Oakland Raiders May Get Marshawn Lynch, Likely Won’t Get Beast Mode

The Oakland Raiders have set the Internet on fire with the revelation that they’re believed to be pursuing running back Marshawn Lynch – but even if they do land him, the team likely won’t be getting BeastMode.

Let’s pretend for a moment that everything breaks the Oakland Raiders’ way in this Marshawn Lynch situation. Let’s pretend that Seattle agrees to release the veteran back rather than demand a trade. Let’s then pretend that Oakland signs him on the cheap – and hopefully, it would be a cheaper deal than Latavius Murray got with Minnesota. Let’s say that all goes swimmingly. What then?

What then is that the Raiders are going to have Marshawn Lynch – likely not the man known as Beast Mode – on their roster.

Cue, the howls of outrage from some corners of the Raider Nation as well as the torch and pitchfork brigade. Utter blasphemy, right?

While some can barely contain their excitement about seeing Lynch in Silver and Black and can’t fathom the idea of not wanting this to come to pass, some of us can’t fathom the idea of wanting this to happen.

Yes, Lynch is a favorite son. And yes, the idea of the former Cal product coming home to finish out his career is a fantastic story. But really, the idea of Lynch coming to Oakland really shouldn’t progress beyond the feel-good story stage.

Cue, even more howls of outrage from those corners of the Raider Nation.

Let’s put some context to this – and take the emotion out of it for a moment, if we can. And let’s inject a little intellectual honesty into this conversation.

The first thing you have to do is take the name Marshawn Lynch out of the equation. You have to be able to think of this as a simple football transaction. Does adding this player help the team? Or does it not help the team? Or rather, would the return even be worth the investment?

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To give yourself an honest answer to that question, simply ask yourself this – if you heard that Reggie McKenzie was looking to add a 31-year old running back – and let’s call him, Bob Smith. Bob Smith is a running back who was out of the league for a year. Didn’t play a down. And in his last full season – 2015 – he played in just seven games due to injury and averaged a very meager 3.8 yards per carry, what would you say to that?

Would you really be on board with putting Bob Smith into the backfield with the hope that he’d help carry Oakland’s ground game?

Some of the same people clamoring to get Lynch into a Raiders jersey are some of the same people who were content to kick Latavius Murray to the curb for averaging just four yards per carry last season. The cognitive dissonance has to be making their heads spin.

Could Lynch be functional in this offense? Sure. Could this massive offensive line help him out? Yeah, probably. But would he be more effective than Murray was last season? Not necessarily. Murray is younger. He doesn’t have ten years of NFL wear and tear on his body. He also doesn’t have the injury history Lynch does.

This isn’t to denigrate Lynch’s career. He’s had a fantastic career and has been one of the league’s most colorful characters. Beast Mode was always entertaining to watch play. And if this had been a few years ago, Lynch would have been fantastic in a Raiders jersey. But this isn’t a few years ago. And Lynch likely isn’t going to be the Beast Mode that ran for more than 1,200 yards in four consecutive seasons.

He’s more likely to resemble the 2015 version who was often injured and averaged that really pedestrian 3.8 yards per carry.

Running backs, given the beating they take – and Lynch took an incredible beating over the course of his career – very rarely, if ever, get better with age. At 31 years old, Lynch is on the downside, not the upswing of his career.

This Raiders team is on the rise – but they need a solid running game to maintain their offensive explosiveness. And after an injury-plagued, largely ineffective year followed by a season away from the game, there isn’t a lot of reason to believe that Lynch can provide that.

If the reason McKenzie let Murray walk was because he was going to find a younger, cheaper replacement in the Draft, he needs to go in that direction. Bringing in a 31-year old running back because of his name is a very latter year Al Davis move. And given the work he’s done, McKenzie has done a good job of steering Oakland’s ship off of those rocks.

While it’s certainly created a big-time buzz and has fired up a lot of the Raider Nation, bringing in Marshawn Lynch in would be a mistake. Lynch was a great player, but time catches up with everybody – especially running backs in the NFL.

If you were in McKenzie’s shoes and would balk at bringing in Bob Smith, it would make no sense to bring in Marshawn Lynch – after all, this isn’t 2012 and he’s not going to be the same player. He’s going to resemble a 31-year old running back more closely than he does his former alter-ego, Beast Mode.

You can’t turn back time, and in this case, McKenzie shouldn’t try to.