Carroll says he’s talked to Richard Sherman often lately--but downplays a Seahawks re-do
Richard Sherman’s unhappiness over how it the Seahawks ended was blown out of proportion, his former coach and general manager say.
Pete Carroll has talked “quite a few times over the offseason” to Sherman, the coach says. But Carroll on Saturday sought to temper any excitement over the possibility the three-time All-Pro cornerback and Seattle Super Bowl champion will be returning to the Seahawks to play for them again in 2021.
Sherman, 33 years old now and currently unsigned after three seasons playing for San Francisco, said Friday on ESPN he has talked to the Seahawks about a free-agent contract for this year.
“We have stayed in contact,” Carroll said Saturday after the Seahawks made their team record-low three picks and finished the 2021 NFL draft. “He’s out there. I know he’s thinking about it. He’s looking for an opportunity—and I saw where he said there were three or four teams that he’s considering, or whatever.
“So, we’ll see what happens. But, he’s been a great player and he’s still got some ball left in him, I’m sure.
“But at this point, we are going to clear through this day, figure out what happens with the ‘rooks’ coming up, and we’ll see where it sits later on.”
Seattle lost both starting cornerbacks from last season, Shaquill Griffin and Quinton Dunbar, to free agency this spring. The Seahawks signed free-agent Ahkello Witherspoon from San Francisco (where he once started with Sherman) for one year and $4 million guaranteed. Seattle also has former 49ers injured, waived cornerback D.J. Reed, who started at cornerback at the end of last season.
Carroll was pressed later during his post-draft press conference Saturday: How realistic it is that Sherman would return to play for the Seahawks this year?
“I don’t know. I’m just going along with the conversation right now,” Carroll said, with his hands out and palms up toward his room’s ceiling.
“That’s not one of our thoughts right now, that we’re going out and getting another guy at the spot.”
His intent seemed to be to head off any rampant excitement that Sherman returning was imminent, or even likely.
Then Carroll snapped back into his always-compete mode.
“But we’re going to keep looking. We’re not going to stop looking. That’s just, we’re going to compete,” he said. “So in that sense, I leave everything open. And that’s just one of them. You can go ahead and do whatever you want with it, but that’s what it is.”
About an hour after Carroll said that, Bryan Mills, a 6-foot-1, 174-pound cornerback with, yes, 32-inch arms from North Carolina Central, posted on Twitter he was a Seahawks. Apparently he signed one of the first contract Seattle will give to undrafted rookie free agents in the coming days.
The Seahawks released Sherman following the 2017 season, months after he tore his Achilles tendon. The move allowed the team that drafted him in the fifth round in 2011 and made him a national superstar to avoid paying him a non-guaranteed $11 million in 2018.
Sherman signed with the 49ers minutes after his release from Seattle became official. He played in a third career Super Bowl two seasons ago, his first with San Francisco. He’s been limited by injuries the last two seasons, and the Niners let his contract expire following last season.
In an article he wrote for The Players Tribune in the spring of 2018 recapping his release from the Seahawks and signing with the 49ers, Sherman said of his end in Seattle: “I had been dealing with that Achilles for a while. I knew it was gonna go at some point, but I kept on playing because the other guys in the locker room were counting on me.
“Seven years and I didn’t miss a game until my Achilles finally went.
“And this is what I get.
“At the first sign of adversity … they let me go.
“But I understand. This is a business. And the Seahawks decided that the best thing for their franchise was to show me the door.
“Well, I disagree.”
Carroll was reminded by The News Tribune Saturday of Sherman’s less-than-glowing appraisal of how it ended with the Seahawks. The coach was asked how long it took after that before the relationship turned back into a happy one between him, the team and Sherman.
“To me, it was never not like that,” Carroll said.
Schneider added: “Yeah. I think it was blown out of proportion. ...It wasn’t as bad as people thought it was when he left. I was literally talking to him probably 10 minutes before he went in and agreed with the San Francisco 49ers, and talking in a very positive manner.
“I mean, it’s been good.”
The GM and Sherman had an agreement after they released him in early 2018 that he would return get back to Schneider with terms of what he was about to agree to with another team to give the Seahawks a chance to match the offer.
He did. They didn’t.
Carroll said: “I think that’s something that gets read into, more so. Sherm and I always, always have shared thoughts about stuff, as we go through the different cycles of things that have happened in the league, and what’s going on around the country, at times. We have stayed in touch for a long time.
“I don’t that should surprise you, because just think about all the guys that have left here that had done so much for this program and our area and all of that, whether they are still playing or not playing. We’ve maintained, I think, really significant relationships. And Sherm’s one of them.”
Carroll said he’s always thought of Sherman as destined to be the president or eventually, after his playing days, the executive director of the NFL Players’ Association, the union in which he has served on its executive council while playing.
“There’s nothing that Richard can’t do,” Carroll said. “And, fortunately we’ve had a really good relationship and it’s been fun to follow him. I mean, I give him crap whenever I can about games we are playing or whatever’s happening and all of that—and he will turn around and do the same with me. ...
“I’m really proud of the relationship that we’ve had, particularly the things that we’ve done together—and as he’s done well as he’s left, too.”
No matter who he plays for in 2021, Schneider says Sherman will always be Seattle’s.
“Pete said this publicly, and we both feel this way: We’ll be supporting ‘Sherm’ in some form or fashion. He’s always going to be a Seahawk,” Schneider said.
Just maybe not again as a player in 2021.
