19 Days: Marshawn Lynch’s transformation back into Beast Mode (2025)

Hendrickson was on a bike ride with two of his children, traversing the verdant hillsides of Marin County, California, when his phone began blowing up. He finally pulled over and saw the most recent of many text messages from Schneider: "Call me."

Hendrickson had watched the first quarter of the Seahawks' home game against the Arizona Cardinals before getting on the bike. What he missed, in the words of offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer, was a "s---storm." In the second quarter, Carson suffered a broken hip. His backup, C.J. Prosise, entered the game -- and went down late in the first half with a broken arm. That left rookie Travis Homer, a sixth-round draft pick, as the Seahawks' lone healthy back, with receiver David Moore as a makeshift backup.

Recalled Schottenheimer: "It was, what do we do now?"

At halftime, Schneider left his luxury suite and headed to the locker room. He checked on Carson and Prosise in the training room and conferred with the team's medical staff: Both players were, as feared, lost for the season. Standing in a hallway right outside the coaches' locker area, Schneider and Carroll were shellshocked.

"Holy s---," Carroll said. "What just happened?"

Quickly, the subject turned to Lynch.

"Do you think he'd still want to do it?" Carroll asked.

"He said he did," Schneider answered.

Once upstairs, Schneider finally heard back from Hendrickson, who texted, "Call me after the game."

The agent was home by then, having cut short the bike ride, but he still hadn't been able to get ahold of Lynch. More time passed. The Seahawks lost, 27-13, and Schneider and Carroll waited for an answer. By then, they had put aside their fears about Lynch's conditioning and the possibility that old baggage would resurface and fully embraced the idea.

In this case, necessity was the mother of reconciliation.

"To me, we turned the corner on it when we just realized that this could be really special," Carroll said. "At that point, it was kinda like, 'What the heck? Let's go for it.' "

Three hours after learning of the injuries to Carson and Prosise, Hendrickson finally got Lynch on the phone.

"By then, the whole world knew what had gone down," Hendrickson said. "He had no clue. I told him and said, 'You gotta be there tomorrow.' He got a late-night workout in and booked a flight for Monday morning."

Lynch missed the flight. When he rebooked, his seating options for the long, transcontinental journey were not optimal. Hendrickson remembered that the muscular running back sat in 35E; Lynch had a slightly different recollection. "Nah, hell no -- I wouldn't get in no middle seat," he said, laughing. "I did have a f----- up seat (in coach, toward the back), though."

By the time Lynch cleared customs and rolled up to the VMAC for the second time in 13 days, it was 4:30 p.m. Now, the only obstacle standing between him and a triumphant return to the Seahawks was a conversation with the head coach.

"You know, Pete has his ways," Lynch said. "But I've worked with Pete enough to know what's what. I knew what I was coming in for, so there really wasn't too much to be spoken on."

Still, after entering Carroll's office, Lynch did his best to assure the coach he was coming back for the right reasons -- to help the team in a time of need and do anything he could to uplift the franchise. And it played out like the famous scene at the end of Jerry Maguire: Carroll, essentially, told Lynch, "You had me at 'Hello.' "

"It was a very memorable conversation," Carroll recalled. "Really, the first 30 seconds, I could feel him and what he was conveying, and I said I was good. I knew his heart was open to the opportunity. He wanted to do it for all the right reasons. As he went on and on and on to try to convince me, I said, 'Look -- I already know. I got you. I've just been waiting for you to come back. I never thought that you couldn't, but I just didn't know if you would.'

"So, as he was talking, I was kinda laughing. It was funny to me that he cared enough to try really hard to make that point that he was gonna come do everything for the right reasons. I said a couple of things: 'I expect you to do everything and be involved with all of it.' And then I said, 'I've got no problems; you're in.'

"It really felt like my heart was open, like it is to all of our guys. Once our guys go for it with us and give us everything they've got, they're on my good side forever. I don't care what they say or what they do -- they had given their service and they had worked with us and they had won my heart over, and it didn't matter what they did or what they said from that point forward. As soon as I heard Marshawn start to really just open his heart to it, then I said, 'OK -- the guys are waiting for you. Let's go.' "

And off he went. Lynch's arrival gave the organization an emotional jolt at a tenuous time. The Seahawks were in the midst of an injury wave that extended far beyond the running back room; star left tackle Duane Brown, key defensive backs Quandre Diggs and Shaquill Griffin and standout defensive end Jadeveon Clowney were also dealing with health issues.

"It wasn't just the running back position," Schneider said. "We had contact injuries, non-soft-tissue injuries at the end of the season. And he came in and he gave us a boost, man. He gave us some hope."

Lynch also had an innate understanding of his own aura. Though he had a comfort level in the building and saw a lot of familiar faces, the roster had undergone a significant revamping since his departure. Only five Seahawks had been Lynch's teammates during his previous stint in Seattle: Wilson, linebackers Bobby Wagner and K.J. Wright, wide receiver Tyler Lockett and tight end Luke Willson. (Offensive lineman Justin Britt, another holdover from that era, was on injured reserve by the time Lynch rejoined.)

