Over the past couple weeks, I wrote two draft articles for the Seahawks. I spent a lot of time weighing prospects who I felt would be fits for Seattle, and I narrowed down a few that I really liked a lot, and felt the team would probably dig, as well… just guys that felt like true Seattle Seahawks.

My first article was a guide to the draft for readers who don’t follow college ball much, but maybe had concerns about the players Seattle lost in free agency, and how they might get replaced. I took a very specific tone that basically said that I wasn’t sweating Seattle’s running back situation with the loss of Ken Walker, and one way or another, the position will be addressed. Personally, I felt like it didn’t need to get addressed in the first round of the draft, at all, and that was driven by my own personal view that running backs can be found later on in most drafts.

My follow up post was a mock draft article two days before the real thing was to start. In that mock, I had Seattle wait out running back into the third round. I thought it was a position they would wait it for, and they would take perhaps a guard and an edge rusher beforehand, or maybe a defensive back. I had them going guard, edge rush, and then running back.

In an earlier version of that mock draft piece I was writing, however, I had the Seahawks taking Jadarian Price at 32. After spending time the following week stating a case as to why they shouldn’t draft a running back in round one, I circled back around to Price, and I just started to feel like he would be their guy.

Price is a breakaway style of runner very much in the order of Ken Walker, and he’s a solid personality fit. He is also a great returner, and they had nobody on the roster like him. He was the consensus RB2 of the draft for a reason, and it just felt like his talents fit their need like a glove.

Then after a while, I just couldn’t commit to this thought, and I chickened out of it. I revised it, and published something very different. Obviously, my gut was trying to tell me something, and I probably should have trusted it more.

Price, to me, felt almost too logical. He is a very natural one cut running back with great vision to fit Seattle’s zone blocking scheme, and like K9, he has explosive traits to be a home run hitter on occasion. I wanted to place him at Seattle’s first pick, but then I started to think about how he split carries at Notre Dame with Jeremiyah Love, and wasn’t regarded as good of a player on third downs, and I found it very easy to talk myself out of choosing him.

I just couldn’t settle on him. My own principles pulled me towards wanting a guard instead, and I still felt that way last night when Seattle’s pick came in.

With the dust settled on day one of the draft, however, it does very much feel like when Seattle decided not to match Kansas City’s offer to K9 in free agency, they had a very specific plan in mind to replace him, and Price was likely that plan all along. While I may not like the idea of taking a running back in the first round, I do not get paid the big dollars that John Schneider earns as the GM, nor do I have any years under my belt of scouting and looking at players in college like he has.

I think it is clear that John saw a talented college running back who would likely be sitting at pick 32 surrounded by a board of players with similar grades, and it really just came down to Price fitting the team’s most pressing need. From this perspective, drafting Price makes sense.

Price is a high character kid who could have transferred out of Notre Dame when Love took the starting spot, but he wanted to stick it out, and try to get a title with the program he committed to. He stayed, played well for the Irish, giving them a top rushing attack in the country, and a chance at a National Title. That takes immense character in a world of college football dominated by huge NIL dollars to make this decision. Price could have probably transferred to another run centric program like Oregon, and made millions for himself, but he did not. That is some special stuff.

Price is no slouch as a runner, either. Daniel Jeremiah had him rated as a fringe first round talent, and felt very adamantly that he was be the perfect pick for Seattle at 32.

Price has many other fans, as well, in the world of NFL Draft talent evaluators. Lance Zierlein has described him as a more natural runner than his Notre Dame mate Jeremiyah Love on the NFL.com’s website, and had noted his instinctive running style find the lanes and cuts to get past tacklers, and his unique balance to stay moving. This stuff really shows up on tape.

If you really enjoyed watching K9’s patient running style through the playoffs, and in through the Super Bowl, you will enjoy the style of runner Price is. He does have some of those Le’Veon Bell like vibes.

When I watch through the highlights, I see Shaun Alexander qualities, as well. It is not like he is electrifyingly fast so much as he just has very natural instincts to run angles past people, and hit an extra gear in the open field. Alexander had those very unique traits, and to me, it is sign of elite vision, and instincts. Price is a bit more willing to run through contact than Alexander was known to be, as well. He is going to make plays on Sundays that will get you excited. He will be fun to watch, for sure.

He will also have to develop more as a third down back, and he will have to be more mindful about hanging onto the football. He also had a little bit of ball security issues in college that he will need to be coached up to fix at this level, but I feel like those are fixable things, and it feels like he is of the character who will take to the coaching required to develop more of a well roundedness to his game.

I get why they took him. I still would have preferred a guard (or a defensive lineman), but by letting Ken Walker leave to Kansas City, many felt that Seattle needed to find someone who would add an explosive dynamic of their offense, and Price is exactly that type of runner. He will also be on a cheap rookie contract for the next five years with the club control fifth year option the team has on him for drafting him in the first round.

With big contracts looming for Devon Witherspoon, Sam Darnold, Byron Murphy, and Derick Hall, Seattle did sort of need to make this notion of drafting Price a reality from a salary cap perspective. For them, all of his skillsets matched how they could cheaply fill a need. In the end, Price might even become a better fit in their zone blocking scheme that what K9 was, and at a quarter of the cost for five years. This is the calculated gamble that they are perfectly willing to make.

As for today, Seattle has two picks at 64 and 96 of this draft. There are a lot of talented defensive backs, and edge rushers left on the board. Even if Seattle trades back a bit from 64 into the third round, and collects a mid round pick, I suspect that they can still target these areas, and walk away from this draft finding suitable replacements for Boye Mafe, Riq Woolen or Coby Bryant. We will see.

Of the players still available who I think Seattle might have a reasonable chance to draft today, I really like Iowa guard Gennings Dunker, Indiana DB De’Angelo Ponds, Oklahoma edge rusher R Mason Thomas, Texas A&M edge Cassius Howell, Arizona DB Treydan Stukes, Missouri linebacker Josiah Trotter, NC DBs Brandon Cisse and Jalon Kilgore, LSU safety AJ Haulcy, Illinois edge Gabe Jacas, and there are a number of other players I like, as well. These guys feel like Mike Macdonald fellas, and I wouldn’t be shocked if one of these names mentioned is a Seahawk later on this evening. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.

Until then, go Hawks!