Richard Sherman said he ‘played until the whistle was blown’ on controversial field goal attempt

Richard Sherman is involved in yet more controversy when it comes to officiating in NFL games.

Monday night, the Bills were lined up for a field goal to close out the first half against the Seahawks. Sherman jumped offsides, and went to block the field goal attempt when he ran into Bills kicker Dan Carpenter. Sherman was called for offsides, but not for unnecessary roughness.

Sherman spoke with ESPN’s Lisa Salters after the Seahawks’ 31-25 win, and said that he did nothing wrong in regard to the play.

“I went to block the kick,” Sherman said. “I’m not going to let him make a kick. So when they called offsides I’m not going to let them have their free play, so that’s not how I play.”

“They didn’t blow the whistle so I played until the whistle was blown,” Sherman said.

When Salters told Sherman some speculated that running into Carpenter may have been intentional, Sherman denied the accusation.

“I went straight for the ball, I didn’t go for the kicker, I slid for the ball,” Sherman said. “He should have not kicked it. You know, maybe he wanted to. I went for the ball, that’s where I went. So when the ball gets tipped on the play, the rule is when it’s tipped, there’s no flag.”

When told that the league had tweeted about the call being missed, Sherman was not shy in his criticism of the league.

“That don’t mean nothing to me,” Sherman said. “They missed a ton of calls. We’ve dealt with missed calls all year. That wouldn’t have helped them any more. They still would’ve kicked the field goal.”

After the game, referee Walt Anderson was asked why Sherman wasn’t flagged for hitting the kicker.

“One of the things we’re just looking for is does the player have a chance to realize that we’re shutting the play down,” Anderson said. “I know it was loud out there for everybody. That’s probably what took us a little bit of time to get everything shut down.”

Sherman and the Seahawks ultimately got the better end of the calls during that sequence. But surely the league saying they missed a call that would have gone against the Seahawks won’t change his view that there’s an NFL-wide conspiracy against the Seahawks.