This week we have dedicated several articles to remembering a handful of the big names that decided it was time to move on from their respective sports. Each piece will focus on one individual, and incorporate how the author will remember that specific player.
All the players on this list have either just finished their last season, or are currently playing in what they have said would be their last season.
We continue the trend with Marshawn Lynch.
Featured image courtesy of: Kelly Baily http://www.flickr.com/photos/kellbailey/5341264018/
January 8th, 2011 was not your normal Saturday in Seattle, Washington. It was the annual version of the NFL’s Wild Card Saturday. Before the game started, history had already been made by the Seahawks. The 2010/2011 Seattle Seahawks became the first team to play a full 16 game season and make the playoffs with a losing record (7-9). They were the only team to do so until the Carolina Panthers managed to do the same by rising to the top of the horrendous 2014/2015 NFC South.
The opponent? None other than the reigning Super Bowl champions: The New Orleans Saints. The boys of the bayou finished the regular season 11-5 but did not win the division resulting in a wild card spot in the NFC.
The game went back and forth for fifty-seven minutes and twenty-seven seconds of play. No team was able to get enough momentum to put the game out of reach. That is until quarterback Matt Hasselbeck handed the ball off on 2nd and 10.
All was quiet in Qwest Field in the moments before. Afterwards the stadium erupted into nothing short of pandemonium. The vibrations caused by the fans screaming and jumping in the stands were so intense that it ended up being recorded as an earthquake on a local seismograph. The home crowd’s reaction was understandable considering they had just witnessed one of the greatest runs in NFL history. The Beast Quake.
At first it appeared the play was busted, but then Lynch shot out of the pile. Shaking off a defender that was hanging onto his ankle for dear life. A broken tackle here, another one there, then he stiff armed Tracy Porter into oblivion (rest in peace Tracy)
After he juked around a couple more defenders, Lynch dove into the end-zone with a celebration that only he could get away with. It was here where Beast Mode was born, and where people found out who Marshawn Lynch was.
I still get chills when I hear Tom Hammond shout, “Still on his feet!”
Still on his feet.
Those four words seemed to be synonymous with Marshawn Lynch throughout his career. The way that he ran, not avoiding contact, not afraid to throw a stiff arm or lower his shoulder to get through a pile of defenders. It just took so much to bring the guy down when he had the ball in his hands. In many ways, this philosophy of not being afraid of contact, and his ability to stay on his feet longer than others had been what defined him. Not just as a player, but as a person.
I’ll always remember that moment when Marshawn earned the nickname Beast Mode, but he also gave us so many other moments, whether they be famous or infamous depends on the individual doing the reflecting.
Like him or dislike him, you cannot deny that the guy became a huge part of pop culture in sports during the last several seasons that he played.
Whether it be his ridiculous love for Skittles…
His impeccable skills handling a trainer’s injury cart…
And of course how could we forget his elegant way of handling the media…
Oh and of course how could I forget how he made not one, but TWO, of the greatest runs in NFL history with his follow up to the Beast Quake: Beast Quake 2.0
Maybe it’s the millennial in me, but I loved everything about how Marshawn Lynch carried himself. He was never known to be outspoken. He never talked smack or tried to instigate drama with other players off of the field. He was literally a man of few words who, just like many greats before him, let his play do the talking. I don’t even want to say that he was misunderstood, because if you made the effort to listen to what he said, he was pretty straight forward. If anything he was someone who got tired of answering the same questions that most people already knew the answer to. He knew who he was and he stayed true to himself and his teammates.
He didn’t even make a huge announcement that he was retiring from professional football. All he did was post a photo on his twitter account of a pair of cleats hanging on a telephone wire. Poetic and fitting at the same time.
I like to remember him as a player that didn’t take himself too seriously, who didn’t like speaking with a lot of cameras in his face, always brought his “A” game on Sundays, who could truck the life out of anybody that got in between him and the open field, a Super Bowl champion, and most importantly as a guy that would always stay on his feet regardless of what came at him in life.
— Shawn Lynch (@MoneyLynch) February 8, 2016