The Super Bowl circus, er, media day, takes place on Tuesday, and one of the biggest questions on everyone’s mind is what Marshawn Lynch will say, or perhaps more accurately, not say. Lynch was fined $100,000 earlier this season for failing to fulfill his media obligations, and since all players are required to be available at media day, Lynch is in danger of another big fine should he blow off tomorrow’s session. And considering Lynch isn’t willing to do a short interview with local writers in the comfort of his own locker room, it’s hard to see him willing to put up with much at an event that is involves less real journalism and a lot of craziness.
While we don’t know how Lynch will handle the rest of this week—players are supposed to be available again Wednesday and Thursday—what we have seen so far this week is that his coach and teammates, as always, have his back, whether the topic is Lynch not talking, or his fines, and the league’s subsequent threat of a 15-yard penalty, for celebrating touchdowns with a crotch grab.
“We’re just going to talk as we would to make sure that everything that comes into this game will be in alignment with how we want to go about the game,” Carroll said when asked about Lynch’s, um, gripping celebrations. “I would just tell you that it’s no different than when I would talk to other players about other issues and all kinds of situations that will come up. It’s pretty typical for us to do that, so we’ll address it.”
“We have a great understanding on our team that allows us to talk about whatever we have to talk about and to address all of the issues when we need to. But I’ll say this, and let me say it again, we still celebrate the uniqueness of our players. We celebrate their way that they see the world as they fit in with our football team. When things come in conflict with what we’re going to do as a team, we always address those things the best we can and hopefully we head off things that are going to hurt us and get in our way. We have to be really good at that. We have been over the years and hopefully we’ll do it again here.”
When safety Kam Chancellor was asked about Lynch and what the media doesn’t see out of him, he said, “Well, you are missing out on a great guy. A great personality, a great football player. That’s a guy that you can go to and ask for any type of advice, and knows what to say. He definitely is a very caring guy. He puts the team first. He’s definitely a great teammate and a great man.”
So is Lynch misunderstood?
“Yes, a lot of people misunderstand Marshawn. Maybe he doesn’t want to talk to the media, that doesn’t make him a bad guy or a bad person. He just doesn’t want to talk to the media. You can’t punish him for not wanting to talk to the media. That doesn’t make sense to me.”
Bobby Wagner also had nothing but great things to say about Lynch: “He’s a great guy. He talks all the time, he just doesn’t like to talk to y’all. I don’t get that. It doesn’t make any sense to force somebody to talk to you. If he doesn’t want to talk, he doesn’t want to talk. His play does enough of the talking. If he goes out there and his job is to run the football – which he does every single game, runs the football very hard – if he doesn’t want to talk, he doesn’t want to talk. You can’t force a man to talk. We’ll talk for him.”
“He’s very misunderstood. He’s a great guy off the field. He’s always talking to us. He’s always laughing. He’s helped me a lot in my game. He’s always coming back and asking me what I see on this and, ‘This is how I play it if I see a linebacker in this position.’ He’s definitely helped me grow as a player. All of the outside stuff is wrong in my opinion.”
When center Max Unger was asked to describe Lynch, he quipped, “That’s a tall order,” then continued, “He’s one of the best teammates that anybody can ask for, one of my favorite people I’ve ever played with. I can’t say enough good stuff about him to be honest with you.”
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