Jadarian Price’s mom is big reason why the Seattle Seahawks drafted him
Jadarian Price had his family, friends and high school teammates around him. He was pacing most of the night.
The running back from Notre Dame was home in Denison, Texas, on the northern edge of the huge state by the Red River and the Oklahoma border. He’d been watching and watching, pacing and pacing, through three hours of the nationally televised NFL draft.
“It was wild because I was walking around the whole room,” Price said late Thursday night. “And as soon as Seattle was up, I was like, ‘All right, this is the last one. I’m going to sit down.’
“As I was going to sit down, I get the call.”
It was from Seahawks general manager John Schneider.
“Hey, man, we’re getting ready to pick you right here, brother,” Seattle’s GM told the 22-year-old Price.
The Super Bowl champions were drafting Price 32nd, the final pick of the first round, to replace Kenneth Walker. The Super Bowl MVP left Seattle for free-agency riches with Kansas City last month.
Upon hearing Schneider’s voice on the line, Price started crying.
“The emotions just hit,” Price said from Denison about a half hour later.
“I thought I would be a little more calm. But that phone call was a little different. When you get that phone call it’s just immediate tears and joy.”
And appreciation.
Thanks Mom. For the inspiration.
His mother’s strength
When Jadarian was 12 years old growing up in north Texas, doctors there diagnosed his mother with breast cancer.
Jessica Butler is Price’s his life, “my rock,” he’s called her. She is a single mom. She was raising her son she had when she was 17, plus his two younger sisters, Kzaria and Lyricah. Price’s grandparents and an uncle drove Butler to her 16 rounds of chemotherapy. The 12-year-old Price cooked for and tended to his younger sisters, 10 and 6 years old at the time, while he also played football and went into middle school.
His mother thought she was going to die. She feared leaving behind three children 12 and under.
She lived. In 2017, doctors who gave her a possible death sentence two years earlier declared Jessica Butler cancer free.
Indescribably buoyed, Price went on to Denison High School. He rushed for 4,990 all-purpose yards and 55 touchdowns over 39 games. As a senior, he rushed for 1,803 yards, average more than 9 yards per carry. He was his Texas district’s offensive player of the year in 2020 and 2021.
That’s how he got to Notre Dame.
There, he was second string his three college years behind Jeremiyah Love. Love was considered one of the best offensive players in college football. Thursday, about 2 1/2 hours before the Seahawks called Price, the Arizona Cardinals made Love the third pick in the draft.
Yet during those three years on second string, Price never left Notre Dame. He had offers for millions of dollars in NIL money, lucrative deals to do what over 10,500 college football players do each year: Transfer.
Price stayed.
How many first-round picks were college backups through their senior year?
Price staying and flourishing anyway showed Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald the running back’s loyalty and character. Those are two of the traits Macdonald treats as bedrocks to the culture and brotherhood in Seattle’s locker room. Players and coaches say that unique culture was the reason Seattle won the Super Bowl in February.
“You learn about the person, about the leadership, the resiliency, the humility, just the commitment to Notre Dame by staying there,” Macdonald said after drafting Price Thursday night.
“Yeah,” Schneider said, seated next to his coach, “loyalty.”
“Loyalty. The family story. All these things,” Macdonald said. “It’s a great, cool story. Something to get excited about. You love talking to (him). And you can envision him just sticking out here.
“You can feel him in the building and feel like he’s one of us.”
Price says now “it was in my heart to stay at Notre Dame.”
“It’s the place I love and to build relationships with the guys in the locker room. What we had done the year before going to the national championship, that’s what I wanted to do,” he said. “And that’s why I wanted to stay there.
“But also I made a challenge to myself to split reps with the best player in college football. And I did that. And I showed that I can do it at the highest level.”
On his 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 Love at Notre Dame for three years. Yet 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.
Macdonald said Price will get the opportunity to be the lead back and return kickoffs for the Seahawks, though Rashid Shaheed re-signed this offseason for $17 million to return as the team’s Pro Bowl kick returner and wide receiver.
Yet while at Notre Dame Price had his doubts while not being the starter. He endured the Achilles tear. He had lonely days a 14-hour drive away from home.
That’s when he would think of Mom.
“It’s inspired me a lot. Specifically, the idea of going through adversity,” he said. “And I truly believe that in order to grow, you have to go through pain and adversity.
“Watching my mom go through that, it made me believe there’s nothing that can stop me from achieving my dreams. Because she went through the worst. So what’s one more bad day or adversity for me?
“I can always get through it.”
He and Love just made NFL history. This is the first time college teammates became the first two running backs selected in the NFL draft.
Yes, as sure as they were dancing in Denison Thursday night, Mom is going to be inside Lumen Field Wednesday, Sept. 9. It’s unlikely she’s going to miss the first game of the league season in Seattle when her oldest child, the caretaker of her daughters, his sisters, when she needed him the most, plays in his first NFL game for the defending Super Bowl champions’ new lead running back.
Inspired by his mother, thanks to a phone call from the Pacific Northwest, staying at Notre Dame, turning down all that money, remaining a backup — it was all worth it.
“Sitting here now,” Price said among the tears and the joy surrounding him in Denison, Texas, Thursday night, “it’s the greatest decision I could have made.”
This story was originally published April 24, 2026 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Jadarian Price’s mom is big reason why the Seattle Seahawks drafted him."
