The Seattle Seahawks open their title defense with an honest-to-goodness competition at running back, and the team is not pretending otherwise. In a training camp storylines piece published Friday, seahawks.com’s Ari Horton framed the position as a three-man battle: first-round pick Jadarian Price, George Holani and free-agent addition Emanuel Wilson will compete for reps when camp opens July 25 in Renton.
The vacancy is real. Kenneth Walker III, the Super Bowl MVP, signed with Kansas City in free agency, and Zach Charbonnet is still rehabbing the ACL injury that ended his 2025 season, with no firm timetable for his return. Kenny McIntosh is working back from an ACL tear of his own. Until at least one of them is cleared, the champions’ backfield belongs to a rookie, the back who earned the staff’s trust in January, and a newcomer.
Price is the headliner. Seattle took the Notre Dame back at the end of the first round in April, and general manager John Schneider made no effort to hide how the board looked. “We were kind of concerned people were going to go ahead of us because we felt like he was so out there in terms of mock drafts and what have you,” Schneider said after the pick. Price averaged 6.0 yards per carry last season at Notre Dame, rushing for 674 yards on 113 carries with 11 total touchdowns — two of them receiving, two more on kick returns. Head coach Mike Macdonald said after the draft that the plan is to use him in the passing game and possibly as a returner, not just between the tackles on early downs.
Holani is the complication, in the best sense. When Charbonnet went down during the playoff run, Holani came off injured reserve and appeared in two of Seattle’s three postseason games. His regular-season line was modest — 73 yards and a touchdown on 22 carries across 11 games — but the coaching staff trusted him in the highest-leverage football of the year, and that kind of trust does not reset in July. Wilson, signed in free agency, rounds out the group.
Seattle’s rookies reported to the Virginia Mason Athletic Center on July 17, the first players in the league to check in. Veterans arrive next week, and the pads go on from there. A championship roster returns nearly intact everywhere else; who carries the ball behind Sam Darnold is the first real question of camp, and Seattle gets most of August to answer it.
