Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman’s postgame diatribe toward 49ers wide receiver Michael Crabtree has been a major talking point over the last 12 hours and Sherman added some more insight into his thought process on Monday with a piece he wrote for TheMMQB.com.
Sherman, a regular contributor to the site, confirmed that the seeds of his animosity for Crabtree came last offseason in Arizona when Crabtree allegedly tried to start a fight with Sherman at a charity event hosted by Cardinals wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald. Sherman wrote that his postgame outburst during an interview with Erin Andrews was fueled partly by his dislike of Crabtree and partly by the adrenaline of the moment.
“It was loud, it was in the moment, and it was just a small part of the person I am. I don’t want to be a villain, because I’m not a villainous person,” Sherman wrote. “When I say I’m the best cornerback in football, it’s with a caveat: There isn’t a great defensive backfield in the NFL that doesn’t have a great front seven. Everything begins with pressure up front, and that’s what we get from our pass rushers every Sunday. To those who would call me a thug or worse because I show passion on a football field — don’t judge a person’s character by what they do between the lines. Judge a man by what he does off the field, what he does for his community, what he does for his family.”
Sherman may not want to be a villain, but he likes to be a provocateur on and off the field. People will have all kinds of responses when provoked — Sherman lamented the “racial slurs and bullying language” he received in Twitter responses after the game — and we’ve seen that in the avalanche of response to Sherman since Sunday’s game ended.
Sherman criticized the Seahawks fans who took it upon themselves to shower 49ers linebacker NaVorro Bowman with food and garbage on his way off the field after suffering a gruesome knee injury in the fourth quarter of the game before closing with some kind words about the Broncos and the “match made in heaven” set for February 2. To Sherman, “there’s nothing left to say” at this point although we’re fairly certain that we’ll hear from him again before the Super Bowl kicks off.