It's been a wild few months for Seattle's backfield. The Seahawks won Super Bowl LX behind Kenneth Walker III's 161 total yards, then watched their own MVP walk in free agency when he signed a 3-year, $45 million deal with the Chiefs in March. Add in Zach Charbonnet tearing his ACL in the divisional round back in January, and Seattle enters training camp with basically zero proven experience left in the running back room.
So the plan, according to Adam Schefter, is simple: throw the rookie in right away. Notre Dame's Jadarian Price, Seattle's first-round pick at No. 32 overall, reports with the rest of the rookie class Friday and will immediately be tasked with trying to replace a Super Bowl MVP's workload.
Price isn't just a name Seattle reached for out of need, either. He was the consensus No. 2 running back in this class behind fellow Notre Dame product Jeremiyah Love, who went No. 3 overall to Arizona. Price averaged 6.0 yards per carry last season for the Irish, piling up 674 yards and 11 rushing touchdowns on just 113 carries, plus a couple more scores through the air and as a kick returner. The tools are there. The question is whether a rookie can handle a lead-back role for a defending champion right out of the gate.
That question is exactly why fantasy analysts are circling this backfield all summer. A vacated 20-plus touch role behind a Super Bowl-winning offensive line is the kind of opportunity that turns rookies into league-winners, and Price walking into it with almost no proven competition ahead of him only raises the stakes.
It also plays into a running joke about Walker himself. Last year he was the poster child for injury-risk discourse; this year he's a two-time contract winner with a ring and a Super Bowl MVP trophy who bounced to Kansas City without a scratch on his workload concerns.
The irony isn't lost on anyone who covers running backs: the same guy people were scared to draft is now getting paid like a bell-cow, while the team he led to a title is handing the job to an unproven rookie because that's the position they're in. Seattle clearly believes Price has the juice to keep the backfield afloat, but until pads come on in camp, it's projection, not proof. Everyone will be watching how the reps get split once Price actually steps on the practice field Friday.