Richard Sherman has more, better to say on Seahawks’ Pete Carroll than he does Russell Wilson
Richard Sherman had more and better to say about Pete Carroll than he did Russell Wilson.
Way more. And way better.
The three-time All-Pro cornerback was asked three days before he returns to Seattle for the first time as a Seahawks opponent with his new San Francisco 49ers on Sunday about his former Seahawks coach and quarterback.
“I’m sure we will some relationships at some point and talk. Pete was a good man and a good coach and did everything he can for that franchise,” Sherman told reporters at 49ers headquarters on Thursday.
“I don’t have any ill will towards him, at all.”
That was about 5 minutes after he answered a question about his relationship with Wilson, the quarterback with whom Sherman won a Super Bowl at the end of the 2013 season and played in another the following year.
“I don’t really have a relationship with Russell,” Sherman said.
“We were teammates. We played during a special time for the franchise.”
Reporters in Santa Clara, Calif., also asked Sherman if after seven seasons practicing against him with the Seahawks he is uniquely aware of what Wilson is capable of as he prepares to play against him for the first time this weekend.
“I’ve also seen him throw five picks in a game,” Sherman said. “So you see what he’s capable of on both sides of it.
“You understand that he can be defended.”
OK then.
Sherman clearly appreciates Carroll for drafting the former wide receiver in the fifth round out of Stanford for his height and long arms, and then fitting him into the coach’s press-coverage and aggressive-cornerback system. Sherman became a Super Bowl champion, a perennial All-Pro, a national superstar free to say and act as he pleased, and a $56 million man.
Sherman also appreciates what Carroll said about him on Wednesday. First was when the coach was asked what reception he expected Seahawks fans to give Sherman at CenturyLink Field on Sunday.
“I mean, I think he’s loved around here for all the great stuff that he did,” Carroll said. “I don’t know that it’s going to be noticeable what the reception is like. If it’s noticeable then it’s pretty significant. He did a lot of great stuff here. I don’t think our fans think any differently than I do about that.”
Carroll said the combative, competitive Sherman—who berated both his defensive and Seattle’s offensive coordinators in different games on the sideline during the 2016 season—was a challenge to manage.
“He was a challenge, yeah. He was a challenge like many of our guys,” Carroll said. “It was a challenge in being willing to really work with somebody and see the beautiful aspects of this individual.
“He was an amazing person and I had great respect for him. I was challenged because he’s brilliant and he had a lot of thoughts. This tremendous competitiveness about him that took him places that some other athletes don’t get to. Every bit of it was worth it.”
Sherman is now with the 49ers because the Seahawks basically fired him in March. Carroll and Seattle general manager John Schneider decided to waive Sherman injured months into his recovery from a torn Achilles tendon rather than pay him the $11 million the team owed him for 2018.
Thursday, Sherman told Bay Area reporters: “It’s unfortunate had to come to an end the way it did. But it is what it is...You just expect they wouldn’t cut you while you were hurt...
“They didn’t handle some things like I felt they should have, other guys thought they should have. But it is what it is at this point.”
Doug Baldwin is one of those guys who thought the Seahawks didn’t handle Sherman’s end they way they should have.
Baldwin and Sherman were teammates at Stanford before they entered the NFL together with Seattle in 2011.
“I thought it was really sh***y, to be honest with you, how it ended,” the Pro Bowl wide receiver said on Wednesday.
When asked if he regretted how it ended in Seattle for Sherman, Carroll emphasized how Sherman, representing himself with no agent, and the coach remained in lock-step throughout the team waiving him in March.
“We had tremendous conversations about all the way through the stages of what happened at the end,” Carroll said. “Sherm and I were sitting in my office eye-to-eye talking through everything. It was really straightforward, clear. He was handling his own business so he had to really be on top of it, which he was, and he did a fantastic job for himself, too.
“Our communications were great. We really haven’t communicated since then; I don’t know, there may be a couple of messages here and there back and forth. I’ve watched carefully to see how he’s doing. Like I said earlier today, I was really concerned about his rehab and his coming back. He did a marvelous job of getting back just like you knew he would, but he still had to do it. It was a great accomplishment to get that done.”
Sherman agreed with Carroll’s assessment Thursday.
“A hundred percent, 100 percent. We had open communications the whole time,” Sherman told reporters in Santa Clara.
“The business of football isn’t a comfortable thing. It was just matter-of-fact and business.”
Sherman said he stands behind the comments he made on his way out of Seattle in March, that the Seahawks “lost their way” in building championship teams, on top of him saying veteran, core players had tuned out Carroll’s messages.
“One-hundred percent,” Sherman said. “If you just look at the draft classes we had early on and the draft classes they have had in the last three, four, five years, the truth is the truth. I don’t have to make stuff up.”
“People can take it how they want to. It’s unfortunate that things have gone the way they have.”
This week, Carroll took the high road about that.
“Sherm had to do what he had to do. He had to change allegiance and get tuned into his new team,” Carroll said. “Whatever took place was OK. I didn’t care. I know who Sherm is. I know him way differently than you guys probably think I do.
“I think the world of him. There were times along the time he was here when he said things that I might not have agreed with and had to work through and all that. He’s his own man and he was a stud of a guy when he was here.
“Whatever came out in the transition, I don’t care. I could care less about that.”
This story was originally published November 30, 2018 at 12:37 PM.
