Richard Sherman on DeSean Jackson and 'Stardom'

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jjab360

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Elmgrovegnome said:
Smart is a relative thing. I passed the Mensa test and I'm not really that smart. Sherman may be smart in how he writes but he is dumb with his timing and his brash emotional outbursts. He reminds me more of Reverend Al Sharpton than he does Martin Luther King. That's not a good thing. Both are/were intelligent men BTW.
It is because his on screen antics dont reflect a guy with any intelligence.
That's the genius of it, really. I can't imagine how much money he made because of his rant after the NFC Championship. That was practically all anyone could talk about leading up to the Super Bowl.
 

Stranger

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Racism is unfortunately still a very real problem. Sherman's criticism of "suits like Irsay" is but one example. I'm Filipino and my ex wife and kids are black. I grew up in Long Beach but live in rural SW MO Ash Grove. I see both sides. I despise all things Seahawk but respect Sherman's talent and perspective. Nevertheless, DJax wasn't expendable because of his friends, it was his attitude and contract demands that left him for Redskin hire. Sherman needs a guy like Dungy to help his perspective mature.
Yup, experienced the stupidity of bigotry first hand many times in my younger days. It's so bizarre and illogical to see it first hand, to know what it is, and not to be able to do anything rational about it.
 

iced

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The issue that he points out is that NFL management and media owners are racist.

Management controls how the league or teams respond to individual players or owners, and it's quite obvious that the responses are duplicitous.

And media reports on this stuff, whether it's NFLN or other media outlets, and its the owners of these media outlets, through their management, that decide how to report on these matters. In effect, how to spin them. Again, it's pretty obvious that there is a trend that's unfavorable to non-white players.

agreed.. and the problem is whether or not they actually are racist - the actions that have been taken are going to make people wonder, and lets face it - sherman did nail it. The Riley cooper and irsay situations were excellent examples.
 

Elmgrovegnome

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The issue that he points out is that NFL management and media owners are racist.

Management controls how the league or teams respond to individual players or owners, and it's quite obvious that the responses are duplicitous.

And media reports on this stuff, whether it's NFLN or other media outlets, and its the owners of these media outlets, through their management, that decide how to report on these matters. In effect, how to spin them. Again, it's pretty obvious that there is a trend that's unfavorable to non-white players.

I am not so sure. Will Roger Saffold one day be released because of gang affiliation? Are all non-white players involved with drugs or murder, or have poor work habits? Take Sherman himself for instance. Sure he is a bit boisterous, but he is professional, where it counts. He follows team rules, practices to be the best and is not a cancer in the locker room. Is he persecuted because he is from Compton. I think it may be more stereo typing than anything. Heck, Leonard Little killed a girl and casual fans would never be aware of it. Aldon Smith was shooting a gun into the air and telling people to leave and most fans don't know it.
 

Prime Time

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In the end, DeSean Jackson was treated in Philly not like a person, but like property
Posted by Mike Florio on April 3, 2014

cooperjackson.jpg
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While the election of an African-American president hardly meant the end of racial bias in this country, the NFL has for decades been progressive when it comes to matters of race. Sure, it took a lot longer than it should have for NFL teams to embrace diversity at the quarterback position. But today’s NFL truly is color blind; at all positions, the best players play.

If they don’t, coaches and General Managers get fired.

That reality makes Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman’s not-so-subtle suggestion of racism regarding the Eagles’ treatment of DeSean Jackson misplaced. The Eagles didn’t dump Jackson and keep Riley Cooper because of skin color. The Eagles severed ties with Jackson because he was due to make far more money than the organization (specifically, coach Chip Kelly) believed his overall contributions justified, and they re-signed Cooper because they were able to get him at a favorable financial figure — in part because other teams didn’t want to have to figure out how to get a locker room with no prior connection to Cooper to welcome him after last year’s Kenny Chesney misadventures.

This doesn’t mean there are no concerns regarding the way the Eagles treated Jackson. (Then again, they paid him $18 million over two seasons; perhaps we should all be so mistreated.) Right, wrong, or otherwise, the Eagles ultimately did to Jackson what all teams do to most players whom a team decides it no longer wants. The Eagles treated him like a commodity, freezing him out and forcing him to wonder about his status and possibly lying to him near the end as part of a last-ditch effort to get value for the asset in trade.

