Zach
Charbonnet.
Zach
Charbonnet.
UCLA· 6'0"· 214 lb· 4.53s 40
"A back who never asks the offense to build a package around him: press, plant, fall forward, and stay on the field on third down until the drive is still alive in the fourth quarter."Pre-draft read
Downhill one-cut back with a legitimate three-down frame, aligned mostly single-back at UCLA but comfortable in pistol, split-zone and gap duty. His signature is patience into violence: he presses the line at a controlled pace, lets the double team wash, then plants and drives through the crease with pad level under the tackler.
The receiving work is real: 37 catches as a senior on option routes, checkdowns and swings, with reliable hands away from his frame. He is a build-up strider, so the speed shows up in the second half of runs. What separates him is pass-protection willingness — he squares blitzers and finishes, which is why he profiles as a Sunday-one three-down option.
Gap/duo-based downhill run game with play-action off wide zone; a heavy-personnel offense that wants one back for all three downs
Year 1: 1A of a committee handling short yardage, goal line and every third down while a burst back takes the perimeter work. Ceiling: 250-touch lead back who keeps an offense ahead of the chains and scores double-digit touchdowns.
A wide-zone-only spread attack that asks its back to bounce runs to the numbers and win footraces on outside stretch, or a scatback rotation where the offense needs 15-yard chunk runs from the perimeter rather than four-yard gains between the tackles.
He is best behind a line that can double the front side; he beats unblocked defenders, not stacked boxes with penetration.
Zach Charbonnet Highlights || Full Career Highlights || UCLA Bruins || Michigan Wolverines || RB ||
Zach Charbonnet Senior Season Highlights-UCLA RB-2022-2023 CFB Season
Zach Charbonnet Junior Season Highlights-UCLA RB-2021
Charbonnet arrived as a bruising back with polish in every phase but the explosive one. Two years at Michigan produced a 726-yard true-freshman season and then a lost 2020 behind Hassan Haskins, and the transfer to UCLA reset the evaluation entirely.
In Westwood he became the engine of Chip Kelly's offense: 1,137 yards and 13 scores in 2021, then 1,359 yards, 6.97 per carry and 14 touchdowns across just ten games in 2022, plus 37 receptions. He earned All-Pac-12 First Team honors and a Doak Walker semifinalist nod while leading the nation in all-purpose yards per game. The flags were the mileage, an offense that schemed clean lanes, and a burst that never threatened the sideline the way the top of the class did.
The board had him as a clean Day 2 back, usually RB3 or RB4 behind Bijan Robinson and Jahmyr Gibbs, and a 4.53 with a 37-inch vertical at 214 pounds confirmed the profile rather than changing it. Seattle taking him at 52 one year after spending a second on Kenneth Walker III raised eyebrows, but the call was about protecting a run game with a back who could carry it without a package built around him.
- 01
Contact balance
Runs with his pads under the tackler and consistently churns through arm tackles, turning two-yard bodies into four-yard gains without needing a clean crease.
- 02
Vision and patience
Presses the line at a controlled tempo, reads the double team and the backside cut, then commits with no wasted lateral steps once the crease appears.
- 03
Three-down receiving
37 catches as a senior on option routes, swings and checkdowns with natural hands away from the frame, so he never has to leave the field on third down.
- 04
Pass protection
Squares blitzers rather than cutting them, understands the front-side scan and finishes his block, which is the rarest trait for a back entering the league.
- 05
Short-yardage finisher
39 college rushing touchdowns and a frame built for the goal line; he leans, keeps his feet churning and falls forward on every contested carry.
- 01
Long speed
A build-up strider who wins in the second half of a run; he does not pull away from angles and rarely turns a 15-yard gain into a 60-yard one.
- 02
Lateral burst
The jump cut is functional rather than sudden, so penetration in the backfield forces contact instead of a clean escape to the next gap.
- 03
Mileage
565 college carries plus heavy short-yardage work, a workload that matters for a back whose entire game depends on absorbing and surviving contact.
- 04
Scheme dependence
UCLA's spread run game and quarterback threat cleaned up his lanes; he saw fewer loaded boxes than the pro workload would ask him to handle.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.53sp50
- Vertical
- 37inp50
- Broad jump
- 122inp50
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- —s
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G | Att | Yds | TD | Rec | RecYds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | Michigan | 13 | 149 | 726 | 11 | 8 | 30 |
| 2020 | Michigan | 5 | 19 | 124 | 1 | 6 | 41 |
| 2021 | UCLA | 12 | 202 | 1137 | 13 | 24 | 197 |
| 2022 | UCLA | 10 | 195 | 1359 | 14 | 37 | 321 |
| Career | — | 40 | 565 | 3346 | 39 | 75 | 589 |
cfbstats.com verified for 2020 (Michigan), 2021 and 2022 (UCLA). No cfbstats page exists for the 2019 Michigan season; that line is sourced from Sports-Reference/Tankathon aggregates. Receiving touchdowns: 0 in every documented season.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Big-bodied lead back who breaks tackles, catches everything underneath and produces without ever being an explosive-play threat.
The patience-into-violence tempo and full three-down receiving portfolio, if the vision and volume ever peak together.
Reliable, tough backup whose lack of burst caps him as a spell back if the lead job never opens up.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Through three seasons in Seattle, Charbonnet grew from complementary rookie (108 carries, 462 yards, 1 TD and 33 catches in 2023) to swing starter in 2024 (135-569-8) to the Seahawks' volume and short-yardage back in 2025, when he set career highs with 184 carries, 730 yards and a team-leading 12 rushing touchdowns for a Super Bowl LX champion. He tore his ACL in the January divisional-round win over San Francisco and had surgery in February 2026, missing the title game. With Kenneth Walker III gone to Kansas City in free agency, Charbonnet enters the final year of his rookie deal in 2026 with the lead job available once he is cleared.
Seattle used him exactly the way the tape suggested. As a rookie in 2023 he was the complementary and passing-down back behind Kenneth Walker III, taking 108 carries for 462 yards and adding 33 catches without ever being the featured runner. The 2024 season turned him into a swing starter: with Walker in and out of the lineup he started multiple games, put up a 91-yard, two-touchdown afternoon against Miami in Week 3, and finished with 135 carries for 569 yards. By 2025 the split flipped and he became the closer and the volume back — 184 carries, 730 yards and a team-leading 12 rushing touchdowns for a Seahawks team that won Super Bowl LX.
The honest retrospective is that the pick worked, with an asterisk on timing. A tackle-breaking, three-down back does hold up in the NFL, and Charbonnet outlasted the doubt about drafting a running back in back-to-back second rounds. The cost was that he tore his ACL in the divisional round and watched the title run from the sideline, and he entered 2026 camp on the active/PUP list just as Walker's departure to Kansas City cleared the lead job for him. He is not a home-run hitter and never was; he is the back who keeps an offense on schedule, and Seattle got four years of that on a rookie deal.
Data note: cfbstats.com verified for 2020 (Michigan), 2021 and 2022 (UCLA). No cfbstats page exists for the 2019 Michigan season; that line is sourced from Sports-Reference/Tankathon aggregates. Receiving touchdowns: 0 in every documented season.