Seahawks aren’t ruling out Marshawn Lynch playing for them in 2020
If Marshawn Lynch returns to the Seahawks again, it’s going to be on his terms. Again.
That means less than a full season. Again.
Pete Carroll made that clear Tuesday at the NFL combine.
Seattle’s coach echoed his general manager on the first day of the annual scouting extravaganza when he was asked about Lynch possibly playing for the Seahawks again in 2020, as he did over the final two regular-season and two playoff games last season.
“We’ll see,” Carroll said Tuesday inside the Indiana Convention Center. “Never say never.”
If it happens, it’s clear it’s going to again be a special, partial-season contract with Seattle.
Or do you really believe that Lynch, who turns 34 in April, is going to sign up for offseason workouts, minicamps, training camp and useless preseseason games?
Carroll doesn’t, either.
“I’m not going to rush him back to offseason, that’s for sure,” the coach said.
“That’s never been one of his strengths.”
Carroll grinned at that.
The coach said last month if there was ever a player he’d extend a one-of-a-kind, part-time contract to it’d be the ultra-popular and wholly unique Lynch. Carroll said that’s an “awesome” way to put it.
He said that a day after Lynch had two rushing touchdowns in Seattle’s playoff loss at Green Bay—then advised younger players in a postgame press conference for the ages to “take care of yo’ chicken.”
“Marshawn made an exceptional impression coming back, starting with me,” Carroll said Tuesday of Lynch’s four rushing touchdowns in three games late last season for Seattle.
“He worked very hard to get to the point to have the chance to be available, how he got to that spot that maybe he could play later in the season. He reported in good shape. He performed well. Scored four touchdowns in the last few games. Did a great job for us just picking things up and showing how, what it takes to be available and all that. He was gracious and great to all the young guys. It didn’t matter how old you were, he was just great to everybody.
“I just thought he did an extraordinary job.”
Lynch signed back to Seattle in late December after 14 months out of football.
That was after lead running back Chris Carson cracked his hip, Rashaad Penny tore knee ligaments and third back C.J. Prosise broke his arm.
Carroll said Carson is still limited. But the 1,200-yard rusher did not need surgery, and the Seahawks believe Carson will be full go for the start of the 2020 season.
Carroll and Schneider were less clear on when Penny may return. The team’s first-round pick in 2018 got his season-ending injury in early December. Carroll mentioned it’s possible if not likely Penny begins training camp in late July on the physically-unable-to-perform list. That would make Penny eligible for the PUP list to start the regular season. That would mean he’d miss the first six games.
Schneider said the genesis for Lynch returning to the Seahawks after his two seasons with his hometown Oakland Raiders then year-long exile was a chance run-in with Lynch last summer.
“Basically, Dave (Pearson, the Seahawks’ vice president for communications) and I were at a dinner and he just popped in and sat down and started talking to us,” Schneider said. “It was during training camp and I was kinda giving him some crud and he was giving me some crud, which is normal.
“And then I saw maybe about two months later at Cliff Avril’s charity event. We had a similar conversation and then I was talking to his agent Doug Hendrickson the whole fall just about, you never know what’s going to happen. He was up for it, he went for it, and we’re very appreciative that he did that.”
Asked if it seems like the end of last season was the end of Lynch with Seattle, again, Schneider said: “I don’t know that. We’ll see how the offseason goes.”
This story was originally published February 25, 2020 at 2:51 PM.
