Seahawks’ Lynch fined for touchdown celebration
RENTON, Wash. – Richard Sherman thinks he could have spared Marshawn Lynch about $11,000.
The league said Merry Christmas to Lynch, in the not-so-merry way it has often interacted with him.
The NFL fined the unique-in-many-ways running back $11,050 for grabbing his crotch during his back-to-the-goal-line plunge into the end zone during Seattle’s game last weekend at Arizona. It was the very Lynchian punctuation to his epic 79-yard touchdown run as the Seahawks crushed the Cardinals. Game officials did not penalize him.
It’s the second time in just over two months the league has fined Lynch. He was docked $100,000 for not talking to the media in the locker room at Arrowhead Stadium immediately after Seattle’s loss at Kansas City in October.
Pro Football Talk, a division of NBC Sports, first reported the latest sanction Thursday morning.
Lynch plowed through Cardinals cornerback Patrick Peterson and safety Rashad Johnson at the Seahawks’ sideline in the most wowing portion of his run already known as “BeastQuake 2” around Seattle. Teammates marveled in the locker room after last weekend’s game that it was the best run they’d ever seen.
This week Sherman was asked if he would have been able to stop Lynch from scoring. The Seahawks’ All-Pro cornerback smiled.
“I would have given a very valiant effort,” Sherman said.
“Me and Marshawn have these discussions daily about whether I am able to tackle him or not. But I guarantee you in that situation if I didn’t get him down I would have gotten him out of bounds.
So you are saying you would have tackled him?
“So I am saying there’s a chance,” Sherman added, smiling again.