The part about him "just doing this to sell hats" could have been a bit harsh, I agree.
But the NFL must actually love it. Most interviews suck cock, it's the same cliche'd answers people give all the time, and Marshawn's actually giving people something to talk about, and the media's really running with it for all the reasons you know already.
My biggest beef with that link you posted, Kevin, was this:
"This season
Colin Kaepernick was
fined the mandated $10,000 for wearing Beats headphones, which is a direct competitor with league-partner Bose."
...if they were so far against promoting Beats? why would they mention it in the article? Maybe sponsors have changed and such, but this reeks of "they know what they're doing with all of this"