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Foreward

Grand Cohesive Visions are not done by committee.

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Marshawn Lynch Rambles

I don't know why we would ever link to anyplace other than Field Gulls.  As with the Mariner blog-o-sphere, you've got one-stop shopping.  When you've said Danny Kelly, you've said it all.

As a completely separate issue, the guy spends more time cutting .gifs than Pete Carroll does scheming ways to keep Russell Wilson under 100 yards.  (Did you see Carroll's half-lidded eyes on the NFL Network interview?!)

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The first .gif(s) in this article deliver an impeccable view of Marshawn Lynch's acceleration.  As Danny puts it, "it would take me about 12 steps to get back to the speed that Lynch gets to in 2 steps."  Until I saw that .gif, I had no idea at all that Lynch's acceleration was Sanders-like.

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The second set of .gif's, the ones that capture the 7-yard run, show a HUUUuuuuuge sideways hop that leaves David Hawthorne spiralling in the air like a whirlybird.  This was a lateral cut that Curt Warner and Barry Sanders, quite literally, would have been proud to make that juke.  Unreal.

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With the third set of .gifs, Kelly demonstrates that Lynch beats the middle linebacker with an inside juke despite the fact that there is an entire line of scrimmage between them when Lynch fakes him out of his jock.  This shake-and-bake scatback move is quite a sight, and the .giffing is spectacular.

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I knew that Marshawn Lynch ran with his feet wide-planted, and that he finished his runs.  We knew that he was this generation's Larry Csonka.  

I had no idea just how talented he was, until Kelly's virtual evidence wall on Lynch's greatness.

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Standing O, Pete

On NFL Network, Carroll said (in a rather modest tone) that when he originally chased Lynch down out in Buffalo, "This is what we hoped he'd be, and thought he'd be."  Carroll was right.  This isn't like drafting Mike Trout late in the first, and then hitting the jackpot.  This is like the Franklin Gutierrez move that had the USSM crowd giving Jack Zduriencik a standing ovation - this is seeing something that everybody else didn't, and then reaping the benefits. 

Ichiro.  Randy Johnson.  Taijuan Walker.  Some moves, the dice land on seven.  Other moves, the GM deserves to stand on the pitcher's mound and take bows.

In Carroll's grand cohesive vision (TM), Lynch "closes the circle" on toughness.  This Sunday, you're not watching a collection of football players; you're admiring a Statue of David conceived long before chisel was ever taken to marble.

But Lynch is more than tough.  Wow.  ... the word "Freak" gets tossed around a lot.