Marshawn Lynch came off the couch for the Seahawks ... and looked like it
It was fantastic to see Marshawn Lynch back in a Seahawks uniform, but he looked like someone who hadn't played football in a while.
When you bring back a legendary running back to your team for a playoff push, someone who’s spent the last however many months sitting on a couch, you can’t be surprised that … he looks like someone who spent the last however many months sitting on a couch.
Marshawn Lynch struggled in his first game back with the Seahawks on Sunday night, finishing with 34 yards on 12 carries. Take out the one bright moment of his night, a 15-yard scamper, and Lynch finished with 19 yards on 11 carries … good enough for 1.7 yards per carry.
Lynch did have a chance to perhaps get the storybook ending to the game, when the Seahawks had the ball at the one-yard line in the fourth quarter down five points.
But Seahawks coach Pete Carroll and his squad couldn’t get themselves organized, and due to mass confusion and substitutions, the team was forced to take a delay-of-game penalty, pushing them back to the six-yard line. It was a true catastrophe, and Seahawks fans were rightly furious. On the next play, they were stopped short of the goal line, and the 49ers won the game.
For the Seahawks, Lynch’s performance may all be irrelevant. He clearly gave a lift to the team, and even when he was stopped numerous times at the line of scrimmage — including on a fourth-and-short play earlier in the game — the crowd kept cheering for him. When he scored a one-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter, the place erupted.
And who knows? Maybe Lynch will get that step back. The biggest issue, from my untrained eye at least, is that Lynch has always relied on his physicality to succeed. He’s a downhill, smashing runner who gets to the hole early and isn’t afraid of contact.
If he can’t get to the hole early, though, he tends to just run into people. That happened on Sunday night … a bit.
Travis Homer had much more success out of the Seahawks backfield, rushing for 62 yards on 10 carries. The Seahawks found creative ways to get Homer in space, and the speedy back rewarded them by beating defenders and racking up yards.
Lynch will have another week to find that step, and maybe he will. But for Seahawks fans, they have to be a little concerned by that performance.