The San Francisco 49ers lured in former Seattle Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman over the weekend. General manager John Lynch says the 49ers' goal is to have Sherman, who suffered a ruptured Achilles tendon in November and later had minor surgery to clean up bone spurs in the other leg, ready to practice by training camp, according to a report by Steve Wyche of NFL Network.
Sherman underwent a physical during his visit with the 49ers on Saturday and the team apparently felt comfortable enough with the results to move forward with the signing. San Francisco protected itself financially within the contract. Sherman is scheduled to receive a $2 million roster bonus when he reports to training camp and successfully passes a physical. That bonus will be voided should he end up on either of the unable to perform or the non-football illness/injury lists.
Sherman also stands to make a good amount of money should he return to the Pro Bowl or be named an All-Pro.
Wyche reports that, according to Lynch, Sherman wants to be more aggressive and possibly come back sooner, but the 49ers will "try to be measured with his return."
On Monday, Lynch shared his thoughts on the acquisition of the All-Pro cornerback.
"With Richard, we had championship pedigree right away," Lynch told Wyche. "From afar, as a broadcaster, as a guy who admires football and football players, I think (he is) one of the great competitors in this game and this era.
"Are we taking some risks? Sure. He's got one ruptured Achilles. He's got another Achilles where they've done some work in terms of taking out some things. So is there some risk on our side? Absolutely. But we tried to make it such that if he returns to being Richard Sherman, he's going to do just fine.
"We hammered [the deal] out in a day and really happy to have done so."
Before signing CB Richard Sherman, the 49ers had finalized a trade with Denver for CB Aqib Talib. 49ers GM John Lynch explains why things fell apart pic.twitter.com/hN7zl0yOjk
— Steve Wyche (@wyche89) March 12, 2018