What if Marshawn Lynch Is Bad

That’s it, I’m sold on your stats! Fuck it, I’ll trust you always and I’m serious, because I said something similar after a few games of watching him not help his line.

This team has a lot of holes that are a lot more glaring: QB, RT, RG, LG, DT, DE, CB, and SS. Running backs are fungible and take little time to get adjusted to a new team (or the NFL), so if this team is going to take a while to get fixed we should worry about RB last. Certainly our line is in shambles so improvement there is going to help either way.

On that “fungible” note, another qualification: since we’re not totally sure how bad he is at this point (at least, I’m not sure, and I’ll bet the team definitely isn’t), to replace him with someone better will probably require some decent resources.

On a side note: so, according to the numbers, Lynch is worse than 2007-era Alexander. I find that pretty damned hard to believe, but I think the reason for my disbelief is that it doesn’t look to me like Lynch gets caught in the backfield as much. How do the stats account for this? Seems to me that at least Lynch, after getting nabbed behind the LOS, at least fights for a couple of yards. My memories of old Shaun are him putting us in second and eleven or twelve WAY too many times.

it seems like he’s been hitting the hole better over the last couple weeks.

That with our line playing without as many injuries the run game will at least be semi-functional. It’s had glimpses of success recently and we have just now got our guys healthy; Okung being the biggest one. If we can get some other big men that can actually play on that line i think Lynch is a guy that could be great.

Alexander looked like a god running behind Jones and Hutch. he didn’t have to do too much to be good because those holes were so damn big! And look where he is now… If BEAsT mode had those kind of wholes he would rush for 2000 yards! Lynch needs a line, and him and Force could be the dynamic duo that we need. It’s potential we need to use, just have some broken parts to take care of first.

I’m not impressed but he hasn’t exactly been put in the best place to succeed. Let’s see how the rest of the season goes before passing judgment on the guy.

I’m going to comment tangentially on what the Seahawks gave up for Lynch. I’m not going to dispute that Lynch hasn’t lived up to expectations (though neither has anybody else on this team, sans Leon Washington, and possibly Thomas and Clemons), but the idea that Lynch cost second round value strikes me funny.

First, the raw numbers. At the level Lynch is performing at, that conditional will be a sixth, and in 2012 to boot. The typical approximation for pick value a year later is the equivalent of a round lower, so call it a 7th in 2011. The highest possible value of those picks (top of each round) is 23, equivalent of picks 20-24 in the second round. Similar net values of picks from the middle and end of those rounds equate to values of 20 and 17, meaning picks 3-8 in the third round and picks 20-26 in the third round. Best case, the value for Lynch was a low second round pick, and more reasonably a high-to-mid third round pick. ‘Second round pick’ resonates differently than ‘Third round pick’, so it’s important to be careful with rounding error when dealing with low, single-digit integers.

That aside, what really bothers me is the idea that the sum of lesser picks can be reasonably compared to that of a higher pick. At the extreme, every pick in the 7th round is equal to the 1st, 2nd, and 8th overall picks. The author considers the numerical value of the first three picks to be high, so choose another equivalent value of the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 48th overall picks. Are either of those sets of picks worth the value the entire 7th round?

The reason the comparison of a higher pick to the sum of multiple lower picks breaks down is because those values don’t exist within a vacuum, but instead within the context of building a 53-man roster. A late second round pick may have the equivalent value of a 4th and 7th together, but it also has the additional (uncounted) value of consuming just one roster spot, leaving an additional spot open for extra value to be added to the roster.

In terms of the 2010 (and 2009 and 2008) Seahawks, their roster is full of players with approximate career values between 5 and 20, and they need a significant number of 20+ players to fill out the ‘top’ of their roster. And, was the opportunity cost of Lynch the chance at getting a player with an average approximate career value between 21 and 29? No, it was the chance to get two players with values between 12-16 and 5-7, which is exactly what Seattle has now and doesn’t need any more of. Lynch may be a bust in Seattle, but at most he was an inexpensive bust.

are rarely “once good”. If he was once good, as you say, I wouldn’t pass final judgment on him as a runner until we block for him. As far as him getting us into “worse down and distance”, we’ve all remarked how he can get back to the line of scrimmage time and again, despite the impersonation of a sieve regularly performed by our OL.

All that said, I sure would be tempted to get Force more carries, if only to see how much of the problem is Lynch and how much O-line. But that’s evidently not how Carrol rolls. And you don’t want to get Force banged up by overusing him, either.

I was wondering if that was because either Okung isn’t fully healthy or we don’t want to risk another injury to his ankles. Of course, it could also be game planning too or that the right side is actually performing better (I doubt that’s the case).

Anyway, I seem to remember some big runs behind Okung way back in like week 7 during that first drive before he was injured and then almost nothing afterward so that’s why I’m questioning the right side runs.

I suppose I was pretty drunk too so maybe I saw one run and thought “what the fuck are we doing?” As a side note, we were up in Leavenworth for the weekend and ended up sitting next to Trufant’s parents in the bar we were at. They were extremely nice people and were really excited that their other son was just picked up by the Jets.

Why would anyone use a high pick on a RB?

I keep seeing guys come out of the undrafted world and seem to do pretty well. Arian Foster, Pierre Thomas, Chris Ivory, Fred Jackson, Mike Tolbert and Ben Jarvis Green-Ellis. You have Bradshaw, and Hillis lighting it up from round 7. What is the value of a RB, Arian Foster is the NFL’s leading Rusher, he was not drafted. He has more yards than AP, Chris Johnson, Mendenhall, and all the other former first round picks.

I would love to see a break down of what position an undrafted free agent has been most successful.

We used to have 38 blowing things up for 37. Now we don’t have a fullback on the roster and for the games Michael Robinson was out they either went without one or with H-back Carlson – which was just painful to watch. On a few plays were Lynch found the hole and got up into it it closed fast.

He might be a nice choice to put to work on a worn down defense. Also it seems he’s had a couple runs called back that would of really helped his stats.