In Zach Charbonnet’s first game back where it didn’t feel like he was just shaking off the rust, the Seahawks’ running back gained 77 yards on the ground, tying Tyler Goodson for the eighth-most of Week 9. Charbonnet’s 16 rushing attempts against the Cardinals ranks as the sixth-most he’s ever had in the NFL, indicating that Seattle’s coaches are more than willing to make him the featured back.
Charbonnet out-snapped Jadarian Price 38 to 24, and had more carries than him 16 to 9.
According to Next Gen Stats, Charbonnet had 54 yards after contact on his rushing attempts, which is an average 3.4 yards per attempt, compared to just 12 and 1.3 for Price. It is the best yards after contact/rush by a Seahawks running back since Price against the Cardinals in Week 2.
Notably, Emanuel Wilson had a total of 74 yards after contact against the Chiefs in Week 8, and that still ranks as the best single-game performance by a Seattle running back all season—But Wilson remains on the sidelines as RB4 now that Charbonnet and Price are healthy.
What if Charbonnet keeps this up?
While football fans can never resist the temptation of a quarterback controversy for some reason, most of us probably agree that Charbonnet’s decisiveness, physicality, and ball security on Sunday was all we needed to see to feel comfortable with him as the starter. That feels oddly straightforward given that prior to this season, Charbonnet only started when Kenneth Walker was injured.
Not that it is surprising for Charbonnet to be a lead back — unlike Price he did it regularly in college — it’s just new to the Seahawks.
Well, see saw what happened to Walker when he finally had the backfield to himself after Charbonnet tore his ACL in the first game of the 2025 playoffs:
Walker had the highest snap totals of his season
Walker went from 13 carries per game to 22 carries per game
Walker averaged 139 total yards per game w/ four touchdowns
Walker won Super Bowl MVP
A lot of people called Walker’s 2025 postseason run a fluke or an anomaly, not something that would be repeated. We’ve since seen that Walker was not allowed to fly as high as he could go with Seattle, as he’s averaging 109 rushing yards (and 140 total yards) per game with the Chiefs, going tit-for-tat with Jaxon Smith-Njigba in the midseason debate for Offensive Player of the Year.
Whether or not the Seahawks regret their part in letting Walker leave in free agency without a fight, did they take anything away from the experience that will compel John Schneider to handle Charbonnet’s free agency differently?
Zach Charbonnet is a 2027 free agent and he won’t get paid nearly as much as Walker, by the Seahawks or anyone else—and Walker only ranks 10th among running backs. But Charbonnet lacks Walker’s explosiveness and speed that makes him special. For example, here are Walker’s career runs of 15+ MPH and 20+ MPH:
That’s a total of 12 runs in which Walker hit at least 20 miles per hour, and 230 runs that hit 15 miles per hour.
Now here’s Charbonnet:
Last season, Walker had 37 more rushing attempts, but he also had 37 more runs that hit 15 MPH. Charbonnet isn’t capable of reaching 20 MPH. That is really what Price is for even though he hasn’t hit 20 MPH yet.
Price has 10 runs that have hit 15+ MPH on 47 carries, so that’s a rate about 33% more often than Charbonnet.
That makes Price a great complement for Charbonnet beyond this season, but it would mean that the Seahawks need to pay a running back. Assuming that Charbonnet plays through the season without any post-ACL complications, he’s potentially going to be Seattle’s starter and maybe even a very good one.
Charbonnet will be 26 next year and he doesn’t have a lot of tread on his tires with 449 career rushing attempts. Compare that to another 26-year-old running back who we probably don’t think of as a star but he always finds work: Javonte Williams has 1,012 career rushing attempts.
Williams was in a Charbonnet-like situation with the Broncos and they let him leave in free agency over nothing, but since then he’s been a lot better than any of Denver’s running backs. They thought they’d be better off with R.J. Harvey.
Do you think it’d be a mistake for the Seahawks to treat Charbonnet that way?
As contract figures go, Charbonnet is probably projected in the $6-$8 million salary range (Williams, Kenneth Gainwell, Tony Pollard type) which is also half of what the Chiefs paid Walker. The Seahawks — and some fans — may feel that after drafting Price in the first round it would be a waste of $8 million to re-sign Charbonnet.
And yet just a few days ago it didn’t seem absurd that Seattle could trade for Jonathan Taylor.
