Marshawn Lynch Officially Charged With DUI

Marshawn Lynch has been officially charged with DUI by the Alameda County DA's office, according to a spokesperson. Lynch's arraignment is scheduled for August 14th.

Now, there is still some speculation, rather than certainty, as to how NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell may look at this situation, in terms of determining whether or not to suspend the Seahawks' foundation running back. As NFL.com's Albert Breer explained yesterday, 'Lynch's first suspendable offense was under the personal conduct policy, this one would fall under the substance abuse policy. Under personal conduct policy, repeat offenders are those "who have had previous violations of law or of this policy." The issue is that the second offense [this DUI arrest, and now charge] was under the substance abuse policy, and that's where the grey area is. We'll see where it goes." As Mike Florio of PFT explains, "the substance-abuse policy provides that, ordinarily, a player will only be fined for a first-offense DUI." Also, there's a subjective side to Goodell's decision making process as well, so it could be taken into account that Lynch has been clean for the last three and a half years. This might matter, it might not; again, we shall see. Logically, it would seem realistic that a several-game suspension is coming.

Now, one other interesting part of all this was brought up by Ross Tucker this morning, when he tweeted "An NFL exec told me suspension for conduct detrimental/substance abuse defaults contract & voids guarantee. For Marshawn Lynch, that is $17M on the contract he signed in March." According to Tucker, that's a "league-wide, standard player contract" provision, and that "player can still play and earn Paragraph 5 salary and bonuses. Just not guaranteed anymore." I haven't see this explained in detail elsewhere, so at the moment this is a big huge question mark but financially speaking, if this leads to a hefty suspension, the Seahawks appear to be safe from eating that $17M guaranteed if they eventually decide to move on (though I don't see this happening, at all). We'll have to wait and see how the team responds, but this just might be an interesting wrinkle, contract-wise.

Regardless, the offseason can't end soon enough. As Peter Schrager of FOXSports points out, though 24 NFL players have been arrested this offseason, Goodell remains eerily silent on all the recent issues. This group is highlighted by Dez Bryant (misdemeanor family violence); Nick Fairley (suspicion of marijuana possession and later for suspicion of DUI and trying to elude police); David Diehl, Aaron Berry and Brandon Meriweather (DUI); Elvis Dumervil (suspicion of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon) and Mikel LeShoure (cited twice for marijuana possession).