Seattle Seahawks general manager John Schneider appeared on 710 ESPN Tuesday morning, speaking with Brock Huard and Mike Salk of the “Brock and Salk” show. During the interview, Schneider was asked about Marshawn Lynch, whose status moving forward is just one of a handful of major decisions the Seahawks will have to address this off season. The only thing close to a definitive answer Schneider could provide about Lynch is that “he’s not going to be playing at the same number he’s scheduled to make.” In other words, it’s either pay-cut or restructuring time for the eight-year veteran.
“Regarding Marshawn, obviously we think he’s a hell of a player. We want to have him back. He knows that. His representatives know that,” Schneider said. “He knows that if he’s back, he’s not going to be playing at the same number he’s scheduled to make. He’s a guy who’s a heartbeat guy who we’d love to have back. Whether or not he want to play next year, I can’t answer that. I don’t know if he knows at this juncture.”
Obviously, Schneider would like to have an answer sooner rather than later, but as we all know, Beast Mode likes to handle things on his own terms. One example of that was his week-long holdout at the beginning of last year’s training camp, a situation that fueled season-long rumors about the team and Lynch parting ways after the 2014 season. Schneider finally explained what happened last summer:
“With last year, he was in the middle of a four-year contract with two years. That was just all about precedent,” Schneider said. “It wasn’t about whether or not we thought he was the No. 1 back. … If we redid a contract for Marshawn, everybody would be standing outside my office looking for a new contract whenever they wanted in their deals.
“And so he knows that, but he also knows that he’s a huge part of what we’re doing,” Schneider continued. “So, he’s just extremely important to what we have going on here and moving forward, the decisions that we make throughout this offseason.”
As always, stay tuned…
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[710 ESPN, via Seattle P-I]
