One of the weirdest sights of the 2014-15 NFL season went down Sunday in the Seahawks / Chiefs game in Kansas City. With the Seahawks down 14-13 at the half, the entire Seattle team and coaching staff went to the locker room to discuss the plan of attack for the second half. Except one: their All-Pro running back stayed behind on the field. So what was up with Marshawn Lynch’s weird halftime solitary confinement?
With just about any other player, you’d have to question his sanity sitting outside, all alone, on the road, in sub-freezing temperatures. Fans already question Lynch’s sanity, or at least his desire to follow conventions, but even by his standards the weird halftime “alone time” seemed odd.
Lynch didn’t speak to reporters after the game, though Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll did briefly address Lynch’s halftime antics.
“He thought it would be better for him to stay out,” Carroll said. And that was it. On to the next question.
Lynch conducted a brief phone interview with NFL.com after the game, though his halftime absence from the locker room wasn’t the primary topic. Lynch told the NFL website that he stayed on the bench outside at halftime because he couldn’t walk due to fatigue. In other words, his weird solitary confinement was self-induced, not any sort of punishment by Carroll.
Rumors during the game were that Lynch’s back was stiff due to the sub-freezing temperatures. If those rumors were true, Lynch staying out in the frigid cold for halftime actually makes a bit of sense. With the entire Seahawks team back in the locker room getting some coaching, Lynch had the bench heaters all to himself and could let them blow onto his back to loosen his muscles.
Lynch rushed for 124 yards against the Chiefs on Sunday, one week after he blasted the New York Giants for 140 yards. Those two games were his highest producing games of the 2014 NFL season.
However, the Seahawks still lost 20-24 to the Chiefs.