Charbonnet will not be “Kenneth Walker” in the sense of explosiveness, production, or stardom. He’s not that guy. However, he could end up being the next Walker if the Seahawks have a solution to their backfield woes already in the building — specifically their ball security issues (Charbonnet has zero career fumbles) — and they let him walk over contract demands that they actually could meet if they wanted to.
Price should get more carries moving forward. Price should be the future of the position in Seattle. But that doesn’t mean that Charbonnet wouldn’t still be worth an insurance policy in case Price doesn’t.
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I’m putting Zach Charbonnet in the driver’s seat for “most rushing yards” but adding Jadarian Price total yards into the tiebreaker slot.
Here are this week’s Super Joes questions. Want to join Super Joes? Upgrade your account to Super Joes founding members:
Grant: I going to defend Brian Fleury. This is primarily because both Schneider and Mike Macdonald have earned enough good faith with me to trust in their judgement and have patience with the new guy. I feel that if Fleury is hitting on all the other OC responsibilities, and is philosophically in tune with the head coach but foundering as a play-caller, he should be given another season. Only JS and our coaching staff have the relevant information to make this determination. If Fleury still has the job in 2027, I'm going to be excited to see what the more experienced Fleury can do.
I pretty much agree with you and I think it’s often a waste of a hire to bring someone in and not give him the chance to fail. Those impatient teams that fire coordinators too soon end up starting from scratch so often that they never make any progress. It’s almost like all those Vegas hotels that never get finished.
I still remain pretty agnostic to the entire situation, and most coaching decisions. If he stays, that’s probably fine.
My only pushback would be that there are examples of quick changes being beneficial, such as the Eagles: They lost the Super Bowl in 2022 and lost Shane Steichen to the Colts, so they hired Brian Johnson. Philly went 11-6 and ranked seventh in scoring in 2023, but they still fired Johnson after one season and hired Kellen Moore. Then they won the Super Bowl.
The Seahawks could have had more patience with Ryan Grubb. It was probably very good that they didn’t.
I think you and I are both in agreement that we’ll trust whatever Seattle decides to do at OC after the season—plus it’s only Week 10, we may end up begging Fleury to stay if the Seahawks start to click soon.
Samuel Garfield: If Jalen Milroe starts this week what are you looking for in order to conclude that he’s not a bust (to the extent that you can draw that conclusion from a quarterback’s first start)?
*note: Sam’s question posted before it was announced that Lock will almost definitely start
Well, Jalen Milroe will definitely never be a draft bust as long as he lives. Russell Wilson is one of the few examples in history of a third-round quarterback having success. Milroe was an especially hard case to project as a future starter in the third round because he was such a below-average passer in college, on many levels.
I look it as a Joe Milton situation, where it’ll be impressive if Milroe is still in the NFL in a few years and there are teams willing to employ him.
If Milroe starts at some point this season, what am I looking for and what would be good enough to keep him next year? I’m not interesting in seeing Milroe make great plays, I’d be much more impressed if he avoids bad plays.
I watched about a half-hour of J.T. O’Sullivan breaking down Shedeur Sanders this week and I think what some people are dumbfounded by is that there are so many quarterbacks coming into the NFL who don’t seem to know how to run a simple play and pull the trigger on a wide-open first-read who is 5 yards in front of him. Fans will get fixated on a lucky 65-yard touchdown pass (that he can’t replicate) and ignore that he gets rattled in a clean pocket and runs backwards 15 yards and takes a sack on third-and-5 and does it a lot.
If Milroe:
doesn’t turn the ball over
has above-average pocket awareness
doesn’t take sacks that are his own fault
knows that “NFL open” means that sometimes you have to throw it to players who seem covered but aren’t
Then I couldn’t care less about how good his accuracy is 25 yards down the field or if he can rush for 60 yards per game. Those are how you make a “Justin Fields highlight reel” but end up with a “Justin Fields career”.
Largentium: I only got to watch highlights on Red Zone (side note: when Cards/Hawks was the closest game of the four on in terms of score, that game got shown the least, which makes no sense to me. Why are you showing most of blowouts, Red Zone??) but what I saw seemed like the running game was a little better and the line overall played a little better, but the offense still sputtered. Is the problem really Fleury at this point? I'll probably watch the replay and see, but Lock was decent but the points just weren't there. Thankfully the defense and special teams seemed to be back to their normal, dominant selves.
If the Seahawks thought they had to score 30 points to win, then I think they would have dialed up a different game plan. Whether it would have been successful or not, we’ll never know, but I don’t think this was a great game plan to score many more than 17 points.
