Seahawks plan a heavy workload for rookie RB Jadarian Price, maybe including kick returns

When the Seahawks‘ rookies reported to training camp on Friday, the highest-profile player in the group was first-round running back Jadarian Price, who projects to have a very big role as a rookie.

Price will obviously get a lot of carries after last year’s leading rusher, Kenneth Walker, left Seattle in free agency, and last year’s second-leading rusher, Zach Charbonnet, suffered a torn ACL in the divisional round of the playoffs. But Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald said Price will contribute more than just running the ball.

“We’re going to run wide zone and he’s going to run wide zone,” Macdonald said, via Seahawks.com. “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.”

NFL teams rarely make their starting running back a kick returner, but Price was a big-play kickoff returner at Notre Dame, returning 22 kickoffs for 794 yards (an average of 36.1 yards per return) and three touchdowns. The Seahawks believe Price will make a lot of plays with the ball in his hands, and they want to give him every opportunity to have the ball in his hands.