In the past three seasons, fantasy football managers and football fans have gotten real comfortable hearing the name, “Marshawn Lynch.” It wasn’t always that way though.
Lynch burst onto the NFL scene back in 2007, when he was drafted in the first round by the Buffalo Bills, twelfth overall. A highly touted draft pick, Lynch came out of college looking like a complete back. In his first two seasons as a pro, Lynch was a 1,300 yard from scrimmage rusher, coming close to double digit TDs during that time. But then in 2009, Lynch missed three games and started in only six of the thirteen games he was active for. Lynch’s production nose-dived to roughly 600 yards from scrimmage and 2 touchdowns. Once an up-and-coming fantasy football starlet, Lynch’s career seemed to be at a crossroads and no one really new which direction it would go.
Then, in 2010, Lynch was traded after four games to the Seattle Seahawks, whose new head coach, Pete Carroll, was hired to take the Seahawks franchise from pretender to contender status. In a shortened 2010 season for the Seahawks, Marshawn produced 711 all-purpose yards on 186 touches of the football. This wasn’t on pace with Lynch’s breakout rookie and sophomore seasons, but it was something as the Seahawks made the playoffs that season on a losing 7-9 record as the division winners. However, nothing would be the same for Marshawn.
In the opening round of the playoffs, and as the presumptive one-and-done team, the Seahawks upset the favored Saints on a Marshawn Lynch run which will be forever etched on the minds of spectators that witnessed Lynch break nine tackles — that’s nine tackles! — en route to a sixty-seven yard touchdown run. Whether this run was the origin of the expression commonly associated with Lynch’s violent yet purposeful big runs, “going Beast Mode,” really doesn’t matter. What matters is that that play ignited a new love for a player that had been off radars, both football and fantasy football, for some time. Suddenly, people were interested in Marshawn’s side-line appetite for Skittles candy which seemed to follow every score, but which really had nothing to do with that as his mother told Seahawks.com. In fantasy football, things were about to change.
In 2011, Marshawn Lynch played in fifteen of sixteen games en route to an 1,400-plus all-purpose yard season and 13 touchdowns on 313 touches. That was followed by a beastly season in 2012 where Lynch played in all sixteen games, had 338 touches, 1,590 yards rushing, 196 yards receiving and 12 touchdowns. But for Adrian Peterson and Alfred Morris, Lynch had the numbers to be the 2012 rushing champion. Plus, the Seahawks just missed going to the NFC Championship game, losing to the Falcons in the second round of the playoffs.
Fast forward to the 2013 season, and Marshawn Lynch is atop the leader board for running backs, back in the driver’s seat again, top three.
Marshawn is coming off a huge Week 2 game against the Seahawks division nemesis, the 49ers, where Lynch posted an incredible 98 yards rushing and 37 yards receiving for three combined touchdown scores! This was against was is considered to be, one of the top defenses against the rush in the league.
In Week 3, Lynch should be in line for another big game against a struggling Jaguars team. So far this season, the Jaguars have given up 347 rushing yards through two weeks of play, including 129 yards rushing and 28 yards receiving to the Raiders Darren McFadden just last week. Lynch should be able to ‘unleash the beast’ this week too, even though he may not be needed to play the entire game. Marshawn Lynch is The Fantasy Greek’s fantasy football player of the week.
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Written By: Jim Saranteas – @TheFantasyGreek and @JimSaranteas on Twitter
Founder of the fantasy football advice site TheFantasyGreek.com
