Marshawn Lynch’s arrest could send the Seahawks into a tailspin.

OAKLAND-There is a lot of cursing and screaming surging through the halls of the Seattle Seahawks’ facility this week.

The focus of their offense RB Marshawn Lynch was the latest NFL player to be arrested this off-season.

Lynch was nabbed for DUI in his hometown of Oakland on Saturday night according to the San Jose Mercury News.  This dust-up with the law could cost him serious time off-the-field.

Lynch has been arrested before for weapons possession and in an incident in Buffalo where he struck a woman with his car outside of a Buffalo bar when he played for the Bills.

These incidents date back to 2009 and they seemed to be transgressions that he was putting in his past after being trading for next to nothing to Seattle.

Recently Lynch has been known more for his gut-busting runs and his infatuation with Skittles candy more than anything else and that’s what makes his new and improved habit of shooting himself in the foot so disheartening.

After a highly productive 2011 campaign that saw  the 26-year-old run up 1,204 yards on 285 carries for 12 rushing scores, the Seahawks did him right and awarded him with a  four-year, $32 million contract with $18 million of that guaranteed.

I hate to put it this way but he rewarded their faith in him with a sure-to-be-upcoming suspension that could cripple them coming out of the gate for the first four to six games of the regular season.

After the weapons incident, Lynch was suspended for three games so this go round could almost as double in its weight.

The Seahawks do have other halfback options on their roster such as rookie Robert Turbin and Leon Washington but it won’t be surprising if Seattle gambles on another hard runner with a  checkered past in free agent Cedric Benson to pick up the slack.

Washington is really not that guy that is going to grind out two to three extra yards when you need them the most.

Turbin is a power back but he is a rookie that has had knee issues in the past.

His inexperience and potential durability issue could make this seemingly locked-up position one of question for a team that is already not sure who their quarterback is going to be on opening day.

Lynch was the sure thing that no matter what happened. He was going to keep the offense grounded enough to be successful under any circumstances.

Now that he will most likely not be available for the first quarter of the season, how will the Seahawks switch things around?

Besides looking at options such as Benson, the odds are that this QB fight will end sooner-than-later.

Training camp is nearly upon us and they certainly need to find a way to be offensively consistent as soon as they possibly can.

This could benefit incumbent Tavaris Jackson who is said to be ahead by a sliver in the dogfight that also features ex-Packer backup Matt Flynn and rookie Russell Wilson.

Jackson knows the system and even if Flynn pulls ahead during pre-season play, he can at least set a tempo that can refortify this group.

The extended view may read like the prediction is that the sky is indeed falling in Seattle but when your featured back goes down, that could indeed be the case.

When Lynch was suspended for the first three games of 09, he ended up rushing for only 450 yards in the 13 games that he played in that year.

Thus why the Seahawks must move fast to find new ways to anchor their group.