Was Marshawn Lynch the most important player to the 2013 Seahawks?

Seahawks fan survey results on the most overlooked players: Seaside Joe 1566

Last week, I posted a Seahawks fan survey leading with a question about Uchenna Nwosu, and 68% of you voted that a three-year, $45 million contract extension sounded fair for the veteran edge rusher. If Seattle feels that they need to free up any cap space between now and the start of the season then that would also be one way to go about it.

Among the other poll question answers:

• “DK Metcalf will be the Seahawks most productive receiver” BARELY edged out “He will be as productive as Tyler Lockett” with 40% to 39%

• Charles Cross was the most popular answer for “overlooked” members of the roster, with 35% of the vote, followed by Abe Lucas and “other” tied at 22%, then Quandre Diggs at 18%

• A maybe-surprising 41% of Seahawks fans feel Geno Smith could be in the MVP conversation next season, but 51% voted that he could be a good as Matt Ryan’s peak but not an MVP in the current era

• And 54% of you voted that Seattle’s ceiling on offense was top-5 in scoring, followed by top-10 as the second-most popular answer, with 8% of you having the most optimism at the Seahawks being first in the NFL

Finally, Julian Love beat out Nick Bellore as the next FREE origin story article, which will be coming soon so be sure to subscribe to not miss an episode of Seaside Joe! In case you missed it, the latest Super Joes club article about Jaxon Smith-Njigba was posted on Thursday, including a majorly long FREE section and then a catch-by-catch breakdown of his first BIG game as a college football player against Oregon.

Speaking of big games, few players in Seattle Seahawks history had more of them than Marshawn Lynch and Pete Carroll said something rather interesting about the franchise’s former running back this week. In an interview with the Man 2 Man podcast, Pete declined to name a specific player who best exemplified his coaching style…at least, at first.

“The guy that most exemplifies what I’m talking about is Marshawn. He was an extraordinary person and an extraordinary performer and an amazing character, as we all know. Nobody is surprised to hear me say that. But to recognize and accept him for who he was and how he was, it gave value to the whole program because he was so amazingly unique that when players could see you see him, and allow him to be heard and seen, in all of the challenges that that brought, it was worth it. It was worth it.

He was a phenomenal leader and extraordinary character, even in the sense of the warrior that he was, and players knew it. So to squelch him, to keep him under wraps—I remember they asked if I could help get (Marshawn) to talk to the media and I said “He is talking, dude! Just listen. It’s not in the words, he’s talking to you the whole time. Just listen.” He had so much to say. That was a tremendous challenge but it was really, really exciting to be a part of that and fun to do that.

It was the classic, if you’re gonna accept the way he is, you might accept anybody. But he was just that extraordinary.”

That Marshawn Lynch quote starts at 11:25 here:

It’s interesting to hear Pete Carroll talk about Marshawn in that way especially in the context of Marshawn recently saying on the Tyreek Hill podcast that he’s still befuddled that Pete and Darrell Bevell didn’t give him the ball at the 1.

With all the talk about “running backs don’t matter” and the Legion of Boom and Russell Wilson, it’s hard to get most Seahawks fans to arrive at “Marshawn Lynch” as potentially the most important player on the 2013 era Seattle Seahawks.

But perhaps in the context of getting 53+ players to buy into Pete Carroll’s coaching philosophy, especially because there was so much doubt at the time about his ability to win games at the NFL level, there’s a great argument to be made that once the likes of players like Michael Bennett, Earl Thomas, Richard Sherman, and Doug Baldwin (for examples) saw that Marshawn Lynch—an icon to many football players both then and now—was buying into Pete’s style that they said, “Why the hell won’t I follow him too?”

Maybe under that umbrella, Marshawn really was the most important player on the 2013 Seattle Seahawks.

I’m more than open to having that debate in the Seaside Joe comments section, so feel free to chime in on that roster if you’re inclined, but certainly my stance is that there is no “right” answer. There’s a right answer for the right moment and the right question. But I do think that Marshawn Lynch as a player has proven to be the same as a great song or a great movie or a great book… He holds up over time.

Pete talks about the importance of the running game and why he will never go away from believing that later in the podcast, which is certainly another aspect to Marshawn’s importance and what’s been missing since his first major injury in 2015. Perhaps that’s another aspect to why the Seahawks haven’t been back to the NFC Championship game since Pete and Bevell did not give Marshawn the ball at the 1…

Did those players still buy into Pete’s style after he lost Marshawn’s trust in the Super Bowl?

That’s another debate for another day. Or for today.