Richard Sherman says he, Seahawks have talked a possible return to Seattle for 2021
Richard Sherman makes his return to Seattle sound more plausible.
But the Seahawks just drafted a cornerback.
Sherman, the former Seahawks All-Pro and Super Bowl-champion cornerback, said on ESPN Friday he has talked to Seattle about a possible return to playing in 2021 for the team that drafted him in 2011 and made him a superstar.
“Obviously, a return to San Francisco isn’t out of the cards,” Sherman, currently a free agent, told ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith. “I’ve had conversations with Seattle. I’ve had conversations with the Saints, the Raiders, and we’ve just got wait to see how things play out.”
The Seahawks lost both starting cornerbacks from 2020 in free agency this offseason, Shaquill Griffin to Jacksonville and Quinton Dunbar to Detroit.
Seattle drafted Oklahoma cornerback Tre Brown Saturday in the fourth round. He’s the second of the team’s four picks in this year’s draft. He’s not the Sherman/Pete Carroll prototype: a tall, long cornerback. Brown is 5 feet 10.
The 6-3 Sherman is again representing himself in contract negotiations, as he did following the 2017 season. That was when Seattle released him following his torn Achilles tendon, after 117 games, 111 starts, seven seasons, four Pro Bowls, three All-Pro selections, two Super Bowls, the franchise’s only NFL championship — and growth into one of the most successful and outspoken personalities in Seattle sports history.
The only NFL team Sherman had known, the team that transformed him from a ticked-off, overlooked fifth-round draft choice into a national superstar, saved $11 million in base pay against the 2018 salary cap by cutting him.
“At the first sign of adversity...they let me go,” Sherman said weeks after he signed with San Francisco in the spring of 2018.
Over time, that chill has thawed. Sherman maintained his Seattle-area home in Maple Valley. He mentored the Seahawks’ Griffin regularly, from San Francisco.
Now, after Sherman played three seasons, the last two shortened by more injuries, and returned to the Super Bowl with the 49ers two seasons ago, he’s unsigned again. And the Seahawks are in need of tall, long cornerbacks—the Carroll prototype Sherman personified and made famous from 2011-17 in Seattle.
Before drafting Brown Saturday, Seattle signed free agent Ahkello Witherspoon, a former starter with Sherman in San Francisco, for one year and $4 million this offseason.
The Seahawks also have D.J. Reed, another former 49er, returning. He’s not the standard Carroll cornerback; he’s 5 feet 9. But he emerged as an aggressive nickel defensive back inside then starting cornerback by last season’s end, after the Seahawks claimed him off injury and waivers from the Niners in September.
Meanwhile, Sherman is waiting for teams to sort through this weekend’s draft. He sounded Friday on ESPN as if he will sign somewhere after the draft—though it may be a while.
“It’s on pause. I’ve got to wait through this draft process,” Sherman said. “Obviously...some teams got corners, other teams didn’t get the corners that they wanted.
“I think once this draft process completes, my phone will ring a little more with people who expected to get a guy and didn’t, and didn’t get the guy they wanted. I’m not a guy who’s in control as I was. You know, at 33, it’s not...it’s like, it doesn’t matter what you put on tape—ahhh!—Father Time is undefeated. It’s, we are going to go with the young guy. Doesn’t matter what accolades you have, what you put on tape, the numbers. It’s just age, sometimes.
“So, I’ve just got to continue to stay in shape, stay ready.”
This story was originally published May 1, 2021 at 12:13 PM.
