TOP STORIES
Roster
The Backfield Sorted Itself Out, and the Rookie Is on Top
While the rest of the building scatters for a five-week break, here’s where the running back room actually stands: Jadarian Price and George Holani took the lead reps through OTAs and minicamp, and per SI’s Seahawks coverage, they were the two backs standing out. That’s the depth chart for now. A first-round rookie and a third-year guy who came in undrafted.
It happened by addition and subtraction. Kenneth Walker III took the Super Bowl MVP trophy to Kansas City. Zach Charbonnet is rehabbing the ACL he tore in the divisional round, and Kenny McIntosh hasn’t practiced since tearing his own ACL in camp last July. So the reps fell to the two healthy bodies, and one of them is a rookie who never started a game at Notre Dame.
Charbonnet is the wild card. He had surgery February 20, and the normal ACL timeline puts a return somewhere in mid-October. Yet he was doing conditioning work at minicamp, and when Macdonald was asked whether Charbonnet could be ready for the opener, he just smiled. “Everything’s possible,” he said. McIntosh, meanwhile, sounds like a candidate to open camp on the PUP list.
Feb. 20
Charbonnet’s ACL surgery date. A normal recovery would land in mid-October — yet he was doing conditioning work at minicamp.
So the rookie inherits the keys, at least for the summer. A first-round back who never started a college game, suddenly handed the lead reps because everyone in front of him left or got hurt. That’s not a redshirt year. That’s a job interview that already started, and the cameras arrive in July to film it.
SOURCES →
Off the Field
The Line of Billionaires Trying to Buy This Team Keeps Getting Longer
Keep Reading ↓
The number being floated is the part that should make your eyes water. The same report pegs a sale somewhere in the $7 billion to $9 billion range in the coming weeks. Allen bought this team in 1997 for $194 million. Do that math and try not to think about your own home equity.
$194M
What Paul Allen paid for the Seahawks in 1997. The current sale is reportedly being floated at $7–9 billion.
None of this touches the football. Schneider runs the roster, Macdonald runs the building, and whoever wins the auction inherits a defending champion they didn’t build. The likeliest outcome is still a close before the season, which means the new owner could be raising a banner they had nothing to do with. Nice work if you can buy it.
SOURCES →
AROUND THE COOP
Around the Coop
Macdonald keeps finding new jobs for Nick Emmanwori. After a rookie year spent at off-ball linebacker, nickel, safety, and even edge rusher, the Year 2 plan is reportedly less about adding positions and more about sharpening the ones he already plays. At some point the position field on his roster card just says “yes.” Seattle Sports
Tory Horton stayed sidelined through the end of minicamp, but the team is optimistic about an early training camp return for the second-year receiver who put up five touchdowns and a 95-yard punt return before his rookie season ended in Week 9. Five weeks of healing left before the grass gets real. Seattle Sports
The offseason program is officially in the books, and the building empties until July 25. Then the HBO trucks roll in: Hard Knocks debuts August 11, the first time the show has ever followed a reigning champion. Enjoy the quiet. It is the last of it. Seahawks.com
NFC WEST SCHADENFREUDE REPORT
RAMS
Puka Nacua is the best receiver on a team that fancies itself the Super Bowl favorite, and when ESPN asked him at OTAs whether he’s comfortable playing 2026 without an extension, his answer was a shrug in word form: “I’m not too sure.” A franchise that traded the future to win now is asking its star to wait on his money. Bold.
NINERS
San Francisco is reportedly finally ready to release Brandon Aiyuk, ending a $120 million relationship that spent the spring playing out in subtweets and erratic-driving videos. They paid him, voided his 2027 guarantees, and now they’re cutting bait. A nine-figure investment that ends with both sides insulting each other online. Beautiful.
SEACHICKENS TRIVIA
This receiver was a second-round pick out of Miami in 1988, spent all 11 of his NFL seasons in Seattle, and made his lone Pro Bowl in 1989 after a 1,063-yard year. Who is he?
Tap to Reveal the Answer
Brian Blades. He finished his entire career as a Seahawk with 581 receptions for 7,620 yards across 156 games — one of the franchise’s most productive receivers of the pre-expansion era.
Got a Question for the Mailbag?
The building’s on break, the rookies are auditioning, and the billionaires are circling. Send your sharpest questions, your worst takes, and your camp predictions to the mailbag at seachickens.com. We answer the good ones and roast the rest.
Five weeks of quiet, then the rookie gets his audition under the lights. Go Hawks. — The Rooster