Marshawn Lynch is willing to come out of retirement to play for the Oakland Raiders, but it doesn’t sound like contract talks between the star running back and his hometown team are going all that well. The most important thing, however, is that they are still going.
Seattle Seahawks general manager John Schneider acknowledged on Monday that Lynch, whose rights still belong to the Seahawks, has been negotiating with Oakland.
“Nothing really new. They’re still talking,” Schneider said, via Bob Condotta of the Seattle Times. “The steps after that were to be that if they came to an agreement, (Raiders GM) Reggie (McKenzie) and I would discuss a form of compensation.”
The common belief has been that the Raiders want to know if Lynch will be joining them before the NFL Draft begins. Schneider said that timeline is probably accurate.
“Yeah, I would think Reggie would want to go into the draft knowing that they have another runner or not,” he said.
The issue is obviously money. The Seahawks and Raiders haven’t even discussed a possible trade yet, so that means contract talks with Lynch have not progressed to the point where the next step needs to be addressed.
After losing Latavius Murray in free agency, the Raiders would obviously love to have Lynch in their backfield. One of their best players said as much recently, but there are still going to be concerns about a 31-year-old running back who took a year off of football. If Lynch wants to be paid like one of the NFL’s top backs, the marriage may never come together.
