Ever since the Seahawks fell 1 yard short of Super Bowl victory, some people have wondered if Marshawn Lynch didn’t get the ball on the game’s fateful play because Pete Carroll or Darrell Bevell or somebody else didn’t want Lynch to be the hero, either because they prefer that Russell Wilson is the face of the franchise or because they didn’t want Lynch to be named Super Bowl MVP and get the exposure that comes with it or because of some other hard-to-believe non-football reason.
The conspiracy theory seems a bit crazy for a lot of reasons, from the fact that Lynch carried the ball on the play before, to the fact that MVP ballots were turned in before the final drive even began, to the fact that it’s just insane to think anybody would risk a shot at the biggest prize in football in order to play favorites in the heat of the moment.
But the idea has persisted to a degree ever since the game, and in his first extensive public comments since the Super Bowl, Lynch did nothing to put those rumors to rest, saying on a Turkish TV network, “ I had no problem with the decision of the play calling. I mean, you know, I think it was more of a … how do I say this? When you look at me, and if you let me run that ball in, I am the face of the nation. You know, MVP of the Super Bowl, that’s pretty much the face of the nation at that point of time. I don’t know what went into that call. I mean, maybe it was a good thing that I didn’t get the ball. I mean, you know, it cost us the Super Bowl. I mean, I have full confidence in my teammates to execute that plan because we’ve done it so many more times. But would I have loved to have the ball there? Yeah, I would have. I would have.”
A day later, Hall of Fame quarterback and current Seahawks radio analyst Warren Moon was asked about that topic on the Rich Eisen show, and he wasn’t buying what Lynch and others have suggested.
“I think it’s preposterous, no question about it,” Moon said. “I don’t think that kind of thinking goes into a call in that crucial of a time in that big of a football game. If they didn’t want Marshawn Lynch to carry the football, they wouldn’t have given the ball the play before when he could have scored and almost did score if there had been a better block by Russell Okung. I just think that’s crazy.”
While Moon and plenty of others aren’t buying a conspiracy theory, as Eisen pointed out, it could be an issue of Lynch and other players—as has been reported, quoting players anonymously—wonder about Carroll’s motives.
“It’s only an issue if they don’t address it,” Moon said. He went on to point out that Carroll has a better feel for his locker room than most coaches, and said, “He’ll be able to explain his side of it if they don’t understand it already.”
Eisen then brought up the idea of Wilson being the “favored child,” over Lynch, to which Moon immediately responded, “Every quarterback on a football team is a favored child. Let’s get that straight right away, OK. Every quarterback on every football team is the favored child, but they’re not going to do something that’s not going to make them win football games.
“Everybody knows how Marshawn Lynch is treated by the Seattle Seahawks organization. He’s treated like a china plate throughout the week of practice. He doesn’t practice, they make sure he’s rested, they make sure he’s healed, they make sure he’s ready to play. They’ve already put another offer on the table for him to be one of the highest paid running backs in the league, if not the highest paid. So they want Marshawn Lynch back around here given all the problems that he can cause for a football team and how much of a problem he is to manage. They still want the guy here.
“Part of Marshawn’s problem is he just doesn’t trust a lot of people and that trust goes into this same call at the Super Bowl. He just probably doesn’t think that they wanted him to have the football for all the reasons that he said, but that’s just Marshawn. He’s a different bird. He’s wound up a little bit differently because of his upbringing, because of the environment that he grew up in and some of the things that have happened to him earlier in his career. All that thinking by him is understood; doesn’t mean it’s always valid, but it’s understood.”
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