Yes, there’s inconsistent treatment in the NFL. Players who are still regarded as valued members of the team are treated like people. Players who aren’t are treated like property, cast aside as part of a cruelly efficient process that will see every team shrink from a maximum of 90 players in the offseason to only 53 by Labor Day.

It happens to non-players, too. When Browns G.M. Mike Lombardi and CEO Joe Banner decided that they were done with coach Rob Chudzinski, that was that. When Browns owner Jimmy Haslam decided that he was done with Lombardi and Banner, that was that, too.

Sherman’s column suggests that Colts owner Jim Irsay has enjoyed favorable treatment in the wake of his arrest for DUI and felony possession of controlled substances based at least in part on race. “Commit certain crimes in this league and be a certain color, and you get help, not scorn,” Sherman wrote.

This ignores the fact that 49ers linebacker Aldon Smith received help, not scorn, when he chose (like Irsay) to enter rehab after being arrested hours before a Friday practice in September 2013, allegedly drunk behind the wheel of a car. It also ignores the fact that, in the aftermath of Irsay’s arrest, the universal reaction by the NFL and the media has been that Irsay must face the same discipline that a player would face for similar infractions.

But the one thing Irsay has going for him is that, as an owner, he doesn’t have to worry about someone else deciding that the team no longer wants or needs him. Once that happens, NFL teams often treat people like something other than people. That’s the dynamic for which the Eagles deserve criticism when it comes to DeSean Jackson, and that’s one area in which the league should embrace change.

Starting with the elimination of scenes involving the cutting of players from Hard Knocks.
 

Thordaddy

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I think Sherman may have been wrong in how the Eagles probably let go of Jackson moreso because of his behavior in the locker room than off the field, but I don't think he's wrong about how the media perceives and portrays the whole ordeal.

Sherman gets points in my mind for pointing out a few hypocrisies that some have left unsaid and conveying his entire argument far better than even some professional writers could. I still kind of laugh at how some claimed someone else wrote that other article of his (forgot what it was about), dude went to Stanford and got a 4.2 GPA in high school, he's pretty damn smart.
Well there are high schools and there are "high"schools, my neighbors kid was valedictorian of his class at a small country HS, it was worth tuition at a juco 20 miles from here, they quit ranking kids in my sons high school beside the top 2 because they have double digit kids with 4.0 and better, and kids with 32 and better ACT scores who would rank out of the top 20, and class ranking didn't reflect their relative competence to other college applicants or even their class mates.Even there at my kids HS ,my kid took honors English two years of calc and has bright flight money because of his ACT score,there are friends of his who have .25 better GPA's who have no scholarship money to speak of but took the minimum math requirements and an otherwise less challenging schedule in general.

As far as Stanford goes, watch this weeks edition of "Real Sports" ,the NCAA's mandated graduation policies have caused most every major college program to cheapen the degrees athletes earn to the point I only trust transcripts.

Shermans degree is in communication and thus far the things he's communicated to me is ,he's a prick with ears who gets away with defensive holding and without THAT he wouldn't make an NFL roster as a corner.
 

Thordaddy

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In the end, DeSean Jackson was treated in Philly not like a person, but like property
Posted by Mike Florio on April 3, 2014

cooperjackson.jpg
Getty Images

While the election of an African-American president hardly meant the end of racial bias in this country, the NFL has for decades been progressive when it comes to matters of race. Sure, it took a lot longer than it should have for NFL teams to embrace diversity at the quarterback position. But today’s NFL truly is color blind; at all positions, the best players play.

If they don’t, coaches and General Managers get fired.

That reality makes Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman’s not-so-subtle suggestion of racism regarding the Eagles’ treatment of DeSean Jackson misplaced. The Eagles didn’t dump Jackson and keep Riley Cooper because of skin color. The Eagles severed ties with Jackson because he was due to make far more money than the organization (specifically, coach Chip Kelly) believed his overall contributions justified, and they re-signed Cooper because they were able to get him at a favorable financial figure — in part because other teams didn’t want to have to figure out how to get a locker room with no prior connection to Cooper to welcome him after last year’s Kenny Chesney misadventures.

