Richard Sherman quickly has gone from being amused to bemused.
A week after laughing off talk of a possible trade from Seattle, the seventh-year cornerback has taken a more serious tack regarding the possibility that his days in Seattle are coming to an end. On Thursday, he provided this statement to Gee Scott of 710 ESPN: “I wouldn’t want to leave this city and my guys, but I understand it’s a business and organizational philosophies change.”
Said Sherman last week about then-nascent trade chatter: “I just laugh it off, man. It’s funny to me. But sometimes people need to see you gone to realize what you had. The grass isn’t always greener on the other side. But I don’t let things like that bother me. The chips will fall how they’re supposed to.”
So what changed in the interim? Among other things, G.M. John Schneider didn’t scoff at the notion of a Sherman trade, saying instead that “[w]e listen to everything.”
Sherman apparently has gotten the message.
He has $4.4 million of bonus money that would hit the cap, either in a pair of $2.2 million chunks or all at once. Also, $5 million of his base salary for 2017 became fully-guaranteed a year ago. A trade of the contract, which has a total base salary of $11.431 million for 2017, would absolve the Seahawks of that obligation.
No trade partners have emerged for Sherman, but with the draft four weeks away, all it takes is a phone call. The Seahawks are ready to listen.