Running back Marshawn Lynch reportedly retires
Marshawn Lynch is calling it a career – again – as ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported Wednesday morning that Beast Mode doesn’t plan to play football again.
Lynch first retired after the 2015 season simply by tweeting a picture of cleats hanging from a telephone pole wire, only to return with his hometown Oakland Raiders in 2017.
Lynch played 21 games over two seasons for the Raiders, running for 1,267 yards and 10 touchdowns on 4.3 yards per carry.
He turned 33 on Monday and is coming off groin surgery that cost him the final 10 games of 2018. Despite showing signs of his old self early last season – he rushed for 376 yards, 4.2 yards per carry and three touchdowns in six games – the Raiders’ blowout loss to the Seahawks in London Week 6 would be his last career game.
With Lynch’s career over for good this time (we think), might his next destination be Canton?
Lynch finishes his career 29th all-time in rushing yards with 10,379 and 16th all-time in rushing touchdowns with 84. He won a Super Bowl, should’ve won a second had Pete Carroll not thrown the ball from the 1-yard line, made five Pro Bowls and twice led the NFL in rushing touchdowns.
His playoff resume is one to behold. In 11 career playoff games, Lynch ran 193 times with a 4.85 yards per carry average. He ran for nine touchdowns, 937 yards and eclipsed 100 yards on the ground six times as his teams went 7-4. He also caught 287 passes for 2,214 yards and nine touchdowns in his career.
Lynch owns arguably the best run in postseason history, a 67-yard rumble to the end zone in the fourth quarter in the 2011 NFC wild-card game against the Saints, dubbed the “Beast Quake.” Lynch broke nine tackles on the run that gave the Seahawks a 41-30 lead in an eventual 41-36 win.
Of the 15 players with more career rushing touchdowns than Lynch, only one (Adrian Peterson) is still playing. Of the 14 inactive players, only Shaun Alexander and Priest Holmes aren’t Hall of Famers. Yet Alexander never won a Super Bowl and ran for 926 fewer yards than Lynch in his career despite running for 16 more touchdowns. Holmes won a Super Bowl, but only ran for two more touchdowns than Lynch while running for 2,207 fewer career yards.
Lynch has delivered several unforgettable moments throughout his career, from his “I’m only here so I don’t get fined” bit at Super Bowl Media Day to swerving on Cal’s field with his mom in a medical cart to grabbing his crotch as he fell backward into the end zone after Beast Quake 1.0 to dancing on the sideline in-game during his first home game in Oakland to conducting a postgame interview last season with a trash can in front of him while saying, “Don’t cross my barrier.”
Theatrics aside, Lynch poses a strong case for the Hall of Fame with his on-field resume. And if the Seahawks had just given Lynch the ball instead of Russell Wilson throwing it against the Patriots, he’d be a lock for Canton with a pair of Super Bowl titles to his name.
For the Raiders in 2019, where do they go at running back without Lynch, who Jon Gruden had said he’d welcome back with open arms if he wanted to return?
They recently signed 26-year-old free-agent running back Isaiah Crowell, who ran for 685 yards and six touchdowns with the Jets last season. The Raiders also have Jalen Richard, who tied tight end Jared Cook last season for the team lead with 68 catches, Chris Warren, who missed his entire 2018 rookie season due to injury after leading the league in preseason rushing yards, and seldom used DeAndre Washington.
Odds are the Raiders look for a potential feature back on Thursday night with one of their latter first-round picks. Former Alabama running back Josh Jacobs is the best at his position in this class, and likely the only running back to be taken in the first round.
Jacobs, while sharing a backfield with fellow draft-eligible running back Damien Harris, ran for 640 yards and 11 touchdowns on 5.3 yards per carry last season. He also caught 20 passes for 247 yards and three touchdowns.