49ers introduce Richard Sherman

SANTA CLARA - Richard Sherman stood alone on the stage in the 49ers auditorium Tuesday afternoon wearing a red suit, a black button-up shirt, a black 49ers cap and a gold necklace.

But, no plastic protective boot.

“I'll be back on the field May, June,” said Sherman, who had surgery on his ruptured right Achilles tendon last November and a minor surgery on his left Achilles tendon in February. He wore a boot on his left foot until recently, and seems to be gradually recovering from both procedures.

“I was back on the treadmill before I had to get the little scope (on the left Achilles),” Sherman said, “and I look forward to renewing that timeline the next couple weeks.

“I think with an Achilles or any injury, people like to compare other people. ‘This guy came back like this, this guy came back like that.' There are some people that are cut from a different cloth and built from different things and I think I'm one of those people.

“I know A.P. (Adrian Peterson) did it, but that was a knee. I look forward to coming back better than ever. I've got a lot of things to show a few people.”

Ten minutes before Sherman took the stage, the Player's Tribune (a publication that publishes articles written by professional athletes) ran a story he wrote about his transition from the Seattle Seahawks the 49ers. In the article, Sherman predicted when he would return from his surgeries and play for the 49ers.

“There's no doubt that I'll be ready to play come Week 1,” Sherman wrote. “That's not even a question.”

In the same article, Sherman revealed how the right Achilles ruptured in the first place. “Before I tore it,” he wrote, “I had been dealing with that Achilles for a while. I knew it was gonna go at some point, but I kept on playing because the other guys in the locker room were counting on me.

“Seven years (with the Seahawks) and I didn't miss a game until my Achilles finally went. And this is what I get.”

According to reports, Sherman had a procedure on his non-ruptured left Achilles tendon this offseason to reduce the possibility it would rupture, too. Sherman talked about that procedure during his Tuesday press conference.

“On my left heel, there was a bone spur that I had been dealing with for about three years. I've just been postponing getting it done every year. One year we had lost the Super Bowl and my son was being born. I didn't want to get it done then.

“Then we went on vacation and they were like, ‘You're going to be out for a month and a half, two months.' So, I'm like, ‘Do you really want to be walking around on crutches on vacation?'

“Next year, the same deal. You push it back, push it back and this year we had booked it before the season even started because the trainers were like, ‘You've pushed it back far enough.' So, we had booked it in July. After the Achilles ruptured, I just had to wait a couple more weeks and get it done then when my Achilles got strong enough.”

Sherman sounded encouraged and confident about his recovery. And yet, the Seahawks never shared his confidence. They cut him. Moved on. Then, Sherman signed a controversial team-friendly, incentive-based three-year contract with the 49ers while acting as his own agent. The contract is worth up to $39 million, but only $3 million is guaranteed.

“I didn't feel like I needed an agent,” Sherman explained. “I felt like I knew contracts well enough and I felt like coming off the Achilles, there's going to be negotiation points, there's going to be give and takes on both sides and I felt comfortable with that.

Sherman said it's a misconception that he made a bad deal with the 49ers. He said his 2018 contract with Seattle before the Seahawks cut him had no guaranteed money.

“What security do I have there?” he said. “With this deal, I get $5 million guaranteed (actually $3 million guaranteed), which is half of my other contract. I get the ability to make more than I could have whether I played at an All-Pro level or not in Seattle. And that's really all that I wanted.

“I think the thing I'm most frustrated about is all the people that were like so high on bashing this deal, (but) refuse to bash the agents that do awful deals every year. There are agents out there that are doing $3 million, fully guaranteed deals that look like $50 million. When the guy gets cut after two weeks or after a year and the guy only makes $5 million of a $50 million contract, nobody sits there and bashes that agent.”

Sherman implied agents are giving his deal a bad rap.

“I think that this was just one of those things where the agents feel uncomfortable with a player taking the initiative to do his own deal,” he said. “It obviously puts a fire under them. It makes them more accountable for their actions because more players will do this.”

They will?

“I've heard from a lot of players,” Sherman said. “A lot were already on board. I just gave them the confidence to move forward.”

NOTES

The 49ers signed guard Jonathan Cooper to a one-year deal on Tuesday. Cooper, 28, was the seventh pick of the 2014 draft, but has played for four teams in four seasons and been cut twice.

“Having started 27 games in four NFL seasons, Jonathan brings great experience to the interior of our offensive line,” 49ers GM John Lynch wrote in a statement. “We look forward to him competing for a starting job at guard, while also bringing a veteran presence to our locker room. Jonathan is a welcome addition to our team.”