"I'm Just Here So I Won't Get Fined Boss"

What scares you about it?

 

I find the idea that you need Marshawn Lynch to talk in order to write about Marshawn Lynch is dumb. And when I see grumpy old scribes throwing tantrums on Twitter about Lynch being a dick for not talking, it makes me want to take Lynch's side, despite my profession. I don't think it's a social anxiety thing at all like it was with Ricky Williams. I think it's performance art/trolling. I think he enjoys fucking with people. I also think if you want a quick bang-bang feature, where a reporter gets enough from a podium session to turn around a feature quickly, then Lynch isn't your guy. There are guys like that one very team. I honestly think the great journalists just work harder to either:

1. Earn their trust
2. Find other people to talk about them.

I've probably written five or six magazine pieces, all of them 3,000 words and up, where I couldn't talk to the main subject. I agree that it's a slippery slope, because it would be really hard if no one talked, and you'd almost always prefer access vs. no access, but sometimes you just have to work a lot harder to offer some insight into someone who doesn't want to give it up so easily.

 

nm~

 

I personally loathe the suggestion here and in other places that Marshawn not talking equates to Marshawn being a dumb person or an asshole or a criminal. Maybe he just doesn't want to talk and is a smart (He got into Cal-Berkeley), nice guy.

 

I think it's perfectly possible to write a story sbout Marshawn Lynch without talking to Marshawn Lynch.

And I also think he's acting like a seventh-grader fucking with the nerds.

 

I don't think it has to be the MVP. I've heard mixed reports about how it works. Several years ago, I was told Disney gets a couple players from each team to agree to do it and then they just decide at the end of the game which one they're going to use. I'm guessing that was not the case last year, because Malcolm Smith did it. I remember Peyton Manning didn't do it when the Colts won, so I wonder if his people wanted too much money or if he was endorsing some other competing company. Eli did it both times the Giants won.

 

No, he's definitely an asshole. If you're going to a team event and you're going to sit there and make yourself into a spectacle, you're an asshole. I'd have more respect for him if he didn't show up.

 

If he didn't show up, the NFL would probably have suspended him for the Super Bowl and then it's definitely a spectacle.

 

Years ago, I had to do a feature on a player who had been in a lot of trouble and didn't like talking to the media. He initially agreed to sit down with me, but PR sat in on the interview and after about three questions, looked over at the PR guy and said, "Do I have to do this?" and was told no. Two weeks later before I was turning the story in, I took another run at him, and he basically told me to fuck off and that he'd never talk to me again if I wrote the story, to which I laughed and said, "You don't talk to me now!"

It was by far the best story I wrote during my time covering the NFL.

What I still can't get over is that the guy is on TV now.

 

He would not have been suspended for the Super Bowl. Give me a fucking break.

 

The NFL threatened to suspend him because they didn't like his shoes. What makes you think they wouldn't here?

 

He would have gotten a fine, probably a pretty big one because he's a repeat offender. No way in hell would he be suspended.