National take on Marshawn Lynch, Seahawks gets lost in recitation

Ever play a game of telephone?

You start with a single phrase or statement, whisper it just once into the ear of the person next to you and have them repeat it just once to see how distorted the message gets with each person who recites it.

It’s something I remember my grade-school teacher using to show just how quickly a message can get mangled, and there was a pretty good example this weekend.

Here’s what Mike Freeman, NFL reporter at Bleacher Report, Tweeted on Saturday: “Michael Irvin says reason Lynch not playing is due to friction between Lynch and the team.”

According to the NFL Network’s transcript of Irvin’s comments on “GameDay”, here’s what Irvin actually said: “I’m wondering is it a physical thing or is it a mental thing? Is he hurt or do they have some kind of situation going on in Seattle? I’m just curious … Because even if he’s hurt, we would get the, ‘We’re going to see and take it up to game day, he’ll be on the trip with us, we’ll see if he warms up well and see how he goes.’ “

That concludes this week’s game of telephone, brought to you by the reporter who previously said that perceptions of Russell Wilson’s “blackness” played a part in Seattle’s decision to trade Percy Harvin and used an anonymous source to insist that Jimmy Graham’s feelings about Seattle’s offense were more hostile than what Graham himself said five days later.