How Marshawn Lynch Changed Seattle Sports Forever
The Seahawks’ anti-hero running back created a legion of fans while lifting the franchise to its greatest heights.
On the noisiest sports day of the year, Marshawn Lynch stole the national spotlight without saying a word. With just a photo of a hanging pair of cleats along with a peace sign emoji, he was gone. Retired from a game that thrust him into a spotlight he was never ready for, that demanded things he was never willing to give.
On the field, Lynch was as compelling a player as you’ll see. Violent, explosive, tenacious, dynamic, unyielding and utterly self-sacrificing. On the sidelines, Lynch was as captivating a sideshow as you’ll ever see. Tummy aches, halftime siestas, an insatiable sweet tooth, and an all-around weirdo.
And then there was off the field.
From the start, Lynch did it his way. In an era where few could escape the spotlight, and even fewer wanted to, Lynch did what no other sports star has managed to do in the last decade: remain a total mystery. No interviews, no desperate calls for attention, no subtweets. And we loved him for it. The more he shied away from the spotlight, the more mythical he became.
It would be one thing if Lynch was just a self-obsessed hermit, but he wasn’t. Part of his genius was how he steadfastly refused to be anything other than himself, and still parlayed his obstinate aloofness into cult hero status and all the attendant branding dollars. In an era where the “look at me! look at me! look at me!” tactics for brand-building are as tired as they are shameless, Lynch built an empire around his anti-hero antics (“I’m just here so I won’t get fined”) and his one-of-a-kind parlance (“I’m just ‘bout that action, boss”).
Whenever Lynch let us catch a glimpse of him, be it on the field or his glorious video game sessions with Conan O’Brien, it was appointment viewing.
Years from now, when the book is written on this golden generation of Seattle Seahawks football, there will be plenty of credit to share: Pete Carroll for changing the culture, John Schneider for constructing a winning roster, Russell Wilson for raising the bar offensively, Kam Chancellor for raising it defensively, Earl Thomas and Richard Sherman for affording the team unique schematic flexibility, and so on. But ultimately, the engine that made this entire team go — the best player on the best Seattle team we’ll see in our lifetimes — was Lynch, the one who started the turnaround, and rekindled Seattle’s love affair with the Seahawks.
The Seahawks are relevant because Lynch carried them to relevance, whether he wanted the attention or not. It was a priceless gift — one that this generation of fans will remember forever, just like it will remember the bruising beauty with which No. 24 played the game.
Lynch slouched into Seattle in 2010, beleaguered by three and a half seasons in Buffalo, where he was far from home and farther from relevance. A once-promising prospect, Lynch found himself on the sour side of a Bills franchise that struggled to handle “Marshawn Being Marshawn,” ultimately trading the Beast to Seattle for fourth- and fifth-round picks.
At that point, most Seahawks fans were more familiar with Lynch’s college exploits at Cal than his professional accomplishments, but it didn’t take long for Lynch to endear himself to a laid-back Seattle sports community that admired Lynch’s running style far more than they objected to his personality. On a 2010 team that wasn’t particularly good, Lynch was a bright spot — introducing his trademark Beast Mode to a city that was tired of finesse running backs and that was quick to take to Lynch’s particular brand of smashmouth.
Of course, having a signature moment helps.
If there was any question about whether Lynch would stick in Seattle, the Beast Quake ended it. In a game the Seahawks had no business hosting, against a team they had no business beating, Lynch gave Seattle sports its most memorable moment since The Double.
The impact of the Beast Quake is easy to understand now in retrospect. It was an outstanding individual effort, and easily the brightest spot in a mediocre 7–9 team’s year. But it was more than that. It was a moment when an underlying shift in the team’s makeup become observable: the Seahawks were beginning to build an identity. Tough. Tenacious. Relentless.
