Report: Former Seahawk Marshawn Lynch considering return to football

Former Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch is reportedly considering a comeback to the NFL.

ProFootballTalk.com reported Thursday night that, according to a source, Lynch is “up in the air” about returning to football and that Week 4 or Week 5 of this season “could be the hot spots for a possible unretirement.”

It should be noted that the report does not state definitively that Lynch is coming back, only that he is considering it, and also that Lynch himself has not stated his interest in returning. In fact, he was adamant when he retired that he was done playing football. Also, there would be several potential road blocks to a comeback should Lynch indeed decide that he wants to play again, a notable one being whatever shape he’s in after an offseason in which he wasn’t preparing to play football.

Lynch retired over the offseason after a nine-year career in the NFL, which included the last five and a half seasons with Seattle. The Seahawks own Lynch’s rights since he retired before the end of his contract with Seattle and was placed on the Reserve/Retired list. That means that if Lynch were to unretire, the Seahawks’ options would be to re-add Lynch to their 53-man roster, trade him or release him.

Lynch had two years remaining on an extension he signed before the 2015 season. That contract included a $9 million salary and an $11.5 million salary-cap hit for the 2016 season as well as $5 million in remaining signing-bonus. That kind of money would make it difficult to imagine the Seahawks bringing him back at this point or for another team to give up a draft pick in order to assume his salary, which would mean that releasing Lynch would be Seattle’s likeliest course of action if he were to unretire.

But that’s merely a possibility and not a likely outcome in the wake of a report that states only that he’s considering it.