Doug Baldwin’s value is difficult to determine by Keith Myers

The rumblings of a possible Marshawn Lynch return have begun, but there is simply no way that he’ll be returning to the Seattle Seahawks this year.

Marshawn Lynch still hasn’t retired. Well, at least not officially. For some reason, the NFL doesn’t count posting a pic of cleats hanging from a telephone wire as legally binding.

Lynch’s “announcement,” which was later confirmed by his agent and friends, was over three months ago. He still hasn’t filed his retirement papers to the league office or the NFLPA. 

We’re now hearing whispers that perhaps Lynch isn’t all that set on walking away from the game. Raise your hand if you’re surprised? I’m not, and neither are the Seahawks.

This is why the Seahawks didn’t move Lynch to the reserve/retired list until recently. Doing so accelerates all of the dead money left on his contract into the 2016 season. If Lynch comes back, that dead money doesn’t go away. Add his salary back to the cap, and his contract becomes an unbearable weight.

Lynch could have decided to come back at any time without his flirting with retirement actually changing things. That is, until the Seahawks finally moved him to the reserve/retired list earlier this month. Now his return would mean that he’d count over $14 million against the cap in 2016.

The obvious question then becomes: Why risk it? Why not just wait until after June 1st when his dead money would be spread out anyways and it wouldn’t matter?

The answer to that is simple. The Seahawks used three draft picks on the position in the draft. They’ve now officially moved on. By placing him on the reserve/retired list, they’re telling everyone that Lynch is done in Seattle even if he decides to continue playing.

If Lynch announces tomorrow that he’s changed his mind and wants to play in 2016, the Seahawks would cut him rather than move him to the active roster. With only $9 million in cap space at the moment, they wouldn’t have much of a choice.

What we’ll learn between now and the start of training camp is whether or not another team decides to pursue acquiring Beast Mode for next season. Even in retirement, the Seahawks still own his rights for the next two seasons.

So if a team manages to entice Lynch into coming out of retirement, the Seahawks would have no choice but to cut him or settle for a trade with minimal compensation. By placing him on the reserve/retired list before June 1st, the Seahawks are saying that they simple don’t care.

What all this means is that you can ignore the noise. Marshawn Lynch won’t be coming back to play for the Seahawks this season.