There were two popular subjects on Super Bowl Media Day, or at least two other than the Danish TV guy dressed as Waldo (please, go hide again) or the young window dressing from TV Azteca who seemed to have no real purpose other than to stroll around in heels and the minimal amount of white thread, thereby exposing her maximum amount of chemically enhanced assets.
Media Day is about stories. Occasionally the stupid stories, but usually the biggest stories.
There are two significant ones this year: Peyton Manning, the legend, and Richard Sherman, who talks a lot.
Several hundred media members gathered around Manning to bask in his greatness. Then they gathered around Sherman, just hoping he would say something dumb because sometimes that’s what he does (and that’s always what we do).
We waited. And waited. And waited.
“Maybe I’m disappointing some people,” Sherman said Tuesday. “I’m not going to be controversial all the time. I don’t play to somebody else’s drum. I’m not somebody else’s puppet. I’m going to be myself — good, bad or indifferent. It’s not always going to be the sound bite that you want. Sometimes it’s going to be intellect, something that you have to think about. Sometimes I’ll say something that makes you go to a dictionary.”
Stanford guy. They think they’re so great.
Full disclosure: I actually like Sherman. I appreciate people who speak their mind, those who are genuine with their emotions and don’t pre-filter every word or thought before it leaves their mouth. When he was ridiculed last week for his adrenalin-fueled, postgame vent, part of me understood why there was a backlash, but most of me wondered: Wait. This guy just helped win a football game over an opponent that he and his teammates openly hate. A warm embrace would’ve been phony.
Sherman can be obnoxious. And a loudmouth. He acknowledges as much. “Sometimes I make it easy for (critics),” he said, laughing.
But he’s also more well-rounded than most pro athletes. He plays hard. He has made himself from an afterthought of a draft pick (fifth round) into one of the top cornerbacks in he NFL.
He gives back to the community with his “Blanket Coverage” foundation, which provides schools supplies and clothes to children. He survived an upbringing in some of the worst parts of Los Angeles — Watts and Compton — and went on to achieve academically in high school and college … at Stanford.
Sherman can be stupid, as he was after the NFC Championship game when he denigrated San Francisco’s Michael Crabtree and gave the choke sign to Colin Kaepernick. He can seem classless and selfish. He can come off as a “front-runner” who “talked his way” into an All-Pro honor (he was so dubbed by Falcons receiver Roddy White).
On Tuesday, Sherman was given a platform to change the narrative.
He was given an hour. He used all 3,600 seconds. He probably would’ve kept going if a team official and a security guard hadn’t come to get him.
This is what the smart ones do. Face the music, change the lyrics.
He talked non-stop, from the first question about what the past week and a half have meant to him as a brand — I’ll take that one: He is expected to go from $550,000 to $5 million in endorsements — to how long he would talk if the NFL didn’t cut him off (into infinity).
He hugged kids. He talked about staying in school. He hugged fans masquerading as credentialed media. He finished song lyrics for a woman from one TV station. He fielded questions on race, ego, his parents, Stanford, Compton, music, Justin Bieber and Muhammad Ali.
“I’m not worried about everybody trying to dissect my life because I don’t have anything to hide,” he said. “I don’t have any bad things in my past. The more people look, I’m sure they’ll see that and the less they’ll judge me off of 30 seconds of ranting.”
Regrets?
“I regretted just attacking a man,” he said. “You never want to talk down on a man to build yourself up and things like that. So I regretted that, and I regretted taking that attention away from my teammates. That’s the one thing that I wish I could do again.
“If I had more time after the game, it would’ve been better articulated obviously. Lower tone. Lower volume. Clearer, more concise message. People would’ve viewed (me) different.”
Racial attacks? Being called a “thug” — which Sherman cleverly depicted as a disguised form of the “n” word?
“You really are taken aback that people have time to think about the message they were putting out there, and that’s what they put out there. I had a minute to think about what I wanted to say (on TV) right after a big game. Obviously I grew from that and understand the mistakes I made. But it’s hard to understand the people who actually had time to think about it.”
The media often put the ball on the tee for him. Sherman didn’t swing away.
I asked him if he believed Jim Harbaugh, his former Stanford coach, against whom he often knocked heads, might’ve submarined him to NFL scouts.
A slight swat: “I think there was some of that.”
Even when I asked him about the playoff loss to the Falcons in the 2012 season, his comments were mild. The Falcons won 30-28, blowing a 27-7 fourth-quarter lead, only to win on a Matt Bryant field goal with eight seconds left. Sherman was torched a few times by White, one of his vocal rivals, including for a 47-yard touchdown.
“The loss to Atlanta really changed the mindset of our team,” he said. “We understood how cutthroat the playoffs were. We were so close to tasting victory. When you feel that sharp pain, you never want to feel it again.”
When asked about his battles with White, Sherman smiled and said, “There were battles — and then there weren’t battles.”
He talks for a reason — to get in player’s heads, to get himself going. He admired Muhammad Ali, how he stood up for his beliefs, how he spoke, the way he marketed himself.
But his work ethic came from his parents. His father drove a garbage truck. His mother was a clerk for children’s services.
“I admired their passion, their ability to look past all of the negativity,” he said. “We lived in Watts. We lived in Compton. We were never in the best situation, but we were never made to feel that way. They worked hard. That’s how life should be lived.”
Nice story.
But you know what? He’s still a villain in this Super Bowl. So many fans don’t just want to see Manning and Denver win, they want to see Sherman humiliated.
“Oh, I fully understand that,” he said. “I’ve fully understood that my entire life, people wanting to see you fail. But you stay focused, and you pay the price.”
Eventually, they came to get Sherman — the team official, the security guard. His Seattle teammates had left their respective interview stations. For them, Tuesday was a chore. For Sherman, Tuesday was a stage.
“I could do this all day,” he said.
It’s the best way to change the narrative.
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