In his typical understated way, Marshawn Lynch may have announced his retirement.
The Seattle Seahawks running back sent a tweet at the end of the Super Bowl on Sunday that included a photo of cleats hanging up on a phone wire, along with an emoji of two fingers making the peace sign:
— Shawn Lynch (@MoneyLynch) February 8, 2016
The peace sign is a common sign off for many people when they are leaving a place or situation, so this makes complete sense given the context. A report earlier on Sunday said Lynch had told teammates he planned to retire.
Plus, then you had his teammate Richard Sherman respond with this:
Salute to my guy @MoneyLynch … It was an honor sharing the field with you.
— Richard Sherman (@RSherman_25) February 8, 2016
Russell Wilson also offered his farewell:
Honor playing with one of the best running backs of all time! Going to miss sharing the backfield with you 24… #BeastMode @MoneyLynch
— Russell Wilson (@DangeRussWilson) February 8, 2016
And the Seahawks eventually sent this:
#ThankYouBeastMode https://t.co/kD4CvizhGT
— Seattle Seahawks (@Seahawks) February 8, 2016
Lynch is under contract for two more seasons. He is set to earn $9 million next season and as much as $10 million in 2017. However, he is 29 years old and appears to want to walk away. He had thoughts of doing so after last season too but decided to return and then had a down year. On top of that, Seattle seems prepared to move on with Thomas Rawls.
“We feel like we are ready to move forward,” GM John Schneider said in an interview on KJRA-AM 950. ”Moving on kind of seems like, ‘OK we are just passing this guy off to the side.’ We recognize what he has done for the organization. So again, we are going to try to handle it as properly as we can so we want to make sure that he is in the right frame of mind and he’s making the correct decision for himself.”
If Beast Mode does hang up the cleats like his tweets indicates, he should be in good shape — a report says he has millions stashed away.
