Marshawn Lynch ‘got some legs’ in Seahawks re-debut, Mychal Kendricks out for season
A dozen carries in his first game in more than a year?
All fine for Marshawn Lynch.
“It was a game that lets us look down the road now with Marshawn coming and helping us out,” coach Pete Carroll said Monday, a day after the 33-year-old Lynch came out of unofficial retirement to rush 12 times for 34 yards. He had a fourth-quarter touchdown in the Seahawks’ loss to San Francisco in the NFC West title game.
Lynch had four practices between signing his contract for the rest of this season and playing.
“He did well,” Carroll said. “He came out of the game very healthy, at least today he is. He contributed.
“I anticipate him being pretty banged up and sore. Twelve carries, he handled it well. He has a Band-Aid on his knee, or something. He’s fine. He’ll be fine. He took it very well. He looked good, too. He looked aggressive and tough. We didn’t get him a lot of space on a number of those carries, but when he got in, he kind of cracked it all. He really showed he can hit it.
“I’m anxious for him to get another week under his belt, feeling more comfortable. He was just cramming to study the whole time just so he would know what he needed to know. He’s always been a really, really smart football player. He didn’t like the feeling of not having the grasp of everything. So, he really jumped to it. I think he’ll be sharper this week. We’ll see. That was today. I talked to him today. I’m anxious to see how he’ll come back by Wednesday.”
Lynch said following his first game for the Seahawks in nearly four full years the re-debut against the 49ers was about getting in football shape for the playoffs. Those begin for Seattle (11-5) Sunday at Philadelphia (9-7) in the wild-card round.
Lynch said that in his own, unique way, of course.
“So, (shoot). ...You feel me? I ain’t did nothing,” Lynch said at his locker after the San Francisco game. “I’m fresh off the couch and hella (stuff).
“So, your boy just want to get some legs, man. It was a great opportunity for that, you know. A good defense. No shortage of a challenge out there. At the end of the day, you feel me?”
The Seahawks feel him.
That, and rookie Travis Homer’s impressive, shoulders-down, forward-leaning night with 92 yards from scrimmage has Seattle set up far better for Sunday’s playoff opener that it was last week. That was after top three rushers Chris Carson, Rashaad Penny and C.J. Prosise all sustained season-ending injuries.
“That gives us a really good one-two punch with him and Homer running the football in the playoffs,” Carroll said of Lynch and the rookie sixth-round pick. “Last week, we didn’t know where we would be.
“We feel like we have style and a way to go about it. That’s a positive coming out of this game moving forward.”
Kendricks out for the season
The health news wasn’t nearly as positive for starting weakside linebacker Mychal Kendricks.
He is out for the playoffs and well into the offeseason because of a torn anterior cruciate ligament in a knee.
Kendricks, a Super Bowl starter for the Eagles a couple of years ago, ends his second season with Seattle prematurely. He got hurt chasing Kyle Juszczyk down the sideline after the 49ers fullback got behind Kendricks down the sideline on a 44-yard catch and run in the third quarter Sunday night.
“Mychal looks like he’s going to need surgery, so he’s going to be out for a while,” Carroll said.
Kendricks’ one-year, $4.5 million ended with his injury. He could be a free agent in March, but likely won’t be ready to be on the field until well into and perhaps past the summer. Plus, his often-postponed sentencing date in federal court in Pennsylvania for insider trading looms.
That could make Seattle more attractive to him than any other team in a free-agent market that isn’t likely to bullish on him.
Carroll said he’d like to retain the 29-year-old Kendricks for 2020. He had a larger role this season as Carroll had Seattle in far more base, 4-3 defense with three linebackers on the field for the majority of defensive snaps all season. That’s unusual in a nickel-defense league of matching up extra defensive backs and fewer linebackers against extra wide receivers.
“I really like the way he plays. I like what Mike brings us.” Carroll said. “He’s a very active player. He’s an unusually instinctive, athletic guy for the position. That’s why we played him so much against three wides. He runs 4.4s. He’s a real fast linebacker.
“I hope that we’ll get him back and get him back with us. Look forward for that.”
