“We’re on the 1-yard line here!” 49ers GM John Lynch said late Saturday afternoon to the free-agent corner he was recruiting, Richard Sherman. “We can do this! We can put this in the end zone!”
Sherman smiled. “I’ve been at the 1-yard line before,” he said, “and it didn’t go so well.”
Lynch said: “I promise you, we won’t throw it this time.”
This was not your typical negotiation. Here, in the inner sanctum of the team Sherman kept out of the Super Bowl four years ago, the most hated rival in recent San Francisco history spent four hours Saturday afternoon negotiating his own contract with no agent.