Lynch returned to play in hometown
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’ proposed 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 Seattle agreed to trade Lynch’s rights to Oakland in a deal that included a swap of lateround draft picks in 2018. Lynch agreed to a restructured $9 million, two-year deal that includes incentives that could increase the value even more.
Lynch was born and raised in Oakland. Even during an NFL career that took him to Buffalo and Seattle, Lynch always kept close ties to the community that raised him.
Decker is out: The New York Jets are planning to trade or cut wide receiver Eric Decker, the latest move in what has been an off-season purge of veterans with big contracts.
General manager Mike Maccagnan said that if the Jets can’t deal Decker, they will move forward without him.
Decker’s departure will save the Jets $7.25 million on the salary cap. The news came a few hours after New York cut linebacker David Harris after 10 seasons.
Nicknamed “The Hitman” for his knack for making big tackles, Harris ranks second to only Kyle Clifton (1,471) on the team’s career list with 1,260 tackles.