BRADY HENDERSON

Seahawks place Marshawn Lynch on reserve/retired list

May 5, 2016, 1:58 PM | Updated: 2:45 pm

Now that it's official, Marshawn Lynch's retirement clears $6.5 million in salary-cap space. (AP)...

Now that it's official, Marshawn Lynch's retirement clears $6.5 million in salary-cap space. (AP)

(AP)

Marshawn Lynch’s retirement is now official.

The Seahawks announced on Thursday that the team has placed Lynch on the NFL’s reserve/retired list, a procedural step that formalizes what the running back announced during the Super Bowl in February.

General manager John Schneider said after the draft last week that the team still hadn’t received Lynch’s retirement papers. But he shot down whatever notion there may have been that Lynch is reconsidering his future, saying that the delay in his paperwork isn’t indicative of any uncertainty about his decision to retire.

So it was only a matter of time before the team placed Lynch on the reserve/retired list. By doing so now, the Seahawks clear $6.5 million in salary-cap space for 2016, which is his scheduled cap charge of $11.5 million minus $5 million in dead money.

Lynch had two years remaining on his contract, which included the $11.5 million cap charge for 2016 that the Seahawks have been carrying while waiting for his retirement to become official. The Seahawks had two options with Lynch: place him on the reserve/retired list before June 1 and therefore absorb all of the $5 million in dead money this season or do so after June 1, which would have allowed them to spread out the $5 million hit evenly over the next two seasons.

In an interview earlier this week with Sports Radio 950 KJR, Schneider said Seattle wants to take the $5 million hit this season, which meant making the roster move before June 1. That also means Lynch’s contracts will be completely off Seattle’s books by 2017.

And in the unlikely event that Lynch decides to unretire, the Seahawks would own his rights. In the meantime, no Seahawk will wear Lynch’s No. 24 next season.

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