With that remarkable individual effort, Lynch gave the region something it was desperately thirsting for: national attention. He reminded the sports universe that Seattle was on the map. He made us matter. While he could care less about the national interest, Seattle fans had long suffered hurt feelings due to a perceived East Coast bias that undersold all of the accomplishments of the city’s teams. National interest and acclaim matters greatly to Seattleites, whether we like to admit it or not.
With a run that was on everyone’s highlight reel all off-season, Lynch’s play became the national audience’s main identification point for the Seahawks — the Seahawks were Lynch’s run. The Seahawks were Beast Mode.
It turns out self-fulfilling prophecies aren’t always a bad thing.
Lynch was the first real puzzle piece to fall into place. As others joined him, the Seahawks solidified around the brand of football Lynch established. On both sides of the ball, physicality was paramount, with Lynch being the rare offensive player that defensive players gravitated toward and fed off of. For a defense that was farther along than the offense, Lynch’s running style was the tonic young Seattle defenders needed to believe an equally young offense could get the job done.
Lynch’s excellence also was critical to earning broader buy-in to Carroll’s grind-it-out, ball control-oriented philosophy. Had Lynch not run as well as he did early on in Carroll’s tenure (1,200-plus yards in 2011, 1,500-plus yards in 2012), the Seahawks would have been challenged to believe run-first could work in an increasingly pass-happy league. Lynch gave Carroll’s philosophy time to marinate — and Wilson time to develop — as the team eventually took off in late 2012.
Even with Wilson growing into a top-flight quarterback in 2013, Lynch continued to be the heart and soul of the offense, albeit with an ego small enough to make room for a rising star under center. Despite never-ending speculation of his attitude and relationship with Seahawks management, Lynch’s ability to support and accommodate his teammates was as unique as his running style and his personality. It was an attribute that earned him seemingly universal support in the locker room, and contributed to the overall emotional health of the Seahawks. It was one of his most underrated contributions to the team.
It’s funny to think of Lynch as a “glue guy,” but that’s exactly what he was. As a senior statesman on a young, talented team, Lynch was able to play his integral part on a 2013 team that was as good as we’ve seen in football over the last decade. A wire-to-wire favorite, the Seahawks rode a determined Lynch and an elite defense to a 13–3 record, a top seed, and an absolute drubbing of Denver Broncos in that year’s Super Bowl.
Suddenly, the Seahawks and the city of Seattle were on top of the world. A completely foreign and euphoric feeling. A couple of swigs of Fireball, a Sea Gals float and a non-stop drumbeat later, Lynch gave us another moment we’ll doubtless never forget.
At multiple points between winning the Super Bowl and calling it a career, there was legitimate concern that Lynch’s end in Seattle was destined to be ugly. Lynch has never been well understood by the outside world, but that never stopped armchair antagonists from constantly trying to peg him down (or perhaps drop him down a peg). He never made it easy. From skipping an opportunity to meet President Obama after winning the Super Bowl, to flipping off the sideline after a goal-line play where his number wasn’t called, a certain contingent was always looking for ways to paint Lynch in a negative light. Most were bogus.
His legendary battles with the media might have earned him some enemies among the crusty old guard, but won him a far greater legion of supporters who loved that Lynch refused to do one of the most fundamental things a superstar does: talk. Without his voice guiding conversations about him, others filled the void, ultimately leading to random guesswork about what made Lynch tick. None of it ever seemed to stick as Lynch remained as impervious to categorization as any athlete in modern history.
A perfect example was the conclusion of last year’s Super Bowl, where the entire world echoed a baffled Cris Collinsworth, who couldn’t believe the Seahawks did not hand the ball to Lynch on the goal line at the end of the game. When cornered for rare media comment afterward, Lynch, who many would expect to rant and rave at the coaching staff for not giving him the ball, went in the complete opposite direction, expressing that he wasn’t angry, because football is a team sport. Those were not the words his detractors were expecting.
Heading into 2015, Lynch experienced something new in his career: a serious injury which sidelined him for a large part of the season. Another new experience for Lynch was the presence of a talented teammate in Thomas Rawls, who appeared seriously poised to cut into Lynch’s carries. While there never were any indications that Lynch resented Rawls’ rise, it would have been fascinating to see how the two coexisted if both were healthy at the same time — a good problem that unfortunately never materialized.
