John Schneider’s relationship with an old friend may end up being the Seattle Seahawks’ way out of the Marshawn Lynch saga of will he or won’t he play again.
Seattle’s general manager and his counterpart with the Oakland Raiders are working on, and expected to eventually agree on, a trade of the retired running back to his hometown Raiders, so Lynch can un-retire and play for Oakland in 2017. That is according to multiple national reports on Thursday, the first one from the league-owned NFL Network.
The trade is reportedly contingent upon the Raiders and their general manager, Reggie McKenzie, reaching an agreement with Lynch on a new contract.
A trade with the Oakland would wipe from the Seahawks his $9 million salary-cap charge for this year should Lynch come out of retirement to play after one year away from football.
Last week Lynch was inside the Raiders’ team facility in Alameda, California.
It’s now apparent he was talking to that team, perhaps McKenzie, about parameters on a new contract, as well as what role coach Jack Del Rio envisions for Lynch on the Raiders this year.
The mere fact a trade reportedly is in the works reminds what Schneider said this month about his friendship with McKenzie, from their working together in the Green Bay Packers’ front office. Schneider said that meant any movements between the Seahawks and Raiders about Lynch would likely go “smoothly.”
“Yeah, I have a great relationship with Reggie McKenzie, who is the general manager of the Raiders. I shared an office with him for, probably, eight years,” Schneider told Seattle’s KIRO-AM radio, the Seahawks’ flagship station.
They must be super pals, because McKenzie assuredly would be doing Schneider a favor.
This NBA-style sign-and-trade deal would save the Seahawks having to release their super-popular, former Super Bowl-winning cornerstone, with him still technically owing Seattle signing-bonus cash of $2.5 million. A trade would keep the Seahawks, Lynch’s team from 2010 through the ’15 season, from having to decide whether to press Lynch on principle to actually repay the money.
The Seahawks’ return in any trade of Lynch is likely to be minimal — perhaps a conditional, late-round draft pick from Oakland. That would depend on how Lynch, who turns 31 next week, performs for the Raiders this fall. He hasn’t played a full season since 2014, and NFL history is full of running backs whose production cliff-dives past age 30. Any contract Lynch and his agent Doug Hendrickson work out with the Raiders is likely to be full of incentive bonuses; play well, get paid better.
Yet it’s a coup for the Seahawks that Schneider could get anything more than a bag of kicking tees from the Raiders for Lynch. Oakland could ignore Seattle’s trade ideas and simply wait for the league to act on a request for reinstatement from Lynch, if he truly wants to play again in 2017. That would put Lynch’s $9 million charge for this year, from his existing contract he signed two years ago, onto the Seahawks’ cap.
Ed Werder of ESPN reported Thursday, citing a source, that “Marshawn Lynch has begun NFL reinstatement process” in hopes of playing for Oakland.
If Lynch indeed applies for reinstatement, the Seahawks would be forced to release him to keep his 2017 salary off its books. Seattle has zero interest or ability to apply Lynch’s contract to its cap this year. As the team’s signing last month of free-agent running back Eddie Lacy underlined, the Seahawks have moved on from “Beast Mode” to “Past-Tense Mode.”
NFL rules stipulate if a team trades a player on its reserve/retired list, as Lynch is on Seattle’s, he will be assigned to the same category on the acquiring team’s reserve list. Lynch would still need to apply to the league for reinstatement from what would then be Oakland’s reserve/retired list to the Raiders’ active list to play for them in 2017.
So in that regard nothing has changed between Wednesday and weeks and months before to Thursday’s news. Lynch must still apply to the league for reinstatement before any of this can happen.
Seattle has retained Lynch’s contract rights while he’s been on its reserve/retired list through 2017 under the contract extension he signed before the ‘15 season. That deal included a $7.5 signing bonus. Lynch would be, according to letter of the league’s collective bargaining agreement, subject to paying back to the Seahawks the 2016 proration on that signing bonus. That is a sum of $2.5 million, for the season he was retired.
The sign part of this sign-and-trade would benefit Oakland because it could get Lynch at a low-risk, short-term deal much more to the Raiders’ liking that the contract he is still technically under for 2017 with Seattle.
It would also thrill a former teammate of Lynch’s in Seattle who is now with the Raiders.
Linebacker Bruce Irvin, who signed with Oakland last year as a free agent, tweeted Thursday a video clip of Lynch dancing on the sidelines in his full Seahawks uniform plus the words “Moooddddd. Yes lawd”
There are still hurdles to clear. And, as always with Lynch, no one really knows what’s going to happen next. Even Hendrickson, his agent, said that recently.
But Thursday at least brought a blueprint to how the Seahawks are likely to move on smoothly, to use Schneider’s apt word, without Lynch while letting him un-retire in Oakland.
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