After two weeks of being accused of running up the score on opponents, it might have come as a shock to some that Pete Carroll and the Seahawks didn’t want to post another 50 spot against their division rivals, the 49ers. Well, Carroll didn’t want to, but at least one Seahawks player did.
Seattle cornerback Richard Sherman wanted his team to score one more touchdown and go for a two point conversion after they were already leading 42-7. Unfortunately, Sherman got nixed by his head coach.
“I’m not gonna lie to you,” Sherman told Michael Silver of Yahoo! Sports. “I told Pete, ‘Let’s score and go for two.’ He said, ‘We have more class than that.'”
The Seahawks have a deep history with the 49ers, and Jim Harbaugh specifically. Carroll and Harbaugh coached against one another in the Pac-12 while the former was at USC and the latter at Stanford. In 2009, the Cardinal defeated the Trojans 55-21 at the Coliseum after going for two already up 27.
Sherman played under Harbaugh at Stanford, and may harbor some resentment toward his former coach after the 49ers passed on the star cornerback four times in the 2011 NFL draft. The joke is on San Francisco now, as the second-year corner is playing as well as any defensive back in the NFL this season. Wide receiver Doug Baldwin was also shunned by his former Cardinal coach. Baldwin went undrafted in 2011 after playing under the 49ers head coach for four years at Stanford.
Not surprisingly, the two Seahawks who played under Harbaugh had huge games on Sunday night. Sherman took a blocked field goal 90 yards for a touchdown and grabbed an interception in the end zone, while Baldwin caught four passes for 53 yards and two touchdowns.
The Seahawks may not have posted 50 for the third week in a row, but they got their message across to Harbaugh and the 49ers.
