Seahawks’ reinvestments in Richard Sherman, Earl Thomas paying off

For all the time spent this week wondering how those injuries might affect two of Seattle's best defensive players in Super Bowl XLIX, it's worth a moment to consider just how significant it was that both Richard Sherman and Earl Thomas finished the NFC title game.

BY DANNY O\'NEIL

Jan 23, 2015, 9:50 AM Updated: 10:52 am

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Richard Sherman played through a painful elbow injury during the fourth quarter and overtime of the NFC title game, showing that his dedication didn't wane after signing a lucrative contract extension. (AP)

(AP)

Players often talk about what they would do for their teammates.

It’s what Richard Sherman didn’t do on Sunday, however, that said the most about the bond within Seattle’s locker room.

He didn’t come out of the NFC Championship Game after his elbow bent awkwardly, painfully, when it was caught between the irresistible force that is Kam Chancellor and a Packers player early in the fourth quarter. Even as he played, obviously limited, the Seahawks’ cornerback wouldn’t even let the team’s trainers so much as look at the injury.

“They kept asking me to go in and get an X-ray,” Sherman said afterward, “but at that point in the game, it’s 10 minutes left, I figured I’d give my teammates 10 minutes. They kept telling me it could get worse, but it is what it is, you play for your teammates.”

Sherman said those words in the locker room, en route to the shower with his left arm held close to his body. He looked vulnerable, like a bird with a broken wing, and not 10 yards away Earl Thomas sat in his locker, looking like Fisher Price’s “My First Mummy” with Ace bandages wrapped around his shoulder to hold the ice bag in place.

For all the time spent this week wondering how those injuries might affect two of Seattle’s best defensive players in Super Bowl XLIX, it’s worth a moment to consider just how significant it was that each finished the game against Green Bay.

Both Thomas and Sherman received lucrative extensions in 2014. Both sustained the level of play that earned those extensions and each one of them showed Sunday that a payday wasn’t going to dilute their dedication to either the sport or the team.

If that sounds a little bit over the top, you have to consider the reality of a league in which the average career still lasts fewer than four years, and every player knows that their employment is subject to end the moment a team finds someone who is either a) younger or b) cheaper to do the same job.

The way Sherman and Thomas finished that game validated the decision Seattle made in the offseason. Teams don’t offer contract extensions as rewards but as investments, and in a salary-capped league, the decision on who to pay can be as important as who you play.

This is just one more area where Seattle has excelled, a decision best embodied by Chancellor. Some were surprised first that he was given a new contract and then at the magnitude of that deal he signed in 2013, but all he has done in the two seasons since is show that he continues to be underrated even after earning his third Pro Bowl selection in 2014.

The Seahawks haven’t been perfect. Receiver Mike Williams was given a new deal at the end of his first season and was gone one year later later. Percy Harvin, played only six regular-season games before he was traded. But those have been the exceptions, not the trend.

Sherman and Thomas were every bit as consistent this season after receiving lucrative extensions, and Doug Baldwin had the most receiving yards of any player in either conference championship game. All those players received new deals in the offseason. Each has stepped into a bigger leadership role on the team.

In the first year of the Pete Carroll/John Schneider regime in Seattle, the Seahawks became one of the league’s youngest teams. What we’ve seen in the past five seasons is that this franchise values experience, too. It’s going to pay to keep its leaders, which makes it important they pick the right ones.

On Sunday, Sherman and Thomas showed that leadership sometimes is about what you don’t do. In this case, refusing to come out of the game.

“I’m not going to let down my teammates,” Sherman said afterward. “We done battled this far, I might as well give them to the last second.”

As lucrative as Sherman’s extension was, that kind of leadership is priceless.