Seahawks’ ‘Jadarian Price Day’? Why the 1st-round pick already had one in Texas
John Schneider wanted a celebration befitting a team holiday for their new, prized rookie.
“Cool! All right, Jadarian Price Day!” the Seahawks general manager proclaimed to begin a press conference for the team’s first-round draft choice Thursday.
Thing is, Price already had one of those. In his hometown.
On Jan. 20, while the Seahawks were in Renton preparing to his the NFC championship game, Mayor Robert Crawley declared that Tuesday “Jadarian Price Day” in the Denison, Texas. The town of about 25,000 along the Red River across the Oklahoma border is where Price’s mother Jessica Butler had him, when she was 17 years old. Denison is where she raised Price and two younger daughters.
“The single-mom thing, that’s a daily fact of our lives, especially in the high-school coaching business. But I don’t know that I’ve met very many like Jadarian’s mom,” Brent Whitson, Price’s coach his senior year at Denison High School, told me this week on KJR FM.
“She is a lioness. Fiercely protective of her kids.
“But has held (Jadarian) absolutely accountable.”
“J.D.,” as he’s known there, cooked for and tended to his younger sisters, Kzaria and Lyricah, when he was 12 and they were 10 and 6 years old. That’s because Mom — “my rock,” Price says — was diagnosed with breast cancer that year. While Price’s grandparents and an uncle drove Butler to her 16 rounds of chemotherapy, Jadarian cared for his younger sisters. He also played football and went into middle school into high school. “I had to mature,” Price said Thursday.
“His little sisters, his role in watching over them, protecting them, holding them accountable, was one of the most amazing things I got to see,” Coach Whitson told me. Price’s mom beat cancer two years after her diagnosis. J.D. became a star tailback at Denison High, a two-time all-district rusher for the Yellow Jackets. He rushed for 4,990 yards and 55 touchdowns at Denison, playing the sport he began as a tackle-football player in town at age 6.
Whitson recalled the 245-yard rushing game Price had in Whitson’s first game as his coach, the 125-year-old Battle of the Axe between Denison and Sherman. It’s Texas’ oldest high school football rivalry. Later in Price’s senior season, he rushed for 325 yards against a school from the Dallas suburb of Frisco.
“He was beyond the average high school football player, in a lot of ways,” Whitson said. “One, foremost, was scholastically.
“He didn’t get into Notre Dame because of his 40 time.” On Price’s first career carry for Notre Dame, he scored a touchdown. The 5-foot-11, 203-pound Price then rebounded from rupturing his Achilles tendon in 2022. He had only 280 college snaps playing behind Jeremiyah Love at Notre Dame for three years. Love became the third pick in this year’s draft, by Arizona.
Behind Love, Price averaged more than 6 yards per carry with 18 rushing touchdowns over his final two seasons for the Irish. He scored 11 touchdowns last season.
Price was also an elite kickoff returner at Notre Dame. The finalist for the Paul Hornung Award as college football’s most versatile player returned a kickoff for a touchdown against USC, one of three kickoff-return scores in his college career. Price was leading the nation averaging 47 yards per return early last season.
Last weekend, Price became the sixth player from Denison, Texas, to make it to the NFL. The defending Super Bowl-champion Seahawks drafted him 32nd overall to replace departed Super Bowl MVP Kenneth Walker as lead running back.
Price is the first man from Denison to become an NFL first-round pick.
It’s the stuff of having a day in your honor in your hometown.
“That’s true,” Price said Thursday, his first day of his new NFL life inside the Seahawks’ Virginia Mason Athletic Center. Price downplayed “Jadarian Price Day” in Denison three months ago.
“Yeah, so the mayor of my town, he called me like a week before, and he’s like, ‘Hey, we’re trying to figure out when we’re going to get a day for you.’ I’m like, I don’t think I need a day. It’s not that serious,’’” Price said.
“But everyone was like, ‘No, you need a day.’
“It was a random Tuesday during combine prep, I drove down from Dallas down to my hometown, and they did the little ceremony. It was cool. They took some pictures and I got a little plaque. So it’s nice.”
A new life. A new number.
Price wore jersey number 24 at Notre Dame.
Thursday, flanked by coach Mike Macdonald and general manager John Schneider, Price proudly held up his new Seahawks number 8 with his name on the back. Seahawks 2006 Super Bowl quarterback Matt Hasselbeck’s old number was Coby Bryant’s the previous four years for Seattle. The starting safety left the team a month after Byrant and the Seahawks won Super Bowl 60 in February, to sign as a free agent with the Chicago Bears.
“(It was) one of the numbers available,” Price said of 8. “But also I wanted a little change, new chapter in my life.
“Haven’t done single digits since I was like in little league. So I thought a little change would be nice.”
The changes begin coming faster on Friday. That’s Price’s first day on an NFL practice field. He will be one of almost 70 other rookies, young developmental players and tryout guys in the Seahawks’ rookie minicamp this weekend.
“The person I am, as soon as something good happens, I’m like, ‘OK, on to the next. How can I get better from this point on?’” Price said.
“It didn’t sink in until a couple days after I had the draft parties and that stuff. When I’m sitting down and meeting with Coach and going over the playbook, it’s like, ‘OK, it’s the real deal now.’”
Macdonald, seated to his new, lead running back’s immediate right, smiled as Price said that.
“This is such a great time of year with new faces, draft picks, rookie camp this week,” the 38-year-old Super Bowl-winning coach said.
“Just a lot of excitement with the new team. And this is what really what kicks it all off.”
He hasn’t had a full practice with all his new Seahawks teammates yet. His first NFL game isn’t for another 4 1/2 months.
Yet Price already feels thankful.
“I’m just blessed to be here in Seattle, part of a winning program, winning culture,” he said. “Just coming into a locker room and being able to compete, and coming from a culture like Notre Dame and you’re being taught so many things. And the habits I created will translate to the NFL level, so that’ll help.
“But I’m just blessed to be in the position that I am.”