Drew Lock’s entire day was taking the snap and immediately throwing it to his first read—never throwing further than 15 yards downfield or outside the hashes—which fittingly is exactly what you’re going to see from FERNANDO MENDOZA on Sunday. You probably know by now that the Raiders will start Mendoza after trading Kirk Cousins to the Vikings on Monday, and I think Klint Kubiak’s plan now has to completely shift from a veteran-led offense with many options to a simplified passing game for the rookie.
Not that I’m a college football expert, but every time I watched Mendoza at Indiana, that’s basically all I ever saw:
Take a shotgun snap
Throw it immediately to the first read
I can’t imagine Kubiak is very happy about this change at midseason, especially knowing that the Seahawks are the hardest test that Mendoza has ever faced in his career as a football player.
I actually didn’t see a ton of “problems” on Sunday, at least not that many out of the norm. They were much better than they were against the Bears, consistently picking up first downs, even though they did punt five times. I think they would have been more aggressive if they thought they had to be, but the Cardinals stood little chance of scoring more than three points.
It doesn’t mean all their issues are better, but I agree that they played better all around with the exception of not finishing a couple of drives that they should have finished. Penalties like Jalen Sundell’s don’t help.
Rusty: What’s up with Zabel? I expected to see second year growth, yet instead, I think I’m seeing more mistakes.
I would say it’s partially related to inflated expectations and overrating how good Zabel was in 2025. Not that I disagree that he’s making more mistakes and has been moving in the wrong direction (in fact he’s moved twice just since last week!) but was Grey Zabel ever destined to be a big star?
Even before the Seahawks drafted Zabel, I wrote that it was apparent to me based on what I had read and researched on Zabel that 18th would be a reach. Schneider said “guards get over-drafted” and then I think that’s exactly what he conceded to do with Zabel. Oh I think he’ll be a good starter, don’t get me wrong, in fact I’m very certain he will be good!
But he doesn’t have elite play strength — and likely never will — and second-year struggles aren’t uncommon. Growth isn’t always linear, it can often be a rollercoaster. It’s possible that Zabel should not start over Anthony Bradford when Quenton Nelson returns, and that’s awkward, but I’m not really worried about him at all.
Danno: To me, Puka Nacua is as important to the Rams sans Adams as JSN is to the Hawks. Now Puka could be facing a significant injury without a contract for next year. I might be bitter about such a situation. Having played all out and suffered an injury that could negatively impact his earnings for then next 4 or more years, do you see any fallout this injury and lack of contract might have on his willingness to come back and risk further injury this year?
To me, he’s already proved his stature as a top 5 WR, maybe top 3. Rather than risk further injury, I might be inclined to get completely healthy and say FTR and move on. What are you hearing? There’s also the issue that the Rams are all in and who do they really have if this is Stafford’s last year?
Building off of this week’s previous article about the Rams, it’s a great question to wonder what Puka makes of all this. I even had the thought during the Rams game, before he got hurt…”Why is he doing this? Why is he even playing right now?”
Puka is worth a minimum of $40 million per year to some team out there and he’s risking all of that wealth by playing without an extension. And then he sprains his MCL and PCL on the Rams’ final offensive snap of the game. It could have been much worse — he should be able to return in a month — but as you’re wondering…Should he?
He gave up all of his leverage by being a very immature person who is bad at hiding that he’s immature. Plenty of pro athletes are immature, but Puka’s brand of immaturity is shockingly apparent. He goes on streams he shouldn’t go on, he gets drunk in public, he goes to rehab without hiring a crisis management team to cover it up, and he gets sued by women.
And despite all of that, an NFL team will still pay him like Jaxon Smith-Njigba because he’s freaking fantastic at football. That’s the nature of the league and we all know it. What they won’t pay for is a superstar who blows out his knee.
Puka averted disaster last week. He might not be so lucky next time. If the Rams lose a two or three games in the next month, I think your inclination is fair. He might not play for the Rams again.
"Do you think it’d be a mistake for the Seahawks to treat Charbonnet that way?"
Oh, YES ! 'twould be a big mistake. Seahawks should have learned a bit from KW III 'n also remember the pickng up the 2 point ball, then handing it to the referee in a critical point. Some players are just loaded with that special touch that wins games. Do Not Let Him Go.
All I did was open the results list, and scroll through looking for the best joke names. Some crackers in there, good job team!!!