So if the latest report from ESPN on the Richard Sherman situation is true, the Seahawks are actively shopping the star cornerback not because they want to send him a message or because they want to see what they can get for him but because he wanted it to happen.
If it is true, the situation is less about the Seahawks wanting to send a message and/or to move on from Sherman than it is about Sherman wanting to move on from the Seahawks or, at a minimum, to let the Seahawks know that he’s valued highly by other teams. Either way, he’s not valued highly enough at this point by other teams to result in a team giving up, as reported by Armando Salguero of the Miami Herald, a very good young player and a high pick in the draft.
Sherman is surely not the first player who has agitated for a trade; plenty of others over the years have tried to finagle a deal only to be told, “No.” The Seahawks have instead accommodated his request, and recently opted for full transparency about the situation.
Sherman, if it’s true that he initiated the process, opted originally for zero transparency.
“I just laugh it off, man,” Sherman said last month of then-nascent trade chatter. “It’s funny to me. But sometimes people need to see you gone to realize what you had. The grass isn’t always greener on the other side. But I don’t let things like that bother me. The chips will fall how they’re supposed to.”
Armed with the knowledge (again, if the ESPN report is true) that Sherman started this, that comment reads a lot like some of the comments he made when he kind of/sort of launched a media boycott. “You’re going to miss me when I’m gone,” Sherman told reporters in late December. It seems as it he’s currently trying to make that point not just to those who cover the Seahawks but to the Seahawks as well.
And so just as the awkward dance between the Cowboys and Tony Romo has finally ended, the Seahawks and Sherman are currently whirling before us; limbs flailing, arms akimbo, feet kicking up dust. Soon enough, we’ll know whether the final movement will consist of the two sides coming together again or separating for good.
At this point, we can only hope for the moment the music finally stops.