Marshawn Lynch Fined $75,000 For Not Speaking To Media

Marshawn Lynch has been fined again for refusing to talk to the media; this time stemming from his silence after the 2014 NFC Championship game against the Green Bay Packers, Pro Football Talk is reporting.

The fine was actually levied against Lynch last year, but it was not disclosed to the media at the time in order to give Lynch time to schedule appeals against two pending fines against him. A fine of $75,000 for not talking to the media after the game, and $20,000 for making an obscene gesture, as the NFL politely called it, after Lynch grabbed his private parts during the game.

Lynch has dropped his appeal and agreed to pay the fine for the obscene gesture, but his appeal against the fine for failing to talk to the media remains, and the NFL has scheduled a hearing for Lynch. That hearing was announced Tuesday, which is why the news of the fine is only now making the national media.

This is the latest in a string of fines levied against the Seattle Seahawks running back. Back in January, Lynch lost an appeal – and was forced to pay a $100,000 fine – for refusing to talk to the media. As The New York Daily News writer Justin Tasch explains, the January fine was actually two fines. One fine was for failing to talk to the media after a 2014 game, and another for failing to talk to the media after a previous game – a fine he could have avoided had he made improvements in this area.

The NFL requires that all players be available for comment to the media after games, and high-profile players such as Lynch are also expected to be available to the media during the week as well, according to Bleacher Report. Throughout his career, Lynch, for his part, has either completely ignored that rule, or made sport of it, “answering” questions posed by reporters with statements like “thank you for asking me that” and “I’m just here to avoid being fined.”

As for why Lynch is so uncooperative with the media, Lynch has a variety of reasons, according to a January Deadspin report, but mostly they have to do with his desire not to have the focus of attention on himself.

“And I’m not as comfortable, especially at the position I play, making it about me. As a running back, it takes five offensive linemen, a tight end, a fullback and possibly two wide receivers, in order to make my job successful. But when I do interviews, most of the time it’ll come back to me. There are only so many times I can say, ‘I owe it to my offensive linemen,’ or, ‘The credit should go to my teammates,’ before it becomes run down.”

Do you believe Marshawn Lynch deserves to be fined for not speaking to the media?

[Image courtesy of: Getty Images/Christian Petersen]