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Locker room politics: Why Richard Sherman can't let things go
This is a long, long article so I only posted a few quotes... but it's a really interesting look at the politics of a locker room. The full link is below. It's how the Seahawks defense is resentful of the offense. This appears to be just ESPN's version of the story... but I did see a Seattle writer tweet this afternoon that in his experience, this article is pretty accurate.
http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/1...oblem-nfl-2017
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Richard Sherman wanted to send a message to Russell Wilson. It was June 2014, and it'd been a testy day at Seahawks minicamp, with defensive players hitting the offense in a non-contact practice. On one play, Sherman had ripped off the helmet and jersey of receiver Phil Bates, igniting a brawl, the cornerback's dreadlocks flopping in the air. Both sides cleared. Pharrell Williams' "Happy" blasted from the loudspeakers. But the defense, a ruthless and crazy and awesome bunch that less than five months earlier had delivered the franchise its first Super Bowl victory, was just getting started.
Sherman is famous for loving practice, for treating it like a game, for rarely missing it even when injured. For him, it's where a mystical bond is forged and a win on Sunday becomes an almost accidental byproduct. And so, a few plays later, when Sherman picked off Wilson, it wasn't enough just to make a great play. He wanted to get inside Wilson's head, to remind the young Pro Bowler that despite his Super Bowl fame -- and endorsements that many on the defense felt they deserved -- Sherman still owned his ass.
According to witnesses, Sherman threw the ball back to Wilson and yelled, "You f---ing suck!" Another fight broke out. Sherman was cussing and yelling; Wilson seemed stunned. Pete Carroll stopped practice and would later hold a series of meetings to remind the players they needed to build each other up, not tear each other down -- and that they needed to support their quarterback, further pissing off a defense that already thought the head coach went out of his way to protect him.
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With 26 seconds left in Super Bowl XLIX, on second-and-goal from the 1, Patriots corner Malcolm Butler jumped a route like nobody had ever jumped a route on the game's biggest stage. That moment haunts the Seahawks to this day. "If Russ had just thrown it low and away ...," one Seahawks staffer says. "If we had just executed the play, it would have been the easiest touchdown in history," says a former assistant coach. Nothing that's happened since -- not the Seahawks twice reaching the divisional round in the playoffs before running into Cam Newton and Matt Ryan, not Wilson developing into a franchise quarterback, not the defense becoming the first since the 1950s Browns to lead the league in points allowed for four straight years -- has brought anything near closure.
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It's been a tense offseason. In mid-March, word emerged that Sherman was available for a trade. Normally, a team would try to squash such a bombshell involving an iconic player beloved by fans. But general manager John Schneider later admitted the team was taking calls. And Carroll had been unusually blunt, saying at the league meetings that many of Sherman's issues -- he seemed to go off the rails at the end of last season as his anger boiled over -- were "self-inflicted."
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Tension flared at strange times last season, blowing little issues into big ones. One day, Sherman walked into a team meeting and found rookie guard Germain Ifedi sitting at a desk. That's a no-no. Rookies sit on the floor; veterans get the desks. Sherman lorded over him, but Ifedi did what Sherman might have done as a rookie: He stayed at the desk.
Finally, Sherman broke: "Get up." Ifedi stood up and knocked over the desk, tossing it aside. The 6-foot-5, 325-pound Ifedi stared at the 6-3, 195-pound Sherman as if ready to throw down. Ifedi eventually stepped aside, but Sherman later told friends that he saw the incident as emblematic of a bigger problem. The offense, led by Wilson, was in the midst of a season in which it would score fewer than 13 points five times, but the only players being held to the lofty standard created by the defense were the members of it.
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Free agents who sign with the Seahawks are always shocked at how savage the locker room can be, a violence at odds with Carroll's laid-back persona. There was a fistfight between Seahawks receivers the night before they beat Denver in the Super Bowl, and nobody was punished. In fact, many considered it a sign of unity that news of the fight didn't immediately get out. No matter what, by kickoff, Sherman would stand in the middle of a circle, brothers in arms, and yell, "We're all we got!" To which his teammates would reply, "We're all we need!"
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"He's always looking at what other people are doing," says a former assistant coach who has had many talks with him. "He's made it personal. It's your fault we're not winning. It wears guys thin."
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A week later, against the Cardinals, Sherman was on the field for 99 snaps, including four on special teams. He was so exhausted and dehydrated, shivering with a fever, that he leaned on Wagner from the shower to his locker and drained two IV bags. It was a warrior effort wasted. Before overtime, Wilson's offense had managed only five first downs and nine punts. The game ended 6-6. The offensive line was manhandled, but Carroll complimented Ifedi's play after the game, privately setting off many Seahawks defenders as an example of Carroll seeming too positive.
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Wilson has been a divisive figure almost from the moment he earned the starting job, long before he became the most famous and highest-paid Seahawk. It seems to go beyond the normal jealousy aimed at most star quarterbacks. Teammates privately seem to want him exposed, but ask them why, or on what grounds, and their reasons vary. A man who vowed to live in transparency -- Wilson famously announced that he was refraining from premarital sex with his then-girlfriend, Ciara -- required guests to sign nondisclosure agreements before entering his box at Mariners games. After the Super Bowl against Denver, team management "fell in love with Russell," in the words of a former high-level staffer; defensive players would see him in executives' offices and wonder, "Why not me?" Pettiness grew. In 2014, Bleacher Report reported that some black teammates "think Wilson isn't black enough." Every Christmas, Wilson gives each player two first-class tickets on Alaska Airlines, one of his endorsements. "It didn't cost him anything," one Seahawk told an assistant coach last year. "Big deal."
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For as great as Wilson has played at times, for as well as he serves as the face of the franchise, for as tough as he is -- last season he played through a sprained MCL, a high ankle sprain and a strained pectoral on his throwing side -- only twice in his five years have the Seahawks finished in the top 10 in points scored. Sherman and the defense know the difference between very good quarterbacks and great ones. They see how Wilson, only 5-11, struggles to anticipate open windows; they see the offensive staff breaking down film of the Saints' offense to figure out ways to deploy tight end Jimmy Graham, an All-Pro in New Orleans and a highly paid, ineffective red zone weapon in Seattle. It galls the defense to hear Wilson, ever positive, stand behind a podium and insist that the offense "made some great plays" after games in which the Seahawks barely score -- and then be propped up as if he were Aaron Rodgers.
"Guys want Pete to call out Russ in front of the team," Smith says. "That's not what Pete does. Pete will single out a guy, but he does it the right way."
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05-25-2017, 06:01 PM
Locker room politics: Why Richard Sherman can't let things go
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