Said Carroll: "A lot of guys grew up watching him, and they didn't know him. I don't know if they were scared or intimidated, but they certainly didn't know how to deal with him. He knew that, and so he made it easy for them. He made it easy for everybody. He nailed it. He's an extraordinarily instinctive person and a savvy guy about a lot of things, and he picked right up on what was necessary and pulled it off."

In Lynch's words: "I mean, I ain't never had no problem with being able to wiggle my way into any situation. You woulda thought that I had been there the whole year, and been f----- with them my whole life, like I had always done with any of my teammates."

Lynch, who had once been openly disdainful toward Pearson's efforts to get him to comply with his media obligations -- and irate over the subsequent NFL fines that followed when he bucked them -- made a point of telling the PR chief upon his return, "You won't have any problem with me."

Said Schneider: "He was awesome to everybody in the building. He was really cool to the equipment guys, the trainers, the chefs, the people that he didn't really know yet. It lifted the organization. He just brings a certain juice about him. The fact that we went through everything we did with him, with the Super Bowl and all that, it was pretty awesome that everybody was kinda just letting bygones be bygones, and it's about trying to win football games and his legacy."

On Dec. 24, the day after he officially rejoined the Seahawks, Lynch hit the practice field, got in touch with his inner O.G. and, in his words, got plugged back in and reentered The Matrix. When practice was over, and the oohing and aahing had subsided, Lynch began walking off the field, saw Pearson and stopped.

"You don't know how much I appreciate this place," Lynch said, smiling.

Schottenheimer, the Seahawks' second-year offensive coordinator, wasn't sure what to make of his new running back. The day Lynch signed, Schottenheimer found him in running backs coach Chad Morton's office, introduced himself and stuck out his hand.

Lynch didn't reciprocate.

"He looks me up and down and just says, 'What's up, dawg?' " Schottenheimer recalled. "That's an intimidating-looking dude, now."

Five days later, following the Seahawks' walkthrough practice on the morning before the regular-season finale, Schottenheimer went to greet his wife, Gemmi, and their kids Sutton and Savannah, who, like many family members, had attended the session.

"Hey, there's Marshawn," Gemmi said. "Let's go meet him."

Recalled Brian: "I walked them over and introduced them and kind of got distracted, and when he left, (Gemmi) was grinning from ear to ear. I asked her what he said. And he'd told her, 'Damn, you smell good.' "

The following afternoon, with the Seahawks gathered in their locker room before the nationally televised division-title showdown against the 49ers, Lynch approached Schottenheimer and said, "Hey man -- lemme holler at you real quick."

Oh, s---, the coordinator thought to himself.

"We go in the back," Schottenheimer remembered, "and he says, 'Hey, listen, there's a lot of history with me and this team. I don't want to ever let that affect how you call the game. If you need to use me as a decoy and just run play-action, if that's the best way for us to win, I'll do it. Also, I play the game a certain way, which means I'm gonna need a lot of breaks, so don't worry about taking me out.'

"That just showed the maturity. At that point, I was sold."

As he paced the field before the game, Carroll walked behind the Seahawks' bench area to say hello to Hendrickson and Newsom, the California governor, who has been close friends with the agent for decades, and who has also grown close to Lynch.

"Listen," Carroll told Hendrickson, "this has been one of the most special weeks of my coaching career."

Then things got even more special. Lynch made a point of having the Seahawks' other backs, Homer and Robert Turbin (another former Seattle runner who'd been re-signed following the injuries to Carson and Prosise), be introduced along with him before the game, and the trio ran out of the tunnel together. There was no question, however, which one of them was the crowd favorite. The first time Lynch touched the ball, the roar was deafening.

And when he scored that touchdown? Years of pent-up emotion were released with full-throated exuberance, from Bellingham to Walla Walla.

"I remember most of all how excited the team and the coaching staff was," Schottenheimer said, "whether it was the symbolism of, 'Hey, we've moved past this,' or just how cool the moment was."

For Lynch, it underscored the bond he feels with an organization, fan base and city near and dear to his heart. Though his love for Oakland, his hometown, is undeniable -- and was a major reason for his decision to come out of retirement and play for the Raiders, in the wake of their announcement of an eventual move to Las Vegas -- his deep regard for Seattle is real.

"WHAT?" Lynch asked. "You goddamn right! I f--- with Seattle, though. Seattle has been very, very, very, very, very, very, very tight with me."

Lynch's emotion was magnified by the absence of one highly accomplished Seattle resident with whom he felt a deep connection: former Seahawks owner and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who died in October 2018 due to complications from non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Allen's death shocked Lynch, as the two had been engaged in an ongoing conversation via email in the weeks leading up to the 65-year-old's unexpected passing.

"I had a real n---- on my side ...," Lynch said. "And I want you to write that s--- just like that, too: 'He said Paul Allen was his real N-word.'

"Paul Allen took care of us, from facilities to travel to eating. Well, s---, he was Paul Allen -- what you expect? That mother------ was a genius. My respect for him is why I respect the organization so much.

"They say he was shy, reserved, or whatever, but I know when [he saw] me he'd come holler at me. ... That gave me a whole different little feel about the whole organization, like I could get on the horn and call him and just talk to him about anything, like, 'What's happening? ... How you doing?' type s---. So, I just respect what he had going on."