahawks’ top rookie didn’t play at all this preseason?
Taken aback that the 22-year-old first-round draft pick the Super Bowl champions are entrusting to replace departed Kenneth Walker as lead running back hasn’t played a game since last November, for Notre Dame?
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So is Jadarian Price.
He said he expected to play in at least one of the Seahawks’ three preseason games last month.
“I was a little bit surprised, yeah,” Price said Saturday, before the first practice of his first NFL game week — of any kind, fake season or real.
“That first preseason game (Aug. 15 against Dallas), I knew for sure I wouldn’t play. Second preseason game, I didn’t know until the day before. So I had full expectations going into Tennessee (Aug. 23) that I was playing.
“And then the following week (before the preseason finale at Kansas City Aug. 28) we practiced hard, those two padded days, and then I didn’t play.”
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So it will be peculiar, to say the least, that the lead back in a Seahawks offense predicated on running the ball as much as 50% of the time, as much as any team in the league, will start Wednesday night in the NFL kick-off game against New England having not played in 10 months.
“Yeah, I’m super excited,” Price said. “It’s been a dream come true — and it’s finally here. It’s the moment. And I’ve prepared my whole life for it.”
Price last played in a game Nov. 29, 2025. That was his final college game for Notre Dame, at Stanford. He ran six times for 15 yards and a touchdown in Notre Dame’s 49-20 win. The Fighting Irish didn’t get selected for the College Football Playoff, then chose not to play in a bowl game to end last season.
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A LOT has happened since then.
The last time Price played in a game, the Seahawks were on the eve of their ninth victory in 12 games to begin last season, at home over Minnesota. They were about a month from winning the NFC West. Two months after Price last played, the Seahawks won the NFC title game, then Super Bowl 60.
Price meanwhile went through pre-draft training, then the league’s annual scouting combine. He met with Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald, general manager John Schneider and Seattle’s scouts. Then in May, the Seahawks drafted him in the first round.
“Excited to see JD play,” Macdonald said Saturday.
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“It’s a big week for him, his first game, and his first NFL carry at some point. That’s why we practice the way we do. That’s why we train the way we do. It’s why we think the way we do. Take a deep breath, go stack a great play and go do it again.
“We’re excited for it.”
Seattle Seahawks running back Jadarian Price (8) signs autographs after training-camp practice at the Virginia Mason Athletic Training Center, on Tuesday, July 28, 2026, in Renton, Wash.
(Brian Hayes/bhayes@thenewstribune.com)
Jadarian Price fresh
Macdonald, new Seahawks offensive coordinator Brian Fleury and new running backs coach Thomas Hammock decided to keep Price out of all the preseason games because of what happened all around the rookie during it.
Zach Charbonnet remains on the physically-unable-to-perform list following his reconstructive knee surgery in February. The back who had 12 rushing touchdowns last season splitting time with Walker, before Walker left in free agency to Kansas City this spring, is out until at least mid-October.
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Emanuel Wilson, signed from Green Bay this offseason, missed most of August with a hamstring injury.
Jacardia Wright’s bid to make the 53-man roster largely ended when he missed most of the preseason with a leg injury.
Fullback Robbie Ouzts went on injured reserve with a neck issue. He’s out for the season.
That left George Holani, the third-year veteran from Boise State, as the only proven Seahawk available at the sport’s most injured, attrited position.
Price? He’s the unproven one. He’s yet to play an NFL game. Of any kind.
The Seahawks put Price and Holani in bubble wrap all August. The only extensive work against other team Price got was in the Seahawks’ joint practice with the Titans in Nashville, Tennessee, two days before that preseason game he watched Aug. 23. He caught a touchdown pass from Sam Darnold against Tennessee’s starting defense.
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Pass catching, and pass blocking, were the areas Price and his Seahawks coaches focused on this preseason. Hammock threw his rookie back so many ball the coach looked like a baseball pitcher throwing bullpen sessions to a catcher.
Rookie running back and first-round draft choice Jadarian Price works on his pass blocking at the sled in the seventh practice of Seattle Seahawks NFL training camp Saturday, Aug. 1, 2026, at the Virginia Mason Athletic Center in Renton.
That’s not new for Price.
He said he trained with wide receivers last winter in his preparation for the NFL scouting combine, to improve skills he rarely used as a backup tailback at Notre Dame to Jeremiyah Love, the third pick in this year’s draft by the Arizona Cardinals.
“Yeah, I’ve improved a lot (in the pass game),” Price said.
“It’s something that I’ve always had in my bag. Going back to Notre Dame I practiced it a lot. People just didn’t see it in games, live.
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“So it’s definitely something I’m excited to show.”
Price has been through this long layoff between games before. Actually, longer. He went 21 months between his last game of high school to his first game in college. That was from November 2021, his final game in the Texas state playoffs for Denison High School in his hometown north of Dallas, until August 2023, his debut for Notre Dame with a touchdown against Navy.
In between, Price missed all his first, 2022 season at Notre Dame. He ruptured his Achilles tendon during a workout in June of that year.
“Yeah,” Price said of now, “it’s kind of similar.”
Seattle Seahawks running back Jadarian Price (8) practices before an NFL preseason game against the Dallas Cowboys at Lumen Field in Seattle, on Saturday, Aug. 15, 2026.