In the locker room following Seattle's 23-20 win over the Bears, Lynch mistakes writer Jon Saraceno for Charlie Whitehurst, who at the time was the Seahawks' backup quarterback.
"I thought you were Charlie, man," Lynch said with a laugh. "I was looking thinking, 'What's Charlie doing with this mic in my face?' Charlie! Is this your pops right here, man? We've got Charlie's pops over here!"
Lynch had long been involved in the community, but with the official forming of his foundation along with cousin and NFL quarterback Josh Johnson, Lynch took another big step to help improve the lives of children in Oakland.
Among the many things Lynch does with his foundation are his annual football camps, which last summer served nearly 1,100 area kids.
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"He's a guy that didn't take off, a guy that didn't turn back, a guy that didn't abandon them," California Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom said at Lynch's camp last summer. "This is a community where a lot of folks abandon these kids. A lot of folks in my line of work, elected officials, they show up when the cameras are there, then they turn their backs on these kids. This is a community that's a very tight, close community, but a lot of families that have struggles, so for Marshawn to still be around, to keep coming back year-in-year out—I've seen some of these kids when they were half the size they are today—and that they know he's still here two, three years later, that's a profound thing. It may not seem like a lot, but they know he came back again, then came back again, and that gives them a sense of continuity in their lives that's so much bigger than a sport, so much bigger than a camp, so much bigger than today. It transcends and gives them a sense of optimism that people do give a damn about them and that their lives matter."
But while Lynch's camp was his most public way of giving back, it was far from the only one. Without any media attention, Lynch frequently had kids as his guests at Saturday walk-thru practices. While in Dallas, where he stayed to support teammate Ricardo Lockette following his neck injury last season, Lynch pulled out his wallet and gave a 17-year-old McDonalds employee money to buy new shoes. Lynch was known best for his toughness on the field, but he also had a big heart off it, especially when it came to kids.
Lynch appears in an off-beat interview with NFL Japan that saw him take time to taste test different candies from the Land of the Rising Sun.
"Konichiwa, Marshawn Lynch!" the Seahawks running back opened.
The session came about because of Lynch's acclaimed affinity for Skittles, the "power pellets" that have helped ease Lynch's upset stomachs since he first started playing football.
"Now it's almost like we use it because we know it helps my stomach," Lynch said of the candy's place on Seattle's sideline. "So we put it with the rest of the medicine. It's right next to the Advil, the lip balm, the tape. It's next to all of that."
The outside-the-lines segment was part of a long-list of light-hearted appearances Lynch has made over the years. His aversion to traditional media outlets was well known, but let Lynch set something up on his own terms and he'd be all in. That much was evident from the start of Lynch's rookie year, when he had some fun with ESPN's Kenny Mayne at a Buffalo Applebees.
"I love the ambience, I love the decor," said Lynch. "I spend a lot of time figuring out which one I like more - the ambience, or the decor."
Since then, Lynch has gone Beast Mode on your plumbing needs, been the subject of a Skittles-inspired Sport Science segment, earned his own IMDB page for his role as "massive goon" in the 2013 film Matt's Chance. He's bonded with comedian Conan O'Brien, been featured in the FXX fantasy football sitcom The League, dove head-first into a pool full of slime at the Nickolodeon Kids' Choice Sports Awards, and had a fish tank built on the Animal Planet T.V. show Tanked. He's even been the inspiration behind a Ludacris rap song, become the first athlete to appear in a Call of Duty video game, helped sell Skittles on a home-shopping network, and delivered a special message to late-night host Jimmy Fallon:
In a brief interview with Deion Sanders during Media Day before Super Bowl XLVIII, Lynch provides perhaps the best explanation ever given for his media silence. Lynch, who for the most part stopped talking to the media in 2012, explained that "I ain't never seen no talking win me nothing."
And while plenty of fans would have liked more glimpses into Lynch's personality, he in many ways became more popular the more he resisted conforming to the league's rules on talking to the media.
Facing more fines, Lynch went to Super Bowl XLIX with a plan. He sat at a podium during the required availability, but rather than answer questions, he repeated the same phrase over and over, saying "I'm just here so I won't get fined" the first day, then "You know why I'm here," the next. Lynch, being a savvy business man, later trademarked the phrase, "I'm just here so I won't get fined," which can be found on T-shirts sold on his website. And the Beast Mode hat he wore during his press conferences, retailing at $32, quickly sold out at Beastmodeonline.com that week.
As an estimated crowd of 700,000 Seahawks fans celebrated the team's first Super Bowl title on a chilly Wednesday afternoon, Lynch stole the show in a manner only he could. While most teammates rode in amphibious "Ride the Duck" vehicles by position group, Lynch rode on the front of the Sea Gals vehicle, beating a Native American drum that was handed to him by a fan. Lynch kept the drum with him when the team was introduced to the crowd at CenturyLink Field, then later he doused quarterback Russell Wilson in champagne.
