Seahawks GM John Schneider on the Richard Sherman situation: ‘What you’ve seen lately in the news is real; that’s on both sides’

For anyone who still thought the talk about the Seahawks being open to trading cornerback Richard Sherman was nothing but a media fabrication, general manager John Schneider made it clear that it’s not.

“What you’ve seen lately in the news is real,” Schneider told “Brock and Salk” in an interview that aired Wednesday. “That’s on both sides.”

Schneider and his wife Traci made their annual trip to the 710 ESPN Seattle studios recently to discuss their work with Ben’s Fund (website), a charity that provides support to families with children on the autism spectrum. Asked about the Sherman situation during their conversation with “Brock and Salk,” John Schneider was again transparent on the matter, just as he and coach Pete Carroll were at the owners’ meetings last week when they acknowledged that the Seahawks have listened to teams interested in acquiring Sherman.

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Schneider’s comment about the Sherman trade discussions being “real”came in the context of a question about the team’s relationship with the cornerback after his tumultuous 2016 season, which included two sideline outbursts directed at coaches.

“I think we’re a very unique organization in that regard. We have a great relationship with a lot of our players,” Schneider said. “There’s very much an openness. What you’ve seen lately in the news is real. That’s on both sides. It’s just open communication. He knows what’s going on. We know what’s going on. I don’t know if anything would ever happen, but like I tell people all the time, 98 percent of the deals that we’re involved with, we don’t follow through with. But at least we’ve opened that door, gone down the road and seen what’s behind Door A or Door B.”

Like Carroll did last week, Schneider left the impression that a trade isn’t necessarily likely but made it clear that it is something the Seahawks have discussed. And they’ve been open with Sherman about that.

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“Absolutely,” Schneider said when asked if the lines of communication with Sherman are open on this matter. “This isn’t a secret like this just came out of nowhere. People find things out and we’re not going to lie to each other and we’re not going to BS each other. It’s going to be all laid out, and like I said, that doesn’t happen everywhere. We have open lines of communication between our coaching staff and our player personnel staff. It goes through player development, it goes through our sports science group. There’s a lot going on there.”