Marshawn Lynch is all about that inaction these days, boss, and a painful divorce from the Seahawks seems next.
Lynch stunned observers and his own team by concluding he wasn’t ready to return from an abdominal injury in Sunday’s wild-card playoff game in frigid Minneapolis. Earlier Friday, Seahawks coach Pete Carroll had given Lynch, who underwent surgery for the injury Nov. 25, the green light after a spirited week of practice.
“He’s going to play. And he’s looked really good in practice,” Carroll said during his radio show on KIRO 97.3, via the Seattle Times. “He’s practiced as hard as he ever has throughout the week just to prove to himself that he was right, I think, as well as everybody else. So he’s ready to go, and we are anxious to see him fit in.”
Though Lynch did not suffer an injury setback during Friday’s practice, according to ESPN, he elected not to travel with the team. The Seahawks running game languished in Beast Mode’s absence — Christine Michael managed a mere 70 yards on 21 attempts — before they escaped with a 10-9 victory when the Vikings missed a chip-shot field goal in the final minute. His status for next Sunday’s game against the top-seeded Panthers is not known.
In the wake of Lynch’s self-benching, ESPN’s Michael Irvin alluded ominously to “friction” between the five-time Pro Bowler and the reigning two-time NFC champions. The 29-year-old is notoriously prickly (“I’m just here so I won’t get fined,” anyone?) and averse to overbearing authorities.
And might some of it have to do with $20 million quarterback Russell Wilson, who flourished down the stretch in eight games without Lynch (and threw a goal-line pick to end last year’s Super Bowl instead of handing off to Lynch)?
As ever in the hard-capped NFL, the math is not in favor of Lynch sticking in Seattle: He is due $9 million with a cap number of $11.5 million in 2016, which is Season 2 of a three-year pact. As noted by Pro Football Talk, emerging backup Thomas Rawls carries a comparatively paltry cap charge of $530,000.