The Seahawks have a Super Bowl XLIX hangover, unless they don’t. Opinions are split regarding whether the Super Bowl XLVIII champions continue to struggle with their failure to win a second in a row continues to afflict them, more than two years later.
“I don’t think we’re having so much trouble still getting past that game, but look let’s be honest here,” Seahawks receiver Doug Baldwin said during Tuesday’s PFT Live. “Football provides you with the best opportunity, the best game that football has to provide you with and you get all the way down to the one yard line and you don’t come through, right? It’s difficult. It is a very difficult situation to swallow.
“There were some hiccups after that. There was some mourning, if you will, after that game. . . . [W]hat doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. It’s put us through the ringer because it would’ve done that with anybody, with any team. The difficult nature of handling such an emotional loss, but it didn’t kill us. It’s going to make us stronger, and it has made us stronger. I’m looking forward to the future and to this upcoming season using all of that motivation to continue to push us in the direction we want to go.”
The one player who seems to be having the hardest time getting past Super Bowl XLIX is cornerback Richard Sherman. So what did Baldwin make of the talk regarding Sherman possibly being traded?
“I think it was much made about nothing to be completely honest,” Baldwin said. "[Coach] Pete Carroll and [G.M.] John Schneider, they’ve always been very transparent and very open about the way that they run their program. Of course, anything that comes across their table, they’re going to look at, they’re going to view. That’s just the nature of the business. No matter how ridiculous it is or how absurd it is, they’re going to look at it. They got offers for Sherm, I’m sure. That was the rumor out in the NFL. To some degree, I’m sure it’s part of the offseason. You guys really have nothing else to talk about. You have to make storylines for fans to click, which is important to our game. Again, not much there.”
But what about the team’s willingness to admit that, indeed, Sherman was available?
“Again, it’s the nature of the business, right?” Baldwin said. “It’s just how it goes. There’s a number of conversations that have been had during the offseason of guys being traded or being released or being picked up. That’s just the nature of the business. It’s the NFL, it’s the world that we live in. For me as an athlete and a player who’s been in the league for going on seven years now, it’s not something that surprises me.”
Not that the window has closed on a possible trade of Richard Sherman, some wonder whether Sherman is all in for 2017. Baldwin doesn’t.
“Absolutely, no doubt in my mind,” Baldwin said regarding whether Sherman is fully committed. “He’s always been that way, though. . . . He’s been in OTAs, he’s been training hard, he’s been with his teammates preparing for the upcoming season and then helping the young guys prepare and get ready as well. He’s always been all in, he’s still all in. He’s a fantastic player obviously, to more about that he’s just a fantastic teammate. None of that has changed, none of that is different. He’s still grinding and being the guy that he is.”
If that’s the case, the Seahawks will be fine for having dealt with the dysfunction. And as Baldwin would say, since it didn’t kill them, it made them stronger.