This wouldn't be Lynch's only championship parade, because last summer, Lynch ended up on the float of Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green after the Warriors won the NBA title.
"This is huge for my city," Lynch said day. "Because you hear so much negative about it, and right now to see the positivity coming out of it with this NBA championship, it's heartwarming for me personally."
Lynch entices fans to take a look under his pads with a tweet showing him posing nude on the cover of ESPN The Magazine's body issue, the annual celebration of the athletic form. Lynch was one of six athletes to appear on the cover and one of 22 to appear on the pages inside.
"I'm cool with my body, I love my body," Lynch told ESPN in an online exclusive previewing the issue. "I wouldn't trade it for no other body."
Photographer Carlos Serrao was the one behind the lens for Lynch's shoot, which took place at an old train station in his hometown of Oakland, Calif.
"It was a blast growing up in Oakland," Lynch said. "We used to walk to house parties, play doorbell ditch, have rock fights, do front flips and backflips off concrete walls off and into the bushes. Take the boxing gloves out and box in the middle of the streets."
Photography by Carlos Serrao, ESPN The Magazine
LIn front of a select group of season-ticket holders, Lynch unveils a pair of New Era Seahawks hats that he had designed himself. The lids, one a green and cream-colored creation and the other a blue and grey-colored rendition, went on sale at the Pro Shop, with $5 from every cap sold benefiting Lynch's Fam 1st Family Foundation.
"I really like the green from our uniform, so that's why I went with the hat with the green in it," Lynch told 12s who had gathered on site that night. "With the blue, I really like the traditional blue with the throwback for the silver. I just try to keep it calm, but at the same time make it pop.
"I put my time and my thought into this and I actually had fun," Lynch added. "...But this was something I knew that if I had the opportunity to bring to the fans, then they probably would like it, too."
Seven-hundred-and-sixty-eight hats sold in two days, making the player-inspired caps the second-fastest selling hat to make its way through the Seahawks Pro Shop, and more importantly, netting $3,840 for Lynch's foundation.
"I got put in a position to help a lot of kids and I just took it and ran with it," said Lynch. "And what's really big is I actually played against two kids that have been through my [youth] camp in the NFL, so I know I'm touching lives and helping kids at the same time.
"To play against some kids that came through my camp tells me two things," Lynch added with a smile. "I made a difference, and [shoot], I'm probably gettin' old."
Few players to wear a Seahawks uniform in recent years have been more universally beloved by teammates than Lynch. Locker rooms, like almost any other social setting in life, have cliques based on everything from position groups to backgrounds, but Lynch always seemed to transcend those, forming close relationships with everyone from his fellow backs to defensive linemen.
"He just cares about everybody," former Seahawks center Max Unger once said. "He could sit down with every single dude in the locker room and have a conversation with him, and it would be genuine. He has a relationship with pretty much everybody that's close enough where he could sit down and have a 20-minute conversation with them and not bat an eye."
Lynch was also one of the smartest players in the locker room, which added to his ability to relate to everyone on the team.
"I think if you asked every player in this room right now to talk about the other 21 positions in football," offensive line coach/assistant head coach Cable said last year. "I don't know if you could find many that could do that. I think he's extraordinary that way, he gets it."
And one recent example of Lynch being a great teammate came in Week 1 of last season when Fred Jackson, who had also played with Lynch in Buffalo, signed with the Seahawks. As Jackson recounted in an article he wrote for The Players' Tribune, he was lost in an early meeting, not understanding the terminology, when Lynch bailed him out.
"The coach calls out, "Jet protection," and I'm completely lost. Here I am, an eight-year NFL veteran and four-time team captain sitting in my 10,000th running backs meeting, and I'm probably the only one in the room who doesn't know what "Jet protection" means.
Marshawn leans over to me.
"Ace," he whispers. "It's just like our old Ace protection in Buffalo, brah."
Now I know.
Thank God for Marshawn Lynch."
Days before Super Bowl 50 in Santa Clara, Calif. - and ultimately, Lynch's retirement announcement on Twitter - Lynch opens his own Beast Mode-branded retail store in the Bay Area.
The store offers shirts, sneakers, hats, and more depicting some of Lynch's favorite icons, with a portion of the store's opening-day proceeds going back to Lynch's Fam 1st Family Foundation.
Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf was present for the store's opening and declared Feb. 5, 2016 "Beast Mode Day" in Lynch's honor.
Lynch trademarked the phrase Beast Mode in 2009. His store sits at 811 Broadway St. in Oakland and can also be found online at BeastModeOnline.com.