This doesn’t mean there are no concerns regarding the way the Eagles treated Jackson. (Then again, they paid him $18 million over two seasons; perhaps we should all be so mistreated.) Right, wrong, or otherwise, the Eagles ultimately did to Jackson what all teams do to most players whom a team decides it no longer wants. The Eagles treated him like a commodity, freezing him out and forcing him to wonder about his status and possibly lying to him near the end as part of a last-ditch effort to get value for the asset in trade.

Yes, there’s inconsistent treatment in the NFL. Players who are still regarded as valued members of the team are treated like people. Players who aren’t are treated like property, cast aside as part of a cruelly efficient process that will see every team shrink from a maximum of 90 players in the offseason to only 53 by Labor Day.

It happens to non-players, too. When Browns G.M. Mike Lombardi and CEO Joe Banner decided that they were done with coach Rob Chudzinski, that was that. When Browns owner Jimmy Haslam decided that he was done with Lombardi and Banner, that was that, too.

Sherman’s column suggests that Colts owner Jim Irsay has enjoyed favorable treatment in the wake of his arrest for DUI and felony possession of controlled substances based at least in part on race. “Commit certain crimes in this league and be a certain color, and you get help, not scorn,” Sherman wrote.

This ignores the fact that 49ers linebacker Aldon Smith received help, not scorn, when he chose (like Irsay) to enter rehab after being arrested hours before a Friday practice in September 2013, allegedly drunk behind the wheel of a car. It also ignores the fact that, in the aftermath of Irsay’s arrest, the universal reaction by the NFL and the media has been that Irsay must face the same discipline that a player would face for similar infractions.

But the one thing Irsay has going for him is that, as an owner, he doesn’t have to worry about someone else deciding that the team no longer wants or needs him. Once that happens, NFL teams often treat people like something other than people. That’s the dynamic for which the Eagles deserve criticism when it comes to DeSean Jackson, and that’s one area in which the league should embrace change.

Starting with the elimination of scenes involving the cutting of players from Hard Knocks.

I would quibble with the "property" characterization . To me it was more like an unfunded liability:cool:

Jackson simply was more trouble than his perceived worth for a variety of reasons, I do agree with Sherman that "certain color" can effect your treatment JMO but Riley Cooper got some extra scrutiny BECAUSE of his color when MANY racially insensitive comments going the opposite direction get summarily ignored and are written off as "tolerable" BECAUSE someone's alleged ancestor mistreated someone else's ,I say alleged because of course BOTH sides of my family immigrated to this country after the Emancipation Proclamation as did the "oppressed" side of our Presidents linage.

IMO Irsay has yet to face the sort of censure he deserves as one who has imposed severe sanction on lesser offenders,but womb I?
 

fearsomefour

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Sherman is a smart guy but he likes seeing one side of the equation.
For every situation like Jacksons there is a Michael Vick or Leonard Little who despite committing crimes with disgusting results were rewarded with work and millions of dollars. You have guys like Vick, Little, Jamal Lewis....and the list goes on who are black, got busted and were rewarded with contracts. You have Incognito, a white player, all but blacklisted for calling someone names. I would like to ask Sherman about how that fits into his perspective.
He chooses to see one side of things.
He is dead on with Irsey. That is about money and social standing however.
At the end of the day a player can hang with who he wants and do what he wants. Sometimes there are consequences for that.
It's like free speech. Yes we have freedom of speech. But that can also carry consequences. If I write on a blog about how terrible and stupid my bosses are, I do have the right to do this, I can't be surprised when there is a consequence.
Jackson made his choices. We don't know everything that factored into the Eagles decision and either does Sherman. To go to the default racist setting is lame even if there was a lot of truth in his article. Still, a good read.
 

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In the end, DeSean Jackson was treated in Philly not like a person, but like property
Posted by Mike Florio on April 3, 2014

cooperjackson.jpg
Getty Images

While the election of an African-American president hardly meant the end of racial bias in this country, the NFL has for decades been progressive when it comes to matters of race. Sure, it took a lot longer than it should have for NFL teams to embrace diversity at the quarterback position. But today’s NFL truly is color blind; at all positions, the best players play.

If they don’t, coaches and General Managers get fired.

