This is Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman. He is good at his job. He told the world as much on Sunday after he deflected the 49ers' final pass attempt into a teammate's arms to win the game. Reaction to his postgame exclamations range from "What a breath of fresh air to see actual personality from an athlete!" to "Richard Sherman is literally Joseph Stalin" and there's pretty much no middle ground. I really don't care that much about his interview; I wasn't that into it but I'm not exactly storming his front lawn with a torch and a pitchfork. I still want his team to win the Super Bowl.
But for Richard Sherman and the Seahawks, it would be nice if this story worked its way out of the news cycle. Recall that in 2005, when the Steelers and second-year QB Ben Roethlisberger were gearing up for Super Bowl XL, very little attention was paid to the young gunslinger leading up to the biggest game of his life. The media focus was on Jerome Bettis playing in his hometown and Joey Porter's war of words with Jerramy Stevens.
While I believe Porter genuinely wasn't a fan of Stevens, I also think this was calculated to a degree. Bettis and Porter were comfortable with all the media attention. There was no desire on the Steelers' part to thrust Ben any further into the spotlight than he needed to be.
Which brings us back to Richard Sherman. With all the chatter about what it means to have sportsmanship or humility or whatever is taking the attention off of Russell Wilson for now. Maybe Sherman is fine with that. But he's also a young guy (only 25) who has to prepare for the biggest game of his life against scarily-talented receivers and the best pocket passer in NFL history across from him. I don't think he needs to keep writing guest columns in SI and doing interviews on CNN right now. What he needs is a change of narrative so he can focus on football. This would be a great time for some linebacker to start saying stuff about Peyton Manning, but with the grizzled veterans on the Hawks' roster only 32 years old and there isn't much big game experience to go around.
Maybe a guy like Marshawn Lynch can take the brunt of the media focus, I don't know. I'm basically taking shots in the dark with that. All I know is that I wouldn't want a couple of 25-year-olds who haven't been here before shouldering the load during Super Bowl Week. We'll see if the conversation changes between now and the game, but right now I think all this media coverage favors the Broncos.
