BRADY HENDERSON

Harry Potter — err, Richard Sherman — says he’s feeling better after overtime exhaustion

Oct 26, 2016, 8:38 PM | Updated: Oct 27, 2016, 9:48 am

RENTON – What’s harder, Richard Sherman was asked Wednesday, five quarters of football or quidditch?

The first part of the question was in reference to the exhaustion that Sherman and other Seahawks defenders experienced in Sunday night’s overtime marathon in Arizona. Quidditch is a game in the fictional wizard world of Harry Potter, whom Sherman was dressed as during his weekly press conference.

He said his son Rayden, apparently precocious at almost 21 months old, wanted him to wear his Halloween costume to work. So Sherman showed up Wednesday in full attire – a black robe over his shirt and tie, circular glasses, magic wand and all – and walked to the podium playing Harry Potter-themed music on his phone.

He was in good spirits three days after he was in bad shape following Seattle’s 6-6 tie with Arizona.

“When you’re a wizard like we are out here, sometimes you have to show it to the muggles out in the world,” Sherman said, referring to what non-wizards are called in the Harry Potter lexicon. “We’ve got a lot of wizards. My son’s a wizard. Earl Thomas does some magical things. Michael Bennett is Black Santa but he’s also a wizard. So you just have a good time. I just went to Harry Potter land. That felt like home.”

Sherman, as you may have gathered, is a big fan of the series. He said his favorite installment is “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.”

So, which is harder?

“Five quarters of football is pretty tough,” Sherman said, “but quidditch, you know, the beaters, the chasers, trying to find the golden snitch, things like that, that’s tough. Five quarters of football, though, in the elements, I’d say that takes the cake.”

Seattle’s defense did yeoman’s work Sunday night in Arizona, and not just in holding the Cardinals to six points over 75 minutes. Seattle’s ineptitude on offense resulted in nine punts on its 13 possessions. That left the defense on the field for a whopping 95 plays, which is about 33 more than what the team has averaged since the start of last season. And that doesn’t count the additional duties that some players had on special teams.

Sherman played all 95 defensive snaps plus four more on special teams. He said he began to feel unwell in the third quarter, when his legs “started locking up and stuff. But after a while, you just kind of deal with it. You’ve got to finish the game. It’s not really an option.”

Sherman was in coverage against J.J. Nelson on a third-and-7 play in overtime when the Cardinals receiver gained 40 yards on a catch and run before he was tracked down by strong safety Kelcie McCray at the Seahawks’ 5, setting up Seattle’s goal-line stand and Chandler Catanzaro’s missed field goal. Sherman was in position to make a play on the ball that Nelson caught, but he said his legs gave out.

“I knew the play, I jumped the route and my legs said, ‘Yep, that’s it. That’s all we got for you,’” he said. “Unfortunate. Sometimes you tell your body to do something and it doesn’t agree with what you say, and that was one of those times. Thankfully, Kelcie was able to save the day, and I appreciate it.”

Sherman said he needed two bags of IVs to re-hydrate and described some scary symptoms that he experienced in the locker room afterward, saying he was shivering and losing focus. He said medical personnel who tended to him may have told him he was suffering from heat exhaustion, but he couldn’t recall for sure.

“They didn’t let me lose consciousness, but I definitely wasn’t focused,” he said. “That’s why they wouldn’t let me go for a long time until I got my focus back and they looked me in the eye and they just kept saying I wasn’t right and I was looking clammy and stuff like that. But after a while, you get some energy, you get some food in you, you get your stuff back.”

Asked how concerned he was about his well-being, Sherman said: “Honestly, I don’t know how. I was too tired to be that concerned. I think other people were more concerned than I was. I was just trying to get cooled down and get some energy back in me. Honestly, I was just a blur. I don’t remember being too concerned. I remember them saying something about a stretcher and paramedics, and I was like, ‘Yeah, that’s not how we’re going to end this today.’”

Sherman didn’t practice Wednesday. His absence was listed as not injury-related, indicating he was getting a rest day that coach Pete Carroll said some defensive players would get this week to help them recover from Sunday night’s game.

Asked at what point after that game he started feeling human again, Sherman remained in character.

“Well, I’m definitely a wizard, so if you’re asking am I feeling like a muggle again, I don’t,” he said. “But I started feeling better probably around late yesterday, last night, just getting more fluids in me, more energy, legs started getting back under me.”

J.K. Rowling, the British author who created the Harry Potter series, noticed Sherman’s costume and responded on Twitter Thursday: “Did I ever mention that I’m a #Seahawks fan? Well, I am. (Don’t ask me who plays for them apart from R Sherman.)”

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Harry Potter — err, Richard Sherman — says he’s feeling better after overtime exhaustion