We Don’t Want To Hear What Richard Sherman Has To Say

When Richard Sherman gave what I thought was a terrific post-game interview after the Seattle Seahawks win over the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday, the interview took center-stage, the game exited stage right.

Some people thought Sherman was “classless,” one of the favorite words of 21^st century America when feigning outrage. Yeah, he screamed that Michael Crabtree was a “sorry receiver.” He also screamed that he was the best corner in the game.

Look, Crabtree and Sherman hate each other. Pete Carroll and Jim Harbaugh hate each other. The Seahawks and Niners hate each other.

I think that the NFL usually pales in comparison to college football for excitement, drama, passion and pageantry, but that NFC title game had it all. It was awesome, and what Sherman did in the post-game interview was simply an extension of the game itself.

If FOX had grabbed Russell Wilson for the interview, we would have gotten blasé clichés. We’ve all seen that interview countless times, and it’s mind-numbingly boring.

If Erin Andrews had trained her attention on Marshawn Lynch, we would have gotten to see a guy so terrified of facing the most innocuous and bland questioning that he hasn’t spoken to the media all year and would have accepted NFL fines for not doing so in the playoffs until the league relented.

We got Sherman, and we got a half-minute of authentic and unusual television.

Use that half-minute against Sherman. He’s already been forced into an unauthentic apology. Go ahead. Call him classless, and then turn around and call Wilson boring. That’s what we do in American sports.

If you’re an athlete, you can’t win when the camera is on. You’re just don’t want to say anything damaging. I understand why Lynch runs from reporters like he does linebackers.

You think that kind of trash talking didn’t go on between Sherman and Crabtree for the entire game, and the games before that?

Apparently, the grudge between these two goes back to an offseason confrontation.

And if you know Sherman, or have read his writing for Peter King’s Monday Morning Quarterback site, you know this is indicative of how the man behaves and talks.

Hell, I was just impressed Sherman didn’t require the effective use of a seven-second delay.

If you want to know who Richard Sherman really is as a person – after all, you’ve bought the guy’s jersey, and you’ve supported him with heart and soul, through thick and thin – that’s fine and normal. But when he shows you, don’t recoil and tell him never to say anything real again.

If you don’t want to know who Richard Kevin Sherman is, and you just want to know the cornerback who wears #25 for Seattle, that’s fine too. But don’t have any expectation that Sherman the man is a guy you’d want to be rooting for as much as

#25, and don’t whine that athletes should say something interesting once in a while.

What if Sherman gets busted for PEDs? He’s in the Seahawks secondary; it’s only a matter of time. Do those same people who wanted Sherman to robotically spew the old, “San Fran is a great team, and we have so much respect for them… I’d like to thank my teammates, without them this isn’t possible…” feel betrayed?

The hypocrisy is frustrating.

We simply have no idea who Sherman, or Wilson, or any of these guys are off the field. And I think in part that’s because we don’t want to know athletes for real.

My guess is that Sherman keeps talking. He’s already said that he wants to become a commentator when he retires. But will Sherman be taken seriously? Will we value what he says? Or will this guy just be a punchline?

The choke sign and taunting Crabtree after the play were out of bounds. That was wrong. But what in the interview was even controversial?

We love books and rumors on “tales from the campaign trail” and “tales in the dugout” and “from the locker room,” but when we have a chance to hear from a primary source exactly what is real, we back away.

Certainly, there’s a racial undertone here too. In the classless to classy range, a disproportionate number of white athletes to black athletes fall on the “classy” side. And to realize that this story took over the news cycle on Martin Luther King Jr. Day underlines that point. 

You may not like what Sherman said, or what he’s about. But that’s much different than begrudging him for saying it at all.

Certainly, there are people who stuck up for Sherman and regarded his comments as fascinating, refreshing, or just plan fun.

But if you’re a star quarterback and you say what Sherman said in the safety of a closed locker room or tunnel instead of when the red light is on, you’re going to be richer, respected, and realize that you never want to say anything that is even borderline interesting.

What Sherman said was honest. The way he said – unflinchingly – was impressive. Sherman went to Stanford, got a 4.2 GPA in high school, and he’s a hell of a football player. That’s what we know about him. He showed us something more. I applaud that. Why doesn’t everybody?

The truth is, many people just don’t want to hear what Richard Sherman has to say.