A report earlier this offseason indicated that the Seahawks’ Richard Sherman requested a trade, but the cornerback denied that was the case on Wednesday.
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“It’s just a conversation they have every year. I guess this year, more people knew about it,” Sherman said (via the Associated Press). “It’s a conversation they have every year — everybody’s open, everybody’s available. They just made sure I knew, and you guys found out. Pretty open about it. It was never a situation where anybody asked for it. It was just a conversation.”
Regardless of whether the seventh-year man asked out of Seattle, the club did shop him, as each of Sherman, general manager John Schneider and head coach Pete Carroll have acknowledged as much. The Seahawks were unable to find anyone to bite on their reportedly lofty asking price, though, so the four-time Pro Bowler is set to helm the team’s Legion of Boom secondary once again in 2017. Sherman seems content do that, as the 29-year-old doesn’t harbor any ill feelings against Seattle and suggested the team was only doing its due diligence in placing him on the block.
“If somebody comes with two first-rounders, I wouldn’t blame them in the least, you know? I wouldn’t blame them at all,” he stated (per Sheil Kapadia of ESPN.com). “It’d be another crazy trade. Who was it that got traded like that? Herschel Walker or something like that? But it’s just conversation. I think we have a fantastic relationship and always have. And it’s always been transparent to have those communications and not have them in a rude or discourteous way, but just professionally.”
While there were questions earlier in the offseason over whether Sherman would be a Seahawk in 2017, concerns existed that teammate and safety Earl Thomas, a fellow member of the Legion of Boom, wouldn’t play at all. The 28-year-old considered retirement after suffering a season-ending broken tibia in December, and he explained to 710 ESPN Seattle earlier this week why he nearly called it a career after seven years.
“I’m a speedster. So when I initially broke it, I’m like, ‘Dang, my career’s over with.’ That’s why I sent the tweet out,” said Thomas (via Kapadia). “Obviously I was very disappointed. I felt like I was having the best year of my career. But as you go through it, you learn, you understand that you can bounce back. And that’s where I’m at at this point.”
Unsurprisingly, financial reasons played a part in Thomas’ decision to return. Discussing when he decided to put off retirement, Thomas said: “I couldn’t tell you exactly at what point. It was a little bit of everything. I just felt like it wasn’t time. I saw Eric Berry get that huge deal. There’s never enough of that. So just a lot of things that made me come back.”
Berry, a fellow safety who’s the same age as Thomas, re-signed with the Chiefs on a six-year, $78MM contract in February. Thomas still has two years remaining on the four-year, $40MM pact he inked in 2014, but the five-time Pro Bowler will cash in again if he bounces back from his injury to continue performing at a star-caliber level. While Thomas still hasn’t fully recovered, “he’s doing way beyond what we thought he could be,” noted Carroll. Thomas expects to be on the field when Seattle opens its season in Green Bay on Sept. 10.
