Marshawn Lynch joins Amazon’s ‘Thursday Night Football’ team

If you had zero interest in this week’s Thursday Night Football game between the Chicago Bears and Washington Commanders, then maybe you’ll at least check the pre-game.

Seattle Seahawks great Marshawn Lynch is the latest addition to the broadcast team, although unlike former teammate Richard Sherman he won’t be used in an analyst role. Instead, he’ll be in pre-game features in the city where that week’s TNF game is being played.

Lynch is not too far removed from another DUI arrest, which was caught on police body cam footage. According to Marie Donoghue, Amazon’s vice president of Global Sports Video, that wasn’t the reason Lynch wasn’t officially brought on by Amazon until the middle of the season.

From the New York Post:

“I think Marshawn wanted to work through some things,” Donoghue said on the podcast. “We were already working with him. We never walked away. We just worked through some things with him and we’re excited. We can’t wait for him to join.”

Lynch will be in three to four-minute features that Amazon is calling, “‘N Yo’ City.” On Thursday, prior to the Commanders’ game at the Bears, Lynch’s first feature is him playing football with kids from Highland Park, the suburb of Chicago that was ravaged by a gunman on July 4th. The following week, Lynch will be feeding alligators before Saints vs. Cardinals.

Amazon always had interest in Lynch as the company’s streaming service kicks off its first season with exclusive TNF rights, so this wasn’t an out of the blue hiring. Starting this Thursday, you’ll have at least a few minutes of Lynch on your Prime Video feed in the lead-up to kickoff.