Are Seahawks fans’ expectations too high like Richard Sherman says?

Richard Sherman’s comments on his own podcast last week about the Seahawks and their fans have ruffled some feathers in Seattle, but there are also a fair amount of people who say he’s speaking at least some truth.

Mike Salk tries to make sense of Sherman’s comments about Hawks fans

What about his statement that Seahawks fans are expecting too much each year?

“These fans had never won anything before we got here,” Sherman said in his conversation with former Seahawks teammate Cliff Avril, referring to the Legion of Boom-era team that took Seattle to two straight Super Bowls and won the franchise’s only championship. “They had never won anything. They went to the Super Bowl in ’06 and were happy to be there, and that was their biggest claim. And then we get there, we win a Super Bowl, we spoiled them with historic defense and then all of a sudden that’s their expectation.”

On Tuesday afternoon, former Seahawks quarterback Jake Heaps weighed in on that assertion during the Four-Down Territory segment on 710 ESPN Seattle’s Jake and Stacy.

“Well, we heard Richard Sherman say that Seahawks fans have been a little spoiled. Are the expectations of Seahawks fans too high?” asked Stacy Rost, Heaps’ co-host.

Responded Heaps: “I don’t believe so. I really don’t.”

Heaps said he understands why some Seahawks fans have become frustrated, especially with the team finishing 7-10 in 2021 for its first losing season in a decade and having not reached the NFC Championship game since the 2014 season, and believes they are within their rights to be.

“When you have when you have (coach) Pete Carroll, (general manager) John Schneider, (quarterback) Russell Wilson, (linebacker) Bobby Wagner and you are really struggling to form a nucleus with your roster, you are really struggling to get past certain points in the playoffs, and you don’t see that progression moving forward when this roster has been retooled, I do believe that’s where you see Seahawks fans start to become frustrated and start to question (the team),” Heaps said. “Also knowing that Russell Wilson himself has had frustrations within this organization, those types of things create a level of wondering from fans as to if things are going in the right direction.”

That being said, Heaps did emphasize the value of perspective when evaluating an NFL team.

“I don’t think that fans have too high expectations right now for the organization overall, but it is incredibly difficult to win Super Bowls,” he said. “It’s incredibly difficult to get to an NFC Championship game, and I believe that has to be understood when it comes to this organization, that star players have down years. It’s not always perfect, and that’s what the Seahawks went through for the first time in a long time. And we’ll see how they bounce back from it.”

You can hear the full conversation in the podcast from Tuesday’s edition of Jake and Stacy at this link or in the player below. Jake and Stacy airs live on 710 ESPN Seattle from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday-Friday.

Would Gus Bradley as Hawks DC be right mix of familiarity, fresh eyes?

Follow @BrentStecker