Here's how steep the asking price is for Seahawks to part with Richard Sherman
The Seahawks are reportedly willing to deal Sherman for a Revis-like bounty
By
Ryan Wilson
•
2 min read
Who knows if Seahawks Pro Bowl cornerback Richard Sherman will be traded this offseason, but if it happens, the price will be steep.
How steep, exactly?
“We’re talking Darrelle Revis Jets-to-Buccaneers type of deal,” NFL Network’s Mike Garafolo told Good Morning Football on Tuesday, via NFL.com. “That’s what’s going to get this thing done.”
Quick refresher: Days before the 2013 NFL Draft, the Jets shipped in-his-prime cornerback Darrelle Revis to Tampa Bay for the Bucs’ 2013 first-round pick (No. 13 overall) and a conditional fourth-round pick in 2014.
The Sherman trade rumors all started innocently enough, perhaps more speculative than anything: The Seahawks would be willing to trade Richard Sherman. Sherman initially laughed it off but days later he had a different tone. “I wouldn’t want to leave this city and my guys, but understand it’s a business and organizational philosophies change.”
Last week, Seahawks general manager John Schneider took it a step further.
“What you’ve seen lately in the news is real,” Schneider told 710 ESPN Seattle’s “Brock and Salk” show. “That’s on both sides.”
The GM made it sound like the Seahawks weren’t necessarily planning to trade Sherman but the possibility of shipping him out of town has been discussed. And through it all, the organization has been up front with Sherman, who reportedly initiated the trade-talk conversations.
“This isn’t a secret like this just came out of nowhere,” Schneider explained. “People find things out and we’re not going to lie to each other and we’re not going to BS each other. It’s going to be all laid out, and like I said, that doesn’t happen everywhere. We have open lines of communication between our coaching staff and our player personnel staff. It goes through player development, it goes through our sports science group. There’s a lot going on there.”
Sherman ranked 10th among all cornerbacks last season, according to Pro Football Focus, though it’s worth pointing out that he earned the lowest pass-coverage grade of his career. In fact, his pass-coverage grades have declined the past three seasons. Again, this is all relative; Sherman ranked 15th in pass coverage in 2016, just behind Marcus Peters and Patrick Peterson.
There could be an easy explanation, however: Sherman played last season with an undisclosed MCL injury. As TheMMQB.com’s Andy Benoit points out, that could go a long way toward explaining Sherman’s struggles with changing direction. But the cornerback is also 28 years old with two years left on a contract that carries cap figures of $13.6 million (2017) and $13.2 million (2018).
For now, it sounds like the Legion of Boom will remain intact; Garafolo, after speaking with a source on Monday night, reports that no team has come close to matching what the Seahawks are seeking in treturn for Sherman.
