Lynch comeback triggered by Raiders’ move to Vegas
ALAMEDA, California — For Marshawn Lynch, the decision to come out of retirement and resume his National Football League career was made as soon as the league announced his hometown Raiders were leaving for Las Vegas.
Lynch wanted to give Oakland fans one last chance to cheer an Oakland native playing for an Oakland team.
“Maybe them staying probably wouldn’t have been so big for me to want to come and play,” he said Tuesday in his first news conference since joining the Raiders in April.
“But knowing that they were leaving and a lot of the kids here probably won’t have an opportunity to see most of their idols growing up being a hometown no more. With me being from here, continuing to be here, it gives them an opportunity to get to see somebody that’s actually from where they’re from and for the team that they probably idolize.”
The NFL approved the Raiders’ move to Las Vegas starting in the 2020 season on March 27. The following week, Lynch visited the Raiders to talk about the possibility of coming out of retirement.
That happened three weeks later when the Seattle Seahawks agreed to trade Lynch’s rights to Oakland in a deal that included a swap of late-round draft picks in 2018. Lynch agreed to a restructured $9 million US , two-year deal that includes incentives that could increase the value.
There were billboards welcoming Lynch back home and palpable excitement for Oakland fans.
“It was heartfelt,” Lynch said. “At the end of the day, I still walk outside. Besides the billboards and all of that, I really just get out with the people. The billboards are for the commercial people. When you get outside and you walk in the cracks, you get to find out what’s real.”
Lynch was born and raised in Oakland, starring at Oakland Technical High School and then going on to play college ball at nearby California. Even during an NFL career that took him to Buffalo and Seattle, Lynch always kept close ties to the community that raised him.
Since joining the Raiders, Lynch has been a regular participant in the off-season program, unlike during his time in Seattle, and he generated buzz when coach Jack Del Rio posted a video Monday of Lynch running for a TD during practice.
The Raiders will be hoping to see plenty more of that from the 31-year-old Lynch once the regular season starts. Lynch was perhaps the best power back in the league before he retired. He had double digits in touchdown runs every season from 2011 to 2014, and his 51 TDs on the ground are the most in the NFL since 2011 even though he played just seven games in 2015 and was retired last season.
Lynch’s 245 broken tackles since the start of the 2013 season are 66 more than any other player in that span, according to Pro Football Focus.