When Marshawn Lynch Played High School Football After Getting Suspended By the NFL

Marshawn Lynch may have made his name in Seattle with the Seahawks. But his heart has always been in Oakland, where he was born and raised. After a brief retirement in 2016, Lynch came back to the NFL in 2017 to sign with his hometown team, the Oakland Raiders.

In his first year there, it was clear that while Lynch, then 31, was not the Pro Bowl running back he was in 2014, he still had some juice. He put up 891 yards and seven TDs on 207 carries. He did average a solid 4.3 yards per carry, though. Lynch missed just one game that year, and it wasn’t because of injury.

After an altercation with officials during a Week 7 win, Lynch was suspended for the team’s Week 8 TNF matchup with the Buffalo Bills. During the first half of an NFL player’s suspension, they are not allowed at the team facilities. They are allowed to return and get back up to speed in the second half. During that first half of his suspension, Lynch went back to his high school alma mater, Oakland Technical High School, to get some work in.

As you can see in the video, Lynch was not pulling any punches with those prepsters. He was dishing out punishment and stiff arms, but the kids seemed to be having a ball. At one point, it took five or six of them to bring Beast Mode down.

The Oakland Unified School District released a statement saying Lynch’s participation violated league rules, which state only students in grades 9-12 can participate. There were no reports of disciplinary action taken against the school, however. Raiders head coach Jack Del Rio didn’t seem to mind either, saying he “wouldn’t expect anything different” from his veteran back.

Marshawn Lynch had been suspended for protecting his family

Marshawn Lynch took advantage of his week off to get back to his roots in Oakland. And funny enough, it was those Oakland roots that had earned him the suspension in the first place. Midway through the second quarter of that 31-30 win over the Kansas City Chiefs, Raiders QB Derek Carr was sacked, with Chiefs cornerback Marcus Peters coming in a little bit late to finish off the tackle.

Carr’s linemen took exception to Peters’ actions and rushed him after the play. Lynch, who was on the sidelines, sprinted into the middle of the scrum. Not to take his teammates’ side, but to protect Peters and get him over to the sideline. As was later revealed, Lynch and Peters are “cousins” who grew up together in Oakland, during which they were as close as “brothers,” according to Raiders tackle Donald Penn.

Lynch, true to form, took his ejection after the scuffle in stride. He watched the rest of the game from the stands with the fans. After the game, Lynch and Peters, who was fined for his hit on Carr, were seen riding the Bay Area’s BART transit system back home. True men of the people.

Marshawn Lynch would go on to have a relatively productive season with the Raiders the rest of the way. He topped 75 yards in four of the last five games of the season. He then played one more injury-ravaged season with the Raiders in 2018 before retiring as a Seahawk in 2019.

Peters, meanwhile, would sign with the Los Angeles Rams after the 2017 season. In doing so, he just missed out on the Patrick Mahomes dynasty years that began in K.C. the very next year.