That reality makes Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman’s not-so-subtle suggestion of racism regarding the Eagles’ treatment of DeSean Jackson misplaced. The Eagles didn’t dump Jackson and keep Riley Cooper because of skin color. The Eagles severed ties with Jackson because he was due to make far more money than the organization (specifically, coach Chip Kelly) believed his overall contributions justified, and they re-signed Cooper because they were able to get him at a favorable financial figure — in part because other teams didn’t want to have to figure out how to get a locker room with no prior connection to Cooper to welcome him after last year’s Kenny Chesney misadventures.

This doesn’t mean there are no concerns regarding the way the Eagles treated Jackson. (Then again, they paid him $18 million over two seasons; perhaps we should all be so mistreated.) Right, wrong, or otherwise, the Eagles ultimately did to Jackson what all teams do to most players whom a team decides it no longer wants. The Eagles treated him like a commodity, freezing him out and forcing him to wonder about his status and possibly lying to him near the end as part of a last-ditch effort to get value for the asset in trade.

Yes, there’s inconsistent treatment in the NFL. Players who are still regarded as valued members of the team are treated like people. Players who aren’t are treated like property, cast aside as part of a cruelly efficient process that will see every team shrink from a maximum of 90 players in the offseason to only 53 by Labor Day.

It happens to non-players, too. When Browns G.M. Mike Lombardi and CEO Joe Banner decided that they were done with coach Rob Chudzinski, that was that. When Browns owner Jimmy Haslam decided that he was done with Lombardi and Banner, that was that, too.

Sherman’s column suggests that Colts owner Jim Irsay has enjoyed favorable treatment in the wake of his arrest for DUI and felony possession of controlled substances based at least in part on race. “Commit certain crimes in this league and be a certain color, and you get help, not scorn,” Sherman wrote.

This ignores the fact that 49ers linebacker Aldon Smith received help, not scorn, when he chose (like Irsay) to enter rehab after being arrested hours before a Friday practice in September 2013, allegedly drunk behind the wheel of a car. It also ignores the fact that, in the aftermath of Irsay’s arrest, the universal reaction by the NFL and the media has been that Irsay must face the same discipline that a player would face for similar infractions.

But the one thing Irsay has going for him is that, as an owner, he doesn’t have to worry about someone else deciding that the team no longer wants or needs him. Once that happens, NFL teams often treat people like something other than people. That’s the dynamic for which the Eagles deserve criticism when it comes to DeSean Jackson, and that’s one area in which the league should embrace change.

Starting with the elimination of scenes involving the cutting of players from Hard Knocks.
and here comes the NFL's return of fire. I predict it's going to get ugly for Sherman, poor guy. He's going to learn the hard way just how unfairly these guys play.

I know many here won't know what I am talking about, but just be patient, you'll see.
 

jjab360

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Well there are high schools and there are "high"schools, my neighbors kid was valedictorian of his class at a small country HS, it was worth tuition at a juco 20 miles from here, they quit ranking kids in my sons high school beside the top 2 because they have double digit kids with 4.0 and better, and kids with 32 and better ACT scores who would rank out of the top 20, and class ranking didn't reflect their relative competence to other college applicants or even their class mates.Even there at my kids HS ,my kid took honors English two years of calc and has bright flight money because of his ACT score,there are friends of his who have .25 better GPA's who have no scholarship money to speak of but took the minimum math requirements and an otherwise less challenging schedule in general.

As far as Stanford goes, watch this weeks edition of "Real Sports" ,the NCAA's mandated graduation policies have caused most every major college program to cheapen the degrees athletes earn to the point I only trust transcripts.

Shermans degree is in communication and thus far the things he's communicated to me is ,he's a prick with ears who gets away with defensive holding and without THAT he wouldn't make an NFL roster as a corner.
The term "hater" was created for posts like this, lol.
 

Thordaddy

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The term "hater" was created for posts like this, lol.

Actually it was "created" for use by people who like to call names,something that is frowned upon here, do you qualify?
 

jjab360

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Actually it was "created" for use by people who like to call names,something that is frowned upon here, do you qualify?
Shermans degree is in communication and thus far the things he's communicated to me is ,he's a prick with ears who gets away with defensive holding and without THAT he wouldn't make an NFL roster as a corner.
That's an odd looking high horse you got there..
 

