Marshawn Lynch trying to join Oakland Raiders for swan song

Marshawn Lynch is trying to join the Oakland Raiders — his hometown team — for a swan song as the team prepares to depart for Las Vegas…

Marshawn Lynch retired in what was one of the most shocking moves of the 2016 offseason. After spending a year away from football, it’s become apparent that Lynch wants to return to the game, and to one team in specific: The Oakland Raiders.

Retired RB Marshawn Lynch did, in fact, tell #Raiders he intends to un-retire and play again, I'm told. It's a long process, tho #BeastMode.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) April 5, 2017

The decision to return to football may come as a slight surprise, but Lynch is still just 30 years old, and has taken a year to get his body right. He wasn’t necessarily rehabbing from any major injury and had time to just rest, enjoy life, and figure out what he wants to do.

Apparently, the time away made him realize how much he misses the game, but the situation in Oakland is also one that he perhaps felt like he couldn’t pass up on. Lynch is an Oakland native, and played his college ball at Cal.

He thrived when moving back to the West Coast after playing his first few seasons in Buffalo, and became what we all know him as — Beast Mode.

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With Latavius Murray now in Minnesota, there’s no one really on the Oakland depth chart that stands out as a potential featured back, and Lynch could probably step in and with fresh legs, provide a great veteran presence for a young offense that has potential to be among the most dangerous yet again in 2017.

After two of his best seasons in 2013 and 2014, Lynch looked uninspired last we saw him in 2015. He played in just seven games, running for 417 yards and just three touchdowns. His body was certainly beaten up, and he was likely going to be asked to take a significant pay cut or get released all together from the Seahawks.

With the Raiders making a move to Las Vegas in the next couple of years, the opportunity to finish out his NFL career with his hometown Oakland Raiders is perhaps too enticing an option to pass up on. Add in the fact that the Raiders have a pretty significant hole at running back, and the stars have aligned for Lynch to take his shot at one of the coolest stories in the NFL.

Lynch, a former Super Bowl champion with the Seahawks, could return to possibly play a major role in helping the Oakland Raiders to a title before they move away from Oakland and move on to Las Vegas.

The Raiders were already going to be one of the most entertaining teams in the NFL in 2017, but the return of Beast Mode would provide a storyline worthy of the big screen.

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