Why are any of us here really? Don’t answer that. There isn’t enough room on the Internet. Narrowing things down a bit: Why is Seattle Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch here? And when I say “here,” I don’t mean on Earth, I mean at the NFL’s mandatory Super Bowl Media Day on Tuesday. The “mandatory” part seems self-explanatory, but Lynch took five minutes out of his day on Tuesday to inform a gaggle of reporters why he was on Earth in Arizona sitting in front of them.
“I’m here so I won’t get fined,” Lynch explained. Good answer. So good, in fact, Lynch used that line, with slight variations, some 30 times to answer each and every question lobbed his way during his media appearance. Not getting fined, of course, hasn’t always been Lynch’s forte. The running back famously doesn’t like talking to the media. In the run up to last year’s Super Bowl, Lynch defied the league’s third commandment—thou shalt show up for media day—and this season he’s racked up more than $100,000 in fines. The fine Lynch was conspicuously avoiding on Tuesday was reported to be a cool $500,000.
