Seahawks Bolster Backfield, Select Notre Dame RB Jadarian Price With 32nd Pick
With best player available and arguably the team’s biggest need converging for the second consecutive NFL Draft, the Seattle Seahawks wound up sticking and picking with their 32nd overall pick, landing dynamic Notre Dame running back Jadarian Price.
Seattle entered Thursday night with hopes of being able to trade down from No. 32, but several teams leap-frogged them back into the first round, including the New York Jets trading up for pick No. 30 and the Tennessee Titans moving up for pick No. 31, leaving no deal in place for general manager John Schneider to pull the trigger and land additional picks.
Price, whose talents often were overshadowed by superstar Jeremiyah Love, a Heisman finalist, thrived as a change-of-pace weapon in the Fighting Irish’s backfield. As the complementary runner at Notre Dame, he racked up 674 yards and 11 touchdowns in 2025 while averaging six yards per carry. 24 of his 113 carries went for at least 10 yards, or north of 21%, while he ranked in the top 20 nationally in breakaway run rate at 45%, according to Pro Football Focus.
"The stretch game, outside zone, that's my bread and butter,” Price told Seattle media members via conference call moments after receiving the call from Schneider. “Just being able to make one decisive move and get vertical."
Offering good size at 210 pounds with a gliding running style and an accelerator , Price demonstrates excellent vision reading his blocks in both zone and gap schemes and once he has a sliver of daylight, he can cut on a dime and has the burst to go the distance anytime he touches the football, and those traits also translated to special teams production with two kick returns for touchdowns last season. He isn’t a hammer who runs through defenders often, but he excels at wiggling his way around defenders both in traffic and in space and has enough power to regularly slip through arm tackles.
As a receiver, Price didn’t have many opportunities at Notre Dame, particularly with Love being a big part of the passing game on his own accord. However, when his number was called as a pass catcher, he exhibited great reliability with soft hands and turned six receptions into nearly an 18 yards per catch average, once again illustrating his big play proficiency. Pass protection will be an area he will be tested early in blitz pickup, something he didn’t do often at the college level.
Price joins a Seahawks backfield that will lack vastly different than the one that helped the team capture a Super Bowl LX title in February. Former starter Ken Walker III bolted in free agency to join the Chiefs, while Zach Charbonnet underwent surgery to repair a torn ACL in his knee in February and likely won’t be back until October at the earliest, leaving George Holani and Kenny McIntosh as the most experienced returning runners and a potentially big role for free agent signing Emmanuel Wilson.
