Before Richard Sherman was shutting down receivers as the 49ers' star cornerback, he was feuding with San Francisco's top pass-catcher as a member of the Seattle Seahawks' Legion of Boom.
The 49ers and Seahawks' rivalry was at legendary heights when Sherman was leading Seattle's defensive backs. And his beef with Michael Crabtree was front and center. It reached new levels when Sherman called Crabtree a "sorry receiver" when he shut him down at the end of the 2013 NFC Championship Game to beat the 49ers.
To Sherman, however, that somehow doesn't count as trash talk.
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"That wasn't really trash talk," Sherman told comedian Kevin Hart on LOL Network's "Cold As Balls." "Like sometimes, it's just the truth. Sometimes you just let your truth ring free"
Crabtree had four receptions for 52 yards on eight targets and didn't score a touchdown in the 49ers' loss. Sherman had two tackles and his one pass defensed was a tip that wound up being a game-winning interception from Seahawks linebacker Malcolm Smith.
Hart also asked Sherman if he and Crabtree still are "friends."
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As he pulled a Dennis Rodman with his hands, Sherman, in an odd fashion, said, "It's a complicated, convoluted ... a lot of moving parts to the situation that go up and down and around and over there. You know, one of those situations where you just let it be everywhere but nowhere, and I ain't never there."
Sherman's issues with Crabtree started well before the two squared off in the NFL, and it's all thanks to Sherman's older brother, Branton. When Richard was a receiver at Stanford, Branton knew how to get his little brother motivated.
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“Bro, I don’t know who this guy Crabtree is over at Texas Tech, but he is doin’ numbers!” Branton remembered telling his brother in an interview with NBC Sports Bay Area's Matt Maiocco in October 2019.
“So what?" Richard replied, according to his brother. "He’s at Texas Tech. They throw every single play. He’s not all that good. He’s a’ight, he’s cool, but he’s not that good where those numbers match up to how good he is.”
The younger Sherman has been the master of motivation in the NFL. His older brother isn't too bad at it either.
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