Just last month, Richard Sherman went on the record saying that the league doesn’t give a shit about player safety, they only care about ratings.
Sherman went on to say,
“It’s hard to stress players’ safety in such a violent game, because at the end of day, ratings sell. … People are going to come to the game regardless,” Sherman says to the camera. “I think sometimes the public gets confused by the league-player relationship, thinking it needs to be amicable to work. And it doesn’t. It just doesn’t need to be that way.”
On Monday night, Sherman launched himself at Bills kicker Dan Carpenter in a play many believed to be reckless and flew in the face of everything the outspoken Sherman preached prior to the game.
CBS Sports analyst Boomer Esiason had a particularly blunt take on Sherman’s play, calling him ‘hypocritical.’
“I don’t think Richard is a dirty player. I just think he’s hypocritical. Two weeks prior, he basically said that the NFL doesn’t care about its players — the NFL doesn’t care about injuries, and I’m paraphrasing a little bit here. He was very strong in the commentary, and it got picked up all over the place. And then, lo and behold, he goes out there — and I do believe this is a dirty play, because he is so far offside. And we’ve seen a lot of guys in the same situation just pull up and they know that there’s going to be a penalty and the play’s going to stop. I think it was an error in his judgement and I do think when you put together with what he said a few weeks ago, he looks like a hypocrite.”
Fellow CBS analyst Bart Scott agreed with Boomer.
“I don’t think he’s a dirty player; that was a dirty play and it was unnecessary. He was so far offside. Imagine this: Imagine somebody coming offsides and body slamming a QB after the play…Guys win and lose games and lose jobs because they don’t have a kicker, and he could have broken that kicker’s foot or leg. I’m just disappointed and surprised, to be honest with you, at my former head coach Rex Ryan, because I would have done the same exact thing to their kicker to let them know what that feels like.”
Sherman, on the other hand, believes he is innocent of any wrongdoing. Shocking.
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[h/t For The Win]