The Tape Tells All - Marshawn Lynch Fantasy Outlook

January 2, 2020

Justin Carter breaks down running back Marshawn Lynch's recent performance, projecting his fantasy football value heading into the Wildcard round of the NFL season.

Welcome to a postseason edition of "The Tape Tells All," where I break down some film of an NFL's player performance and try to draw some fantasy football conclusions from that film.

While season-long fantasy is over, there's still postseason DFS for you to worry about, so I'll be breaking down some tape and some numbers to try to help you make a decision on a particular player each week of the playoffs.

Today, it's Seattle Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch, who the team signed before Week 17 after injuries decimated the team's backfield. He found the end zone last week, but does that mean he needs to be in your daily fantasy lineups?

Background Information

The very fact that we're even talking about Marshawn Lynch this year is wild. He was done! He was basically retired, just not officially (which would have prevented him from returning this late in the season, by the way.) And then Seattle lost both Chris Carson and Rashaad Penny at the end of the year due to injuries and we started seeing Lynch's name thrown around on Twitter, and then:

And just like that, Marshawn Lynch was in the NFL again.

Lynch's career itself probably doesn't need much of an introduction. In the NFL since 2007, Lynch has twice led the NFL in rushing touchdowns and has accounted for over 10,000 rushing yards in his career.

In 2017, Lynch joined the Raiders. Last year, he played in just six games after a groin injury ended his season early. Lynch had 376 rushing yards and three touchdows on 90 carries and added 15 catches for 84 yards. He wasn't bad, but it did feel like an ending to a stellar career.

But desperate times and all that. Lynch returned on Sunday and is poised to play in the postseason for Seattle. How'd he do in his first game back?

The Game Tape

On Sunday night, Lynch was on the field for 23 offensive snaps for Seattle, 31 percent of the team's total offensive plays. He carried the ball 12 times on those 23 snaps, with 34 yards and a touchdown. He had a chance to get a second score, but some confusion with substitutions led to a delay of game that pushed Seattle out of "run Marshawn from the one territory."

On a per play basis, Lynch wasn't very efficient, rushing for just 2.83 yards per carry. He was also outsnapped by Travis Homer, who was on the field 67 percent of the time.

But Homer didn't have a single red zone carry, while Lynch had three.

Let's see how those carries looked.

Here was Lynch's first carry after not playing in over a year and it...well, it looked like a carry from someone who hadn't run the ball in over a year. Lynch runs right into a stacked up, hole-free right side and isn't able to move the pile at all.

The Seahawks offensive line ranks 15th in the league in adjusted line yards, so Lynch basically isn't really helped or hurt that much versus the league average when it comes to having a line that can create yardage for him. At this stage of his career, though, you'd likely want Lynch running behind a better run-blocking line to help negate some of the age-based issues that Lynch has to deal with.

A little later, Lynch broke off something a little better:

This is far from the most graceful run I've ever seen, but it gets the job done, which is what running the football needs to do.

But also...it feels like some luck is involved here. Lynch came really close to getting stopped at the first level, but center Joey Hunt does a masterful little spin to disengage from one defender and plop right into the one who's about to tackle Lynch, which helps spring him. From there, he plods along in space as the Niners converge on him for the tackle.

And here's Lynch's touchdown run, which is really more of a touchdown jump than it is a touchdown run. He's still got the hops to make that play in short yardage situations, and I think think as long as the line is able to keep defenders from getting into the backfield immediately, this is the kind of thing that Pete Carroll would look to run with the ball that close to the end zone.

Fantasy Impact

So, the big question: Should Lynch be in a DFS lineup this weekend?

The 49ers Defense allowed the third-fewest FanDuel points to opposing running backs this past season, so Lynch was dealing with a tough task. You'd think his outlook would improve this week, but the Eagles allowed the seventh-fewest, so it doesn't improve that much from a "who's the opponent" point of view.

So, there's a negative mark on Lynch's outlook.

But there are some encouraging signs. I liked how Seattle used Lynch more and more as the game went along on Sunday, because it seems to indicate some level of trust that Carroll might not have in Travis Homer. And while Lynch's ability to break off a long run seems to have dried up, his ability to be a red zone threat gives him a boost.

But his lack of pass-game usage and the fact that he's likely landing somewhere between 12 and 15 touches both work as key negatives. Ultimately, Lynch finding pay dirt last week doesn't really make me feel great about using him in most of my DFS lineups this weekend, though the potential touchdown upside is an appealing factor.

Is the reward worth the risk? Ehh, maybe not. A banged up offensive line won't be able to open up enough holes for Lynch to build up yardage, which makes him a touchdown-dependent boom-or-bust option.

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