Richard Sherman Takes On The NFL In Press Conference
Richard Sherman is most famous for his effectiveness on the football field, but he wouldn’t be nearly the celebrity he’s become without his wit and intelligence. Never one to shy away from speaking out on an issue, Sherman used his weekly media availability to rip into – you guessed it – media availability.
Sherman walked up to the podium at the Seahawks’ Renton practice facility alongside a cardboard cutout of teammate Doug Baldwin, who himself was crouched out of view propping up the lifesize image of himself. He refers to the cutout as “my guy,” then starts fielding questions.
“You know,” starts Sherman, “the other day Marshawn Lynch got fined $100,000. Did you know that? $100,000! And it’s like, they wouldn’t’ve even paid him $100,000 if he had talked! Do you think they’d have paid him?” To which Baldwin responds “no, they sure wouldn’t have!”
The next target for Sherman and Baldwin is the league’s endorsement policies, particularly their policing of Beats headphones. “You know who does pay me a lot of money?” asks Sherman. “Beats by Dre, the wonderful headphones that I wear.” At which point Baldwin chimes “I love those headphones!” “But the league doesn’t let me say anything about those,” says Sherman. “Doug, why is that?”
“I don’t know, sounds kind of hypocritical to me,” says Baldwin.
A mini-rant about soup is interrupted by Baldwin saying “speaking of health, how do you feel about the NFL making you play two games in five days?” Sherman: “they talk about player safety so much, and it’s like, two games in five days doesn’t seem like you care about player safety.”
Sherman ends his epic presser with this line about advertising: “it’s fun to use your time in the NFL to speak about something you care about, right? Right? Because you don’t get fined $100,000, you don’t get fined at all for this. This is how they want us to talk, right? This is what they want us to do, they want us to advertise, right Doug?”
To which Baldwin replies “sounds about right to me!”
The whole video can be seen below.