Following his outburst after the Seattle Seahawks defeated the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC Championship Sunday night, Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman has apologized for his harsh words that targeted San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Michael Crabtree.
With 22 seconds left in the game, Sherman tipped a pass from Colin Kaepernick that was intended for Crabtree and ended up in the hands of Malcolm Smith to seal the Seahawks' 23-17 victory and first trip to the Super Bowl since 2005. The team now awaits the Denver Broncos at MetLife Stadium on Feb. 2 in Super Bowl XLVIII, but rather than focus on that, Sherman chose to verbally attack Crabtree.
On Monday, Sherman backtracked.
"I apologize for attacking an individual and taking the attention away from the fantastic game by my teammates ... That was not my intent," Sherman said Monday via a text message to ESPN.
Sherman later appeared on ESPN radio and discussed his postgame comments.
"Obviously I could have worded things better and could obviously have had a better reaction and done things differently," he said during the interview, according to ESPN. "But it is what it is now, and people's reactions are what they are."
Sherman was barely targeted by the 49ers, but Kaepernick threw towards him with 22 seconds left in a game that sealed their fate.
"I knew if I tipped it high enough, someone would get there," Sherman told ESPN.
Following the tip that led to the interception, Sherman appeared to go up to Crabtree and pat him on the backside while extending his hand for a handshake to which Crabtree responded by pushing his face. Sherman then continued to celebrate and picked up a personal foul on the play.
"I was making sure everyone knew Crabtree was a mediocre receiver," Sherman said in his postgame news conference, according to ESPN. "And when you try the best corner in the game with a mediocre receiver, that's what happens. I appreciate that he knows that now. There has been a lot of talk from him running his mouth about me."
Sherman, 25, is a two-time Pro Bowler and has had 20 interceptions in his three seasons with Seattle, including a league-leading eight this season. The cornerback shared his thoughts about his postgame reaction on mmbq.com in a column on Monday.
"To those who would call me a thug or worse because I show passion on a football field -- don't judge a person's character by what they do between the lines," Sherman wrote in the column posted on mmqb.com. "Judge a man by what he does off the field, what he does for his community, what he does for his family.
"But people find it easy to take shots on Twitter, and to use racial slurs and bullying language far worse than what you'll see from me. It's sad and somewhat unbelievable to me that the world is still this way, but it is. I can handle it."
Sherman will put the incident behind him and focus on helping the Seahawks attempt to win their first Super Bowl in franchise history in less than two weeks.
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