RENTON, Wash. -- When Doug Baldwin describes Marshawn Lynch as the type of teammate who would give you the shirt off his back, he doesn't just mean it figuratively.

He has a story to prove it.

One day early in Baldwin's career, while he was still playing on the minimum-salary rookie contract he'd signed as an undrafted free agent, he noticed Lynch strolling through the Seattle Seahawks' locker room with a slick-looking backpack. He told Lynch he liked it and asked where he could get one himself.

To Baldwin's surprise, Lynch took the backpack off, dumped out its contents and said, "Here, you can have it."

"Just as simple and plain as that," Baldwin said. "It didn't matter who you were. If you respected and loved him for him as a person and who he was, he would literally give you his backpack off his back. I thought that was just the epitome of the man that he was.”

It's a side of Lynch beyond the ones that most observers know -- the hard-charging running back who helped define an era of Seahawks football; the Skittle-popping, crotch-grabbing character who would either make you crack up or cringe, depending on your sensibilities; and the free-spirited player whose tendency to flout authority made him a handful for team management during his later years in Seattle.

There was also his benevolent side, evident in stories that were either revealed or revisited this week, with the Seahawks set to reunite with Lynch when they play against him and the Oakland Raiders on Sunday in London.

'He was always thinking about other people'

Seahawks defensive coordinator Ken Norton Jr. was still the team's linebackers coach in 2013 when his father, former heavyweight boxing champion Ken Norton Sr., died following a stroke.

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Lynch asked for permission to miss a team meeting that day so he could rush to the airport and see Norton off before he flew back home.

"He wanted to go sit with Ken and comfort him until he got on the airplane," Lynch's position coach at the time, Sherman Smith, told ESPN. "That's the kind of guy he was. He was always thinking about other people. He left our meeting and went to the airport, and Ken Norton Jr. would tell you how much that meant to him that Marshawn would do that."

Smith added: "[Norton] told me about it and he said it meant a lot to him. That was special. Made him cry."

The lost wallet

During an off day in 2014, Lynch and receiver Ricardo Lockette were among a handful of Seahawks who traveled about 30 minutes north of Seattle to visit Marysville Pilchuck High School, which had been the site of a deadly shooting a month earlier. Lynch and Lockette were stopped at a gas station on their way home when Lynch noticed a wallet on the ground.

"He reaches down, looks at it, and I'm thinking he's just going to throw it in the trash, like, 'Let's roll' or whatever," Lockette told ESPN. "He gives the wallet to the driver and says, 'Let's go to this address.' We have no idea how far out of the way, is it on the way, do we know this guy, what's going to happen."

When they arrived at the man's home and knocked on his door, no one answered. Lockette saw Lynch turn around and thought he was heading back to the car. Instead he went next door. When no one answered there, he went to the next house over. The woman who answered the door asked if he was Lynch and pressed him when he said he wasn't. Lynch eventually relented and posed for pictures with the woman before giving her the wallet to return to her neighbor.

Lockette said the gesture gave him a "whole different respect" for Lynch.

"That was just really humbling for me," he said. "That let me know that no matter how big you get, how far you get, no matter what happens in life, always remain that same person."

Ricardo Lockette left the field in Dallas in 2015 in an ambulance, but he didn't leave town without talking all night with a friend, Marshawn Lynch. AP Photo/Michael Ainsworth

'I couldn't let you stay by yourself'

Lockette's career ended in 2015 because of a frightening neck injury he suffered during a win over the Cowboys in Dallas. He left the field in an ambulance and was taken to a nearby hospital, where he was told the next day that he'd never play football again.

The Seahawks' travel protocol, according to Lockette, was that if you flew in with the team, then you flew out with the team. As such, he said several teammates texted him on their way home to tell him that they would have stayed behind with him in Dallas if they were allowed to.

"And all of the sudden I hear a knock on the door and my mom and dad say, 'Hey, somebody wants to see you.' I'm thinking, 'Who are my mom and dad letting through the door right now at like my worst time? This is definitely not the time for company.'"

It was Lynch.

"Marshawn comes in and is like, 'Man, I couldn't let you stay, bruh. I couldn't let you stay by yourself.' So I don't know what he did. I don't know if he just left. I never got that story from him. I never even asked. I was just so happy that he was there."

According to Lockette, Lynch also put his parents up in a downtown Dallas suite while they remained in town following his surgery.

"I am forever grateful for him staying with me in my roughest moment," Lockette said. "We talked all night. I didn't know if I was going to live, I didn't know if I was going to die, I didn't know if I was going to be able to play football again, I didn't know anything. But all I knew at that point was that I had my brother in the room with me, that whatever happened, we was going to do it together.

"He'll forever be my brother no matter what. No matter where I go, until my last breath. I love him."