Super Bowl 49: Marshawn Lynch Talks To The Media

The story on the New England Patriots leading up to Super Bowl XLIX: Tom Brady and the boys deflated footballs and lied about it. The story on the Seattle Seahawks leading up to Super Bowl XLIX: Marshawn Lynch hates talking to the media. You’ve heard all of this, because it’s all the media wants to talk about.

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With the recent rush of Lynch-related excitement, an inaccurate perception of Seattle’s star running back has emerged. The idea, see, is that Lynch will never, ever give an interview, and hates all media outlets equally. Except that’s clearly not the case, based on his recent behavior. Because while he’s giving the proverbial finger to football reporters by day, he’s being open and candid with everyone else by night.

Marshawn’s disdain for the media has been his calling card for some time now, but things have seemingly been taken to a new level, culminating with his “you know why I’m here” presser a day ago and the sea of angry think-pieces it inspired. But during this stretch of time he’s actually been all over the media. You just wouldn’t ever guess that, based on how NFL reporters are acting.

Lynch has a good relationship with Skittles, one of the best athlete sponsorhipships in sports. While this isn’t technically an “interview,” it is Marshawn talking in front of a camera and issuing a pretty blatant jab at the reporters who continue to pester him. “Would you ever want to hang out with a talking rainbow?” “I wouldn’t want to hang out with nobody who talks, at all.”

So that was more an advertisement than an interview, but still, it’s Lynch, on camera, talking. Not enough for you? He also gave an extensive interview to Maxim.

The subject of the interview was his Beast Mode clothing line, but as the conversation wandered towards subjects like his nickname and his charity work, Lynch happily chatted away. This interview, by the way, came shortly after his “I’m just here so I won’t get fined” press conference. So what is it – that Lynch hates all media and refuses to talk to them, or that he simply knows the score with beat reporter types trying to dig up dirt to write smear pieces?

Already we have compelling evidence that Lynch is more than the pick-a-phrase curmudgeon that he’s portrayed as by surly reporters who’ve had their rhetoric thrown back in their faces by their would-be subject. But if Skittles and Maxim still aren’t enough, look, he also went on Entertainment Tonight.

So what did he do on ET? Sit there grinning and saying “yeah” over and over and over? No way! Marshawn was a great interview, talking mostly about his favorite subject – his charity work to help inner city kids. Sure sounds like a jerk, right? Oh yeah, and he sings. That’s right – Lynch went on Entertainment Tonight and sang “Eye Of The Tiger” with Michelle Williams. Then she gave him an X Box, which he says is “going straight to my foundation.” Total jerk, singing songs and giving games to poor kids.

The culmination of Marshawn’s self-selected media parade was another Super Bowl media availability session. But he didn’t come armed with a catchphrase this time: today his approach was to let them know plain and simple that he’d had enough of being forced to talk to them. Here’s what he had to say:

"“All week. I done told you all what’s up, and, for some reason, you all continue to come back and do the same thing you all did. I don’t know what all story you’re trying to get out of me. I don’t know what image you’re all trying to portray of me. But it doesn’t matter what you all think, what you all say about me, because when I go home at night, the same people that I look in the face, my family, that I love, that’s all that really matter to me. So you all can go and make up whatever you want to make up, because I don’t say enough for you all to go put anything out on me. But, I’ll come to you all event. You all shove cameras and microphones down my throat, but when I’m at home in my environment. I don’t see you all, but you all mad at me. And if you aren’t mad at me, then what you all here for?”"

He then gave a series of shout-outs and left the podium. So what we have here is a guy who doesn’t want to cede control of his public persona to outsiders who may not have the best intentions. If they get mad at his refusal to answe their questions and write puff pieces about how he’s a joke, they’re the ones who end up looking bad, not him. Lynch knows this. Does it seem to you like he’s got more going on in his brain than these reporters? Sure seems that way to me.

Marshawn Lynch is a treasure. Unhappy with the way the football media picks a guy apart in order to portray them in a negative light, he’s gone and flipped the script on them. When he agrees to an interview it’s on his terms, as it should be. When he’s thrown into a situation that he doesn’t control he gives the guys with the microphones an opportunity to expose themselves as giant entitled infants. And when they do just that, he comes back to let them know how bad they’re blowing it.

Marshawn Lynch didn’t say much during his media availability sessions this week. Outside of those sessions he said exactly what he wanted to say. Marshawn Lynch does what he wants, on and off the field. So let’s do him a solid and let him have his peace for a couple days. Because we’re all going to be paying real close attention when he’s imposing his will upon the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl.

Next: Deflategate: Tom Brady Is Lying, According To Psychology

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