Marshawn Lynch stood on the dock at Kenmore Air, looked the CEO dead in the eye, and asked him point-blank whether he actually talks like that in real life. Andrew Bonney, who had just introduced himself by saying he was ‘delighted’ to have Lynch there, confirmed that yes, he absolutely does. That exchange set the tone for everything that followed. A seaplane tour of Seattle was about to happen, and it was going to be exactly as chaotic as that opening suggested.
Kenmore Air, the largest seaplane airline in the United States, runs a fleet of 26 planes out of its base on Lake Washington. Eight of those are de Havilland Otters, the type Lynch and Seahawks mascot Blitz would be climbing into. The planes are loaded onto a forklift and driven straight down the ramp into the water before each flight, which is either the most practical or most cinematic pre-departure routine in commercial aviation, depending on your outlook.
When Blitz met the CEO who did not know the Super Bowl score
Before anyone got airborne, Bonney was introduced to Blitz. Lynch watched the two shake hands, then noted with zero hesitation that Bonney was giving off strong Patriots fan energy. Bonney, to his credit, admitted he was new to the Northwest and still learning. Lynch offered to translate Blitz’s response. ‘He said we just spanked y’all ass and got a ring,’ Lynch explained. Bonney conceded the point. ‘Yeah, that’d be true.’
The route Bonney offered was a choice: go straight over the stadium, or loop up through the ship canal and come back around. They went through the canal. Once Bonney pushed the turboprop to full power on the water, Lynch described what he felt as the sensation hitting somewhere around his midsection. He called them his ‘raisins.’ The de Havilland Otter lifted off Lake Washington without ceremony.
Flying over the stadium where he did numbers
At 1,000 feet, Lynch looked down at Lumen Field and delivered what might be the most understated aerial observation in Seattle history: ‘I did numbers in there.’ Bonney offered to bank left for a better angle. Lynch did not need the better angle. He had already seen enough.
Then Bonney spotted a flat, glassy patch of water below and put the plane right onto it. He cut the engine in the middle of the sound. The plane floated. Lynch climbed out onto the water side of the fuselage and stood there while Bonney noted that landing and shutting down on open water is ‘really what it’s all about.’ Lynch’s instinct was to get Blitz out on the wing and start throwing a football. A pass was attempted. A door was not fully closed. Lynch’s response to the resulting situation: ‘Don’t trip. I’m feeding the fish.’
Blitz, still in full mascot gear, on a floating seaplane in Puget Sound
Blitz the Seahawk, fully costumed, sat in a turboprop seaplane that was drifting on open water somewhere over Seattle’s waterways, with Marshawn Lynch standing on the float beside him and a football that had just gone out the door.
When Bonney asked Lynch directly if he was having fun, Lynch said ‘hell yeah’ without breaking stride. Bonney’s answer was simple: ‘Good. That’s the whole point.’
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