When Zach Charbonnet injured his knee in last season's playoffs against the San Francisco 49ers, the initial timeline for his return put him coming back around December for the Seattle Seahawks. This would be nearly 11 months after he was hurt.
To begin this season, the team placed the running back on the physically unable to perform list, and he will miss at least the first four games of the season. Seattle doesn't have to remove Charbonnet from the PUP list immediately after Week 4. But could he be ready to return then?
Possibly. Head coach Mike Macdonald is well known for not giving much detail on players' injury statuses, but speaking with the media on Monday, he implied that Charbonnet might be able to play before December and maybe before the midway point of the season.
Zach Charbonnet could be playing for the Seattle Seahawks sooner than initially anticipated
Macdonald said, "Zach's doing awesome. He has a certain timetable in his mind, which we won't divulge right now, (but) he has a certain timetable that he's targeting, and he's on target for that timetable, which is great. It's an aggressive timetable from if you just kind of put the whole thing into perspective, I think that shows what type of guy he is...He looks pretty dang good."
Of course, no one wants Charbonnet to return too quickly, and the team likely won't allow that. The running back would have to pass a physical before he could be activated.
He has several reasons for wanting to get back on the field sooner rather than later in the season. He obviously wants to help the team win, but he is also entering the final year of his rookie contract and will be playing for his next contract. Hopefully, he will still play for the Seahawks in 2027 and beyond, but wherever he ends up, he will want to make a lot of money.
He hasn't yet been Seattle's RB1, and he might have been this coming season had he not injured his knee so late last season. He scored 12 rushing touchdowns and had a career-high 730 rushing yards in 2025. He isn't as explosive as Kenneth Walker, who signed with the Kansas City Chiefs in free agency, but he is more powerful.
If needed, a healthy Zach Charbonnet could definitely take on RB1 duties and probably be pretty productive. While Jadarian Price hopefully proves worthy of his first-round selection this year, he would be helped if he had a player like Charbonnet rotating snaps with him.
That could still prove to be the case for much of this season, and has just as much chance of happening as Charbonnet not coming back until late November or sometime in December. Based on what Mike Macdonald implied, however, 12s should expect to see Charbonnet far sooner than Week 10 or later.
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