The Seattle Seahawks wrapped up night one of the 2026 NFL Draft by taking Notre Dame running back Jadarian Price at 32. Price was part of an electrifying 1-2 combo with Jeremiyah Love, who was selected at No. 3 overall by the Arizona Cardinals. With Kenneth Walker III off to the Kansas City Chiefs and Zach Charbonnet on the mend following ACL surgery, there was intrigue as to how early the Seahawks would be willing to go to land a running back in the draft. It turns out that the “Price” was right for them at 32.
Here’s some of what general manager John Schneider and head coach Mike Macdonald had to say about Seattle’s big decision to bolster the running back room.
“We thought he had some opportunities for a minute. Fell apart. A lot of trading going on right ahead of us, but I mean, he kind of stood alone. Great player. The person’s outstanding, the competitor, he’s a Seahawk. It’s really cool. We were kind of concerned people were going to go ahead of us because we felt like he was so outthere in terms of mock drafts and what have you.”
“Well, we’re going to run wide zone and he’s going to run wide zone and we’re going to run some gap scheme. He’s going to run some of that too and then the pass game he can come alive, too. I think that’s part of our offense in general, that we can take another step in including our halfbacks in the pass game. Then, he’s a great special teams player as well. The kick return stuff, we’ll see how it shakes out in other phases, but he’s going to come in and compete with the rest of the guys. Let’s go rock and roll.”
“Instant acceleration, vision, cutback-ability, but his ability to work it back, not just completely bouncing all the time. Just kind of like it back inside. And then probably his contact balance.”
Schneider: “We’re all part of it. He did some great Zoom interviews though.”
Macdonald: “Thomas is a stud. He’s a beast. I think he’s just kind of dove in head first with how we operate here and he’s someone that I’ve leaned on since he got here in terms of the big-picture head coaching stuff. Obviously you trust his opinion. I mean, been coaching high-level running backs for a really long time in addition to being a really successful head coach, so, but I think it’s about par for the course on position coach on position coach involvement in terms of our process.
“I think that’s a little light. I think that was a few pounds lighter than he said he played at. Once we figure out what the best body comp is for him — I don’t know if there’s an ounce of fat on him, but we’ll look at him and see what’s best for us and best for him and go from there. We’ll see.”
“It was important. We weren’t going to completely force it, but it was important. There’s still some darn good running backs left. Yeah. We just lost a really good runner in Ken Walker, so, yeah.“
Yeah, I think it’s three times in the last two seasons, and it’s something that–Thomas Hammock’s awesome. He’s already talking to him about some of these things in these Zoom calls. So, yeah. I’m sure it will improve.
The full press conference can be viewed in the video below!