Rookie Cody Barton replaced Kendricks and, as he has in spot roles as an injury fill-in throughout the season, made mistakes with good plays.
“Cody did all right. He did a solid job,” Carroll said, tepid comments from the usually supremely sunny coach.
“I’m hesitant to say he played great because he missed a couple opportunities there.
“He’s a good football player for us. Get him a whole week of starting and all the reps and stuff and he’ll do a nice job for us. He’s very able to play well for us.”
Will no Kendricks mean the Seahawks go to more nickel defense, with one fewer linebacker, against Carson Wentz and the Eagles’ quick-passing game?
For now, Barton will get the whole week of starting and all the reps this week before the playoff opener.
Duane Brown will not. The Pro Bowl veteran left tackle had minor knee surgery last Monday. He was limping through the locker room Friday. Carroll said it would be a “miraculous recovery” for Brown, 34, to play against the Eagles.
“He did some things this weekend to try to help him along the process. By the end of the week, he has it in his mind maybe there’s a chance he can make it back,” Carroll said. “That would be a miraculous recovery. His knee was really irritated in general. It was kind of a (ticked)-off knee. He needs to come back from that. We’re trying to get it quieted down and all that and see if he can get back out.
“Structurally, he’s in good shape We just got to make sure that his knee is quieted down and he doesn’t have swelling and that kind of stuff and he can get moving again. I don’t know if that will happen this week or not. He would be able to play with minimal amount of work in walk through stuff if we got through that this week. I don’t know if that will happen. We won’t know until Wednesday or Thursday.”
Diggs will play Sunday
Free safety Quandre Diggs is going to play in Philadelphia; trainers have told Carroll that.
Diggs has missed the last 2 1/2 games with a high-ankle sprain. Those often take three to four weeks from which to recover.
“Because the workout went so well (Sunday), the trainers are saying that he looks like he has a really good chance to play this week,” Carroll said. “We think we’ll have the chance to practice Wednesday. We’ll know a lot more when we get them Thursday, after he practices.
“Good, positive signs from the training room.”
Diggs has reformed the way the Seahawks played in the back half of the defense after his trade from Detroit in mid-October. His far-ranging hits and coverage has allowed strong safety Bradley McDougald to play closer to the line against runs and underneath pass patterns. The Seahawks were back to the single-high-safety coverage they used to reach consecutive Super Bowls with All-Pro Earl Thomas five years ago.
The defense has suffered mightily without Diggs the last three games. The Seahawks have allowed 26 points per game. Former undrafted quarterback Kyle Allen for five-win Carolina threw for 277 yards in the game Diggs got hurt early. The 49ers’ Jimmy Garoppolo threw for 285 yards Sunday night.
Lano Hill has filled in for Diggs. The third-year veteran has taken bad angles and missed tackles for big plays by offenses. Rookie Marquise Blair, the team’s second-round pick this spring, has only been a sixth defensive back in a handful of dime-defense packages since Diggs got hurt.
Carroll said it’s going to stay that way.
Asked if Hill is playing over Blair because the playoffs are no time to break in the rookie Blair to the vital position as the last man in the back of the defense, Carroll said, “More so, yeah, right now at this time of the year, this late in the year.”
Receivers needed
Carroll said Jaron Brown will miss a few weeks with a sprained knee. With Malik Turner still out with a concussion he got Dec. 22 in the home loss to Arizona, the Seahawks are considering signing another wide receiver to join Tyler Lockett, DK Metcalf, David Moore and rookie John Ursua, who had his first career catch to the 1-yard line on the final series of the 49ers game.
“We’re talking about it. We’re talking about it. It really depends on Malik,” Carroll said. “Malik Turner is a really well-versed player in our system. He can do all kinds of stuff. We miss not having him out there. He’s recovering from concussion-syndrome stuff. He’s got to make it make. I can’t tell you that he’s fully back yet.”
Alex Collins?
The Seahawks had free-agent running back Alex Collins, the former Seattle draft pick cut this season by Baltimore after a suspension, in for a tryout.
“We’re just lookin’,” Carroll said—as he always says.
This story was originally published December 31, 2019 at 7:21 AM.
