Jadarian Price will not play for the Seattle Seahawks against the Tennessee Titans on Sunday night, and he will also sit out Friday’s preseason finale against the Kansas City Chiefs. After missing time the week before with upper-leg soreness, Price ramped back up with padded practices this week, but the Seahawks decided there was no reason to put him in live preseason reps.
That makes Price the latest player the Seahawks are protecting through a stretch that does not count, even if it has become the clearest way to read how they are handling the backfield. The final two preseason games are now about the others around him: George Holani and Velus Jones Jr. are expected to get a busy night, Anthony Hankerson, signed earlier this week, is likely to get some carries, and Jacardia Wright is still TBD because he is only just recovering from an injury.
The timing matters because Seattle is down to its last preseason chances to sort out the backfield before the games start counting. Gregg Bell said the Seahawks’ plan is to hold Price out of both the Titans game and the Chiefs finale, which fits a broader pattern for a team that has not treated preseason as a place to test players coming back from injury. Sam Darnold, Jaxon Smith-Njigba and DeMarcus Lawrence are not expected to play any part in preseason, and the Seahawks have already signaled that preserving healthy bodies matters more than squeezing out extra snaps.
There is still a wrinkle in how the night against Tennessee unfolds. Drew Lock is slated to start the first half and Jalen Milroe the second, while the Titans are expected to play their starters through the first half. That leaves the Seahawks with less room to hide depth questions in a live setting, even as the running back room remains thinned by injuries and Wright’s recovery is still incomplete.
For Price, the practical target now is not another exhibition run but Sept. 9, when the Seahawks’ first-team football is back. If he stays out of both remaining preseason games, the team will have done what it clearly set out to do: let a back it values heal fully rather than chase meaningless touches in August.
