A Handy Guide To Marshawn Lynch Retirement Rumors
Marshawn Lynch is retiring, maybe. I gues you could say that about just anybody who hasn’t explicitly and recently stated that they’re not retiring, but we’ve heard this chatter surrounding Lynch before, and so it’s news, still. Lynch, you’ll recall, has been a key part of the Seattle Seahawks’ back-to-back Super Bowl appearances. He’s a beloved, if not controversial, figure in the Seattle sports scene.
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Yet this might be it for him. Michael Robinson went on 710 and said as much, and by all accounts those two are pretty close friends. Robinson doesn’t know what Lynch will do, but he doesn’t know for sure that Lynch will play next year. Lynch doesn’t know for sure if Lynch will play next year. And that makes Seahawks fans more than a little uneasy.
We’ve faced the prospect of life after Lynch before. The Seahawks were long rumored to be ready to move on after this season, but when the star running back carried the team all the way back to the Super Bowl it became less apparent that the marriage between franchise and player was on the verge of ending. Last we heard they were thinking about an extension.
Since there’s no getting away from these rumors, might as well navigate them as best we can. Lynch has a good relationship with his teammates and coaches, but the NFL fairly openly hates him and has made a habit of making his life harder. Retirement would mean no more dealing with the NFL. For Lynch, that’s a potential (but not definite) plus.
Retirement would also mean no 2015 paychecks. Lynch has earned plenty of money in his career, but he’s set himself up for a nice payday next season. A noted philapthropist, Lynch could probably do a lot of good with the money Seattle would pay him to play next year. Retiring would mean forgoing many millions of dollars.
But how many millions? And since that’s even a question, it makes sense to wonder if this is just a negotiation ploy. I’ll retire, unless I get $X million. This isn’t a super-common tactic, but it’s a tactic. This might be what’s going on here. It might not, but it might be.
Then there’s talk of a messed-up back. This is probably the argument to be taken most seriously – if Marshawn Lynch has a chronic, potentially life-altering injury, then perhaps he’d be wiser to just call it a career. A smart and thoughtful dude, this could very well be something Lynch has known about for a long time. We don’t know exactly what he’s been playing through, but if it turns out that he’s had a messed-up back for quite some time then we shouldn’t be too surprised. We’ve all seen the way he plays football, after all.
What does all of this tell us? Marshawn Lynch has some decent reasons for retiring, if that’s what he wants to do. At the end of the day, however, he’s one of the NFL’s very best running backs and amongst the most valuable players in the league. Based on what we know, he seems like a good bet to again be a productive player next year. Unless he knows that he won’t be, he seems unlikely to hang up his cleats.
Take all this retirement talk with a grain of salt, for now. Lynch is one of the best, and if he really does retire it would be a shocker. If he isn’t in a Seattle Seahawks uniform next year it would be a shocker. But if this is it for him, it’s probably not about the money. Marshawn Lynch has plenty of money, but he only has one back. And if his back can’t play any more football, then perhaps we’ve seen the last of an all-time great Seattle Seahawk.