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Sherman got a 1060 on his SAT's, thats pretty god awful, he did not belong at stanford. They obviously overlooked his SAT's for his football capabilities. If they were willing to do that in order to get him into stanford, I put very little into his gpa while attending.

The guy is well spoken and all but treating him as if he's as intelligent as a normal stanford alum is insulting to the school.

In comparison I had a 3.7 gpa and a 1960 sat score and would have been laughed at by Stanford for applying
 

Thordaddy

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That's an odd looking high horse you got there..
Uh , posters are who we aren't allowed to call names, public figures are fair game, sorry I had to be the one to burst your bubble

Sherman got a 1060 on his SAT's, thats pretty god awful, he did not belong at stanford. They obviously overlooked his SAT's for his football capabilities. If they were willing to do that in order to get him into stanford, I put very little into his gpa while attending.

The guy is well spoken and all but treating him as if he's as intelligent as a normal stanford alum is insulting to the school.

In comparison I had a 3.7 gpa and a 1960 sat score and would have been laughed at by Stanford for applying

Yeah 1060 is pretty bad , but that's a number that "we" can't pay attention to ,we have to focus on the manufactured GPA's and degrees.
FWIW if Sherman didn't "make it" in the NFL he could easily be one of the thousands who end up with unskilled jobs after their football careers are over, check out "Real Sports" this week ,mandated graduation quotas :rolleyes:
 

Ky Ram

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Shermans degree is in communication and thus far the things he's communicated to me is ,he's a prick with ears who gets away with defensive holding and without THAT he wouldn't make an NFL roster as a corner.
Shoulda used blue font (I hope). Hate him or not he is a damn good corner. I don't know if hes the best in the game as he always procaims, but he is up there.
As far as his degree and SAT, etc - athletes are held to a different set of expectations. When joe blow student starts generting millions of dollars in revenue for the university the school will lower standards for them too. Just sayin
 

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Shoulda used blue font (I hope). Hate him or not he is a damn good corner. I don't know if hes the best in the game as he always procaims, but he is up there.
As far as his degree and SAT, etc - athletes are held to a different set of expectations. When joe blow student starts generting millions of dollars in revenue for the university the school will lower standards for them too. Just sayin

Completely agree. I understand the value of football players to the school. But to acknowledge that football players are held to a different academic standard not only in entry but in classes they attend etc.. you can't then turn around and pretend he's just as smart as the average stanford alum..

Thats the point, i get whey he got in but I'm not going to pretend that makes him intelligent
 

Thordaddy

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Shoulda used blue font (I hope). Hate him or not he is a damn good corner. I don't know if hes the best in the game as he always procaims, but he is up there.
As far as his degree and SAT, etc - athletes are held to a different set of expectations. When joe blow student starts generting millions of dollars in revenue for the university the school will lower standards for them too. Just sayin
Nah man I stand by it, the guy is a self aggrandizing jerk in my honest opinion.
But I don't "hate" him , I also maintain his best attribute as a corner is how he gets by with things he shouldn't.

Yeah I KNOW "student athletes" are held to lesser standards, but when you are discussing "smart" then we need to take those lower standards into account and recognize that these GPA's and degrees could be suspect
 

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Or maybe Philly let him go b/c he keeps getting butthurt about his contracts? Wonder if Richard Sherman ever thought of that.
 

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This is something that RS conveniently overlooks. The owners don't have a CBA that mandates suspension and punishment when crimes are committed or drug tests are failed, the players do. It has NOTHING to do with race. It has to do with a legally binding agreement which players of all races must adhere to.

Riley Cooper was punished according to and exactly, and I mean to the letter, according to the CBA. One game check for using a slur. There is no provision in the CBA for suspending him so the NFL couldn't and since the Eagles fined him one game check the NFL wasn't allowed to fine him any further.

The NFL (not just the NFL other sports too) has let many, many players get away with a lot of crap on twitter and instagram without imposing fines, many of them were black too. Sherman is overlooking that.

I expect that Goodell will do something to Irsay in part because it's the right thing to do and in part to make people think "fair is fair" even though technically there isn't a god damned thing he can do.