Seahawks RB Marshawn Lynch Wants New Deal
Seattle Seahawks star running back Marshawn Lynch has gone from “Beast Mode” to “Pay Me Mode”. According to ESPN.com, the star running back is fully expected to sit out the team’s mandatory minicamp this week in an effort to spark new contract talks.
Better ideas have been had.
It’s understandable to an extent that Lynch would want to renegotiate his deal now. After all, he’s entering the twilight years of a running back’s career, has quality talent rising up behind him on the depth chart and is coming off of three straight monster seasons.
The writing is on the wall for Lynch’s studly career to start winding down to some degree, and he and his agent seem to be trying to take advantage of one last big deal before the end comes.
Lynch has been an absolute monster the past three years for Seattle, producing over 900 violent rushing attempts en route to three straight seasons with at least 1,200+ rushing yards and 11+ rushing touchdowns. In other words, he’s been what makes their offense go and last year he helped drive them to the franchise’s Super Bowl title.
Naturally, the guy wants more cash for that type of production.
On Seattle’s side, the running back position is a devalued position due to the small amount of true feature backs in the league, as well as the every present high risk of injury. More specifically, Seattle has two emerging talents in their backfield in Christine Michael and Robert Turbin and Lynch isn’t even always used on all three downs.
On top of all of that, Lynch isn’t exactly making a meager amount of money right now, as Seattle is already paying him $5 million for 2014 and another $5.5 million in 2015. It doesn’t make financial sense for Seattle to pump more money into a guy that will be 30 years old in two years when his contract dries up.
Not only will Lynch likely be regressing by that point, but the Seahawks also will no longer need to keep him around – especially at a hefty price.
Hence, Lynch’s desire to get paid now. It’s a move that will cost him $70,000 in fines, but one he undoubtedly has to make to get his point across.
It’s one that could backfire, however. Seattle isn’t a team backed into a corner. They have two ready and willing backs behind Lynch, while offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell has already spoken publicly about his desire to get Lynch’s backups more involved. Naturally, if the Seahawks are already talking about lessening Lynch’s huge workload, it wouldn’t make a ton of sense for them to suddenly fork over a ton of extra cash.
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