Seahawks Coach Pete Carroll talks candidly about chat with Richard Sherman after rant

The Seahawks and Broncos have let the dust of their conference championships settle, but all anyone wants to talk about remains the 11-second double-barreled barrage of Richard Sherman.

“I’m the best corner in the game, when you try me with a sorry retriever like Crabtree, that’s the result you’re going to get. Don’t you ever talk about me,” Sherman said in a post-game interview with Erin Andrews.

But by Monday, Sherman told ESPN he could have done things differently.

“Obviously, I could have worded things better and could have obviously had a better reaction and done things differently,” said Sherman, “But it is what it is now and people’s reactions are what they are.”

Coach Pete Carroll is well known for his hands-off approach to players, for letting them be themselves, but he says that freedom should never get in the way of the team.

“We did sit down and talk about it,” said Carroll. “I wanted him to present himself in his best light. He is an incredible kid and I think he’s very, very understanding at this point that he caused a stir that took something away from the team.”

Coach Carroll says the conversation went like the ones most dads eventually have with their sons after they make a misstep in life.

“In my role that I play, what I am the most is I’m a dad, and I looked at it like it was my son in a sense, what would I tell my son? So I said, ‘There’s some stuff in there that I think you should think about. Did you really want that to come out the way it did?’ And talk our way through that.”

The coach says Sherman took the conversation well.

“He was really clear that the last thing he wanted to do was take something away from our team and what we had accomplished,” said Carroll.

And Carroll expects Sherman to be Sherman, but perhaps with a little more restraint.

“He’s an incredible kid. He’s got great sense about things and understanding and sensitivity and awareness and he cares. He’s a very thoughtful person. So when he puts out those kinds of thoughts he has to know what he’s saying and understand it. And I think he’s very understanding at this point,” said Carroll.

Sherman’s epic rant has certainly gained him a lot of new followers. His twitter account has ballooned by several hundred thousand since going off after the game. He is now a household name, not bad for a cornerback.

He says the world will eventually hear everything that went down with the San Francisco 49ers player Michael Crabtree during that final play on Sunday, and everyone can make up their own minds.

“I was actually mic’d up so everybody will see that I was going up to him and I actually said good game. That’s the funny part about that because most people will say, no he wasn’t really saying that. That’s why I love being mic’d up because I was mic’d up and I said, ‘Good game,’ put my hand out to shake his hand and he pushed me in the face,” said Sherman.

We’ll have to wait for the NFL to decide if it will release that mic’d up session for all of us to hear.