Seattle isn't taking the ball out of Jadarian Price's hands. Mike Macdonald said Monday the Seahawks have not lost faith in their rookie starting running back after Price lost a fumble on Sunday for the second week in a row, which is the coach telling you, out loud and on the record, that the first-round pick is still the first-round pick.

That is a bigger statement than it sounds like. Coaches have a hundred ways to avoid answering this question. Macdonald picked the one with his name on it.

Why Macdonald put his name on it

A head coach who wants to hedge says something about "earning it back in practice" or "we'll see how the week goes." That phrasing is a door left open, and every player in the room knows it. Macdonald didn't leave the door open. He said the belief is intact, which means the reps are intact, which means Price walks into work this week as the starter rather than as a guy auditioning to stay one.

There's a practical logic underneath the warm words, too. You do not spend a first-round pick on a running back in this era unless you are absolutely convinced he changes what your offense can be. Teams have spent a decade talking themselves out of taking backs that high. When one of them talks itself back into it, the organization is committed in a way that two bad snaps can't unwind.

What Jadarian Price's fumble problem actually costs Seattle

Here's the honest part: back to back lost fumbles is a real issue, not a media invention. Ball security is the one skill at the position where the failure is total. A missed cut costs you four yards. A missed protection costs you a sack. Putting it on the grass costs you the entire possession, and it does it in front of 68,000 people and a defense that just got handed a short field.

I don't have the full charting on those two plays in front of me, so I'm not going to pretend to know whether it was high-and-loose in traffic, a helmet on the point of the ball, or a back reaching for a first down with one hand. Those are three different problems with three different fixes. What I do know is that fumbling is among the more coachable failures in football and among the streakiest. It clusters. It clusters because of technique, and it clusters because of a rookie's head.

checked the almanac: tiki barber's fumbling was a genuine crisis in new york before the coaching staff rebuilt how he carried the ball, and he came out the other side with an 1,860-yard season in 2005. the fix worked. it just didn't work in a week.

What comes next for Price and the Seahawks

The rehab is boring and it is public. High and tight, five points of pressure, the gauntlet drill with coaches swatting at the ball, extra work before and after practice, and a running backs coach standing behind him repeating the same three words until they're involuntary. None of that is glamorous and all of it works often enough that teams keep doing it.

The part nobody can drill is the flinch. A back who is thinking about the football is a back who is not pressing the hole, and a first-rounder gets drafted that high precisely because he presses the hole. If Price starts running tentative, Seattle has traded a fumble problem for a worse one. Macdonald's public backing is at least partly aimed at that, telling the kid the job is his so his hands stop being the only thing he's thinking about.

What I'm watching next: whether Price's touch count holds steady this week. That's the real tell, not the quote. Coaches say the right thing on Monday all the time. The snap counts on Sunday are where you find out if they meant it, and whether Seattle trusts him on second and short with a lead late.