As he fought back from surgery, conversation swirled around Lynch, who trained for large stretches away from the team (a highly unusual practice). But a bit of idle chatter never hurt anyone. Soon the Beast was back, and with him came a palatable surge of energy that accompanied his return to the VMAC the week before the Seahawks’ playoff game against Minnesota.
The Beast was back! And then … he wasn’t.
In an apparent low for his relationship with the team, Lynch removed himself from traveling to Minnesota shortly before the team headed to the airport. The move shocked the team and embarrassed its coach, and Lynch’s sudden withdrawal showed how poor the communication between him and the franchise had become toward the end of his time in Seattle.
However, as painful as his absence in Minnesota was, Lynch’s bounceback against Carolina was indicative of his leadership and self-sacrificing style. The Seahawks were severely behind right off the bat, forcing the team to go hurry-up for much of the game. As a result, Lynch only had a handful of carries, and yet he played the majority of snaps, serving largely as a pass blocker. It was a thankless job in an ultimately futile effort, but it’s one that Lynch tackled as ferociously and consistently as he handled the rest of his Seahawks career. I’ve never admired him more.
And then it ended.
On a night when everyone was focused on the impending end of the career of another NFL great, Peyton Manning, Lynch took center stage when he announced his retirement. The Lynch haters were angry that he “stole a moment that wasn’t his” by hijacking the attention of a nation bored to tears watching one of the more underwhelming Super Bowls in recent history.
The 100,000-plus retweets of his simple announcement certainly imply that people found the interlude interesting enough to talk about. And what is Lynch if not a man of the people?
Whether it was calculated or a failed attempt to slip under the radar while everyone was distracted, Lynch’s announcement will become another piece of the Lynch legend — an example of his completely unique type of brandability. As we’ve seen again and again, only Lynch could say nothing and get such a big response.
Rumble, young man, rumble.
Greater than any seismic run or swig of Fireball, Lynch gave us a gift that changed who we are as Seattle sports fans. More precious than a single moment in the sun, or single season, Lynch taught us to believe that good things can happen to us, that we deserve glory, too. That grit and resiliency isn’t just something that other cities have; Seattle has it, as well. It’s a gift that we’re still learning to accept, still learning to incorporate into our collective psyche. We Seattle fans don’t change easily.
In our weaker moments, our moments of frustration, we default back to a crueler time — the days before 2013, when “woe is us” was our default state, our bitterness hardened by infrequent flirtations with success, which invariably ended in heartbreak. 116 and bust. Vinny Testaverde’s helmet. Bill Leavy. A maddening finger wag. A Chicago steamroller. A man possessed. And on. And on. And on.
Such was the fate and stupor of the no-such-luck Seattle fan. We loved sports, and we loved our Seattle teams, but too often we didn’t truly like being Seattle sports fans. The heartache was too severe, the persecution complex too substantial to surmount. Those were dark days.
But that was then. These days, we only grind ourselves into these old grooves when we momentarily forget the lessons that 2013 taught us. When a swaggering coach, a bombastic boomsquad and a ferocious Beast taught us to beat our chests, show no fear, and believe big.
In 2013, we learned that greatness lurks in this town.
What a priceless gift that was. With the heart that Lynch brought to this team, with the load he took on his shoulders and with the inner Beast he unleashed for all to see, Lynch inspired us to be the type of fans that don’t just roll with the punches, but strike back with confidence. He made us tougher. And he made us winners.
It’s a lesson we’ll do well to remember the next time fate delivers us a blow. When sporting disaster strikes, and doom hangs in the air, we know what winning feels like now. We know that good things can happen to us if we stick with it. Above all, we now know that all the sacrifice and all the heartbreaks are worth it, because every now and then, serendipity strikes and a Marshawn Lynch walks into our lives and lights our world on fire.
