Marshawn Lynch will be 31 in a couple of weeks. He’s ready to come back and play. His hometown Raiders want him. Let’s take a look at this.
Lynch is still property of the Seahawks, but they should be willing to give him up without much of a fight. They’re well stocked with other running backs – Rawls, Prosise, Lacy – and have no interest in bringing back Beastmode. Plus he doesn’t want to play for them. If he wanted out, he could force their hand by reporting (he’s under contract for $9 million).
Seahawks GM John Schneider and Raiders counterpart Reggie McKenzie used to work together in Green Bay and have a good relationship. They’ll get it done. Maybe Oakland throws them something along the lines of a fifth-round pick. Or maybe the Seahawks just let him go. Seems pretty certain that Lynch will play for the Raiders.
Whether he’ll make much of an impact, however, remains to be seen. The Raiders have a couple of other younger, more explosive backs – DeAndre Washington and Jalen Richard. Those guys both ran for more than 450 yards last year, and they both averaged at least 5.4 yards per carry.
Lynch, meanwhile, wasn’t all that good when we last saw him on the field, carrying 111 times for 417 yards for the Seahawks in 2015, averaging just 3.8 yards per attempt. The Seahawks had two other backs that season that both averaged more than a yard more per carry (Thomas Rawls and Christine Michael).
And Lynch is an older back who’s been sitting on the shelf for a year.
I expect this will be a committee backfield. Lynch should start and get most of the goal-line carries, but those younger backs should play plenty and they’ll probably be more effective a lot of the time. I would not be excited about selecting Lynch.
At the same time, I will concede that the Raiders have one of the league’s better offensive line, and they ran the ball at a healthy clip in a lot of their games.
Setting aside quarterback scrambles and end-arounds to wide receiver, the Raiders (running backs only) ran for 1,785 yards last year – 4th-most in the league. And that was at a healthy clip of 4.7 yards per carry.
| RUSHING BY RUNNING BACKS | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Team | Att | Yards | Avg | TD |
| Buffalo | 382 | 1,948 | 5.10 | 23 |
| Dallas | 426 | 1,997 | 4.69 | 18 |
| Tennessee | 406 | 1,795 | 4.42 | 14 |
| Oakland | 383 | 1,785 | 4.66 | 17 |
| Atlanta | 379 | 1,757 | 4.64 | 19 |
| Houston | 416 | 1,719 | 4.13 | 6 |
| New Orleans | 371 | 1,679 | 4.53 | 14 |
| Pittsburgh | 375 | 1,676 | 4.47 | 11 |
| Chicago | 353 | 1,657 | 4.69 | 10 |
| Miami | 359 | 1,643 | 4.58 | 13 |
| New England | 410 | 1,638 | 4.00 | 18 |
| Philadelphia | 381 | 1,632 | 4.28 | 14 |
| Washington | 343 | 1,602 | 4.67 | 13 |
| Arizona | 374 | 1,599 | 4.28 | 19 |
| NY Jets | 373 | 1,590 | 4.26 | 10 |
| Cincinnati | 393 | 1,535 | 3.91 | 13 |
| San Diego | 379 | 1,479 | 3.90 | 10 |
| Tampa Bay | 393 | 1,419 | 3.61 | 7 |
| Denver | 368 | 1,392 | 3.78 | 11 |
| NY Giants | 373 | 1,381 | 3.70 | 6 |
| San Francisco | 349 | 1,378 | 3.95 | 11 |
| Carolina | 346 | 1,347 | 3.89 | 11 |
| Cleveland | 279 | 1,346 | 4.82 | 9 |
| Baltimore | 327 | 1,310 | 4.01 | 8 |
| Kansas City | 327 | 1,277 | 3.91 | 5 |
| Indianapolis | 334 | 1,268 | 3.80 | 11 |
| Green Bay | 292 | 1,263 | 4.33 | 6 |
| Jacksonville | 324 | 1,230 | 3.80 | 5 |
| Seattle | 310 | 1,184 | 3.82 | 11 |
| Detroit | 301 | 1,095 | 3.64 | 6 |
| Minnesota | 342 | 1,078 | 3.15 | 8 |
| Los Angeles | 317 | 1,025 | 3.23 | 6 |
—Ian Allan