SANTA CLARA, Calif. _ Richard Sherman didn't dare apologize Thursday for his feistiness back on the Seattle Seahawks when facing the 49ers. In fact, he more than double downed on his bitterness toward then-coach Jim Harbaugh.
Now in his second season since defecting to the 49ers, Sherman was asked to reflect on that 49ers-Seahawks rivalry, and the topic promptly turned to the Sherman-Harbaugh rivalry.
"I meant every single word of that, and I meant it to Harbaugh," Sherman said. "We've had our history. I don't regret it. I second that, maybe more."
Now in his ninth season, Sherman does not feel he's too old to carry a grudge against his former Stanford coach.
"If he was (the 49ers') coach and I was in the same position, it'd maybe be worse, now," Sherman added. "There's bad blood there. There's history.
"That's not me saying, 'Oh man, the team's bad.' That was very personal. That was less on the 49ers and Seahawks. I didn't care if he was coaching the dang Winnipeg Jets _ he was going to get it."
Sherman famously and loudly crowed after the 2013 Seahawks downed the 49ers in the NFC Championship Game, ending the 49ers' three-year playoff run.
Sherman didn't specify what "bad blood" he has with Harbaugh, but some examples are out in the open, whether they trace from their Stanford days or the Seahawks-49ers rivalry when Harbaugh was the 49ers' coach from 2011-14.
For instance, after that NFC-title win, Sherman and teammate Earl Thomas claimed to Yahoo Sports' Mike Silver that Harbaugh honked his car's horn at the Seahawks' bus after a 49ers' home win in the regular season; Harbaugh later disputed that allegation.
Harbaugh took a jab at the Seahawks' organization earlier in 2013 when it came to performance-enhancing drug suspensions, to which he questioned the legitimacy of players' positive tests for their Adderall prescriptions. In December 2012, Sherman won an appeal of a four-game PED suspension, based on the botched handling of his urine sample.
So why does Sherman not harbor a grudge for a Seattle team that released him after the 2017 season?
"Much different circumstances," Sherman responded. "Our history (with Harbaugh) goes way more personal than football."
And what about this Sunday's showdown in Seattle when the 49ers (12-3) can win the NFC playoffs' No. 1 seed and the NFC West?
"You leave the emotions and the, I guess, pageantry for the fans and the media," Sherman said. "We have to go out there and play. It's not about, 'Oh man, get rah-rah for this game!' It's rah-rah for every game."
Sherman made his return to Seattle last December, a 43-16 defeat.
"It wasn't hard last year for me, honestly. You guys put more into it than I do," Sherman said. "This is football. This is a business. It's like you going to an old job and saying, 'Oh my gosh, it's an old job.' We'll go execute like we have and I leave the nostalgia for other people."
