What will Seahawks do with Zach Charbonnet out for season?

RENTON — Monday’s news that running back Zach Charbonnet will miss the rest of the season after suffering an apparent ACL injury Saturday against the 49ers will present a new challenge for the Seahawks in the present and possibly in the future.

Coach Mike Macdonald confirmed during his Monday afternoon press conference that Charbonnet will require surgery, knocking him out of Sunday’s NFC title game against the Rams at Lumen Field, and then the Super Bowl if Seattle advances.

“Pretty sure it’s an ACL,” Macdonald said of the injury, which occurred on a play with 3:06 left in the second quarter.

Charbonnet was injured on a 1-yard gain when he was hit hard by San Francisco’s Dee Winters and Eric Kendricks.

“Figuring out what the extent of the injury is and we’ll get all the details on when he’s going to get it fixed and all that,” Macdonald said. “You just feel for the guy, for the person. This guy is just an absolute stud, so he’s around and in good spirits. We got his back.”

The news was a further blow considering Macdonald said after the game that initial indications were that Charbonnet had avoided a serious injury. But he cautioned then that the team wouldn’t know for sure until Charbonnet got imaging done, and those tests revealed the injury.

“He’s got a long road to come back, so heart goes out to him,” Macdonald said earlier in the day during his radio show on Seattle Sports 710.

Charbonnet’s injury puts an end to what has been one of the most effective one-two running back punches the Seahawks have ever had, and exactly what the team envisioned when it drafted Charbonnet in the second round out of UCLA in 2023 to pair with Kenneth Walker III, taken in the second round in 2022.

Charbonnet is officially the backup. But the two effectively shared time equally this season — Walker played 498 snaps to Charbonnet’s 490.

The sharing of duties helped to keep each fresh and relatively injury free — Walker has played all 17 games, the only time in his career he hasn’t missed a game, and Charbonnet missed only a week three blowout at home against the Saints.

Going into the season with essentially a platoon at the spot was especially vital considering Walker spent much of training camp still nursing a foot injury that landed him on injured reserve late in 2024, a year in which he played only 11 games.

But Walker eventually recovered and rebounded from an off year in 2024 to rush for 1,027 yards on 221 carries, an average of 4.6 per attempt that was almost a yard better than his 3.7 of last season and tied his career high.

Charbonnet had a career-high 730 yards on 184 carries (4.0 per carry).

The time share also made good use of their separate skill sets.

Walker tended to start each half and play predominantly on early downs.

Charbonnet usually came in for obvious passing situations and in the two-minute offense — taking advantage of his solid blocking and pass-catching kills — and also emerged as the team’s primary short-yardage runner.

Charbonnet led the Seahawks with 12 rushing touchdowns this season, six of which were from the 1- or 2-yard line.

The pairing was especially fruitful the last three weeks of the regular season as the Seahawks beat playoff teams the Rams, Carolina and San Francisco to clinch the NFC’s top seed. Seattle rushed for an average of 171.3 yards per game with Walker gaining 248 (82 per game), and Charbonnet 216 (72 per game).

So what will a Seahawks team that ran the ball at a higher percentage than all but one other team in the NFL this season do now without Charbonnet?

Likely lean even more on Walker while sprinkling in some combination of veterans Velus Jones Jr. and Cam Akers — each players who signed with the team during the regular season — and possibly second-year player George Holani.

Without Charbonnet for the second half of Saturday’s game, Walker responded with 116 yards on 19 carries and three touchdowns, tying Shaun Alexander’s Seahawks single-game postseason record.

“I thought this was the most decisive he’s ran up to this point,’’ Macdonald said of Walker, who was the 41st overall pick of the 2022 out of Michigan State and is eighth on the team’s career rushing list with 3,555 yards. “… I thought that was a heck of a performance.’’

Jones and Akers each signed to Seattle’s practice squad in November in the wake of Holani going on injured reserve when he hurt his hamstring at Tennessee on Nov. 16. Holani played in the first 11 games of the season as the third running back.

Jones, a third-round pick of the Bears in 2023, played in three regular season games and also against the 49ers on Saturday, getting 10 yards on six carries.

Akers, a second-round pick of the Rams in 2020 who was a key part of LA’s run to the Super Bowl LVI title following the 2021 season (he rushed for 31 yards on 13 carries in the win over the Bengals), played in three regular season games as a practice squad call-up.

That Jones got the nod as the practice squad call-up for Saturday’s game might indicate he’s ahead of Akers on the depth chart, though it could also have been because of his special teams versatility, playing on both coverage and return units.

Regardless, both figure to be needed now, and the storyline of Akers possibly being needed against his former team to get to another Super Bowl will be an intriguing one.

“That’s part of the reason we brought them here, is to provide great running back depth,’’ Macdonald said. “Both are really good players in their own right, and they got a great opportunity in front of them. You hate it to be under these circumstances, but it is what it is. We’ve got to move forward. So they’ll be ready to go.’’

Macdonald said it is also “an option’’ that Holani could return to practice this week.

Long term, there is also the question of how Seattle plans for 2026 if Charbonnet is not ready for the start of the season and specifically making it even more vital that the Seahawks re-sign Walker.

While Charbonnet’s contract goes through the 2026 season, Walker can be a free agent in March as he is completing the final season of his four-year deal that has paid him $8.441 million.

Pro Football Focus recently placed Walker, who turns 25 in October, first on a list of potential free agents “whose performance profiles make them some of the most compelling names to monitor heading into next offseason” while OvertheCap.com put a valuation on him as worth more than $6 million a season.

Interestingly, the Aura Sports Group announced Monday afternoon that it was now representing Walker. He had previously been repped by Pat Dye Jr. and Ben Setas of Sports Trust Advisors.

Aura Sports is the new firm of longtime sports agent David Canter, whose clients also include current Seahawk DeMarcus Lawrence as well as Carolina running back Rico Dowdle, who is one of a handful of other running backs who can be free agents this spring, a list that also includes Travis Etienne of Jacksonville, Breece Hall of the Jets (who was taken five spots before Walker in the 2022 draft), Najee Harris of the Chargers and Javonte Williams of Dallas.

But that’s a problem for later.

For now, the Seahawks will spend the week planning how they navigate their running back position for Sunday’s NFC Championship Game without their leading-second leading rusher.