Take Care of Your Players

Welcome to Tuesdays with Richard on Thursdays, a video series featuring Seahawks All-Pro cornerback Richard Sherman. Throughout the 2016 season, Richard will take you inside every aspect of his life, on and off the field. In this episode, as part of our  Players' POV series, Richard discusses the relationship between the NFL and its players.

We play a violent game that has a one hundred percent injury rate. So now that we’re a couple of weeks into the season, everybody’s banged up — some guys worse than others, some teams worse than others. But everybody’s feeling it. It just comes with the territory — decisions and sacrifices you willingly make coming into this game.

But as dedicated as we players are to this game, it’s getting more and more difficult to ignore the fact that we don’t have a league that shows the same kind of dedication when it comes to taking care of the players who are laying their bodies on the line every Sunday.

It’s a huge issue — one that a lot of players talk about behind closed doors, and would like to talk about more openly. They’re passionate about it and they want to see change.

I feel like I have a voice, and I have the mindset and the courage to come out and say something about it.

So, I’m gonna say it.