On the Road With Richard Sherman, Who Likes an Acai Bowl But Can’t Quit Taco Bell
GQ SportsThe Seahawks icon is now traveling the country as part of the Thursday Night Football crew, and he has some thoughts.By Matthew RobersonOctober 31, 2024Photographs: Getty Images; Collage: Gabe ConteSave this storySaveSave this storySaveFew people on earth travel as often as professional athletes. With On the Road, the GQ Sports Travel Questionnaire, they’re weighing in on everything from room service to flying comfortably to their favorite chain restaurants.These days, as a member of the Thursday Night Football broadcast, Richard Sherman is a man of few needs. If you get the Super Bowl champion in a city with an indoor football stadium, and a hotel room that comes with a balcony, ample outlets, and a normal shower, he’s good to go. If the city in question also has a particularly strong jerk chicken restaurant, he’s in hog heaven.The man has done his fair share of traveling, both during his 11-year playing career and now as a talking head. Though he grew up in Southern California, the 36-year-old has turned his back on La La Land in favor of his adopted hometown of Seattle. When GQ connected with Sherman, he was in New Orleans, taking advantage of all of his favorite things—even if he still has some issues with the Superdome. He shared other stadiums that grinded his gears, why he stuck around in the Pacific Northwest, and a fast food chain that he just can’t quit.When you’re traveling for Thursday Night Football, how much time do you actually get in each city? Are you able to explore at all?We don’t have a ton of time. I’ll get a run in on the morning of the game, and we go to dinner the night before. It's usually: get in Wednesday during the day, dinner, wake up, production meeting, workout, maybe lunch if you’ve got a buddy in town to hang out with, then go to the stadium. With East Coast games, we don’t get done until 1:00 in the morning, so it’s straight to the hotel to sleep for a couple hours and then a 7:00 flight.Have you gotten used to this lifestyle yet?It’s a similar routine to what we’ve been in. With sports, you get familiar with your schedule and figure out what you gotta do: how to pack, how to unpack, your game day routine. When we first started, I did a lot more of my normal game day routine that I did when I was playing. You get to the game and it’s like, I’m not playing. Why am I getting myself hyped up?Are there cities where you feel like the fans particularly hate you? Does anyone ever say crazy shit to you on the street?No! I’ve never actually gotten that, honestly. Our rival team would have been San Francisco, but those fans love me now! When you’re on the road and you’re not an opponent, people are like, “Man, I’m a big fan! You were one of the best to ever play!” Nobody is ever being really rude in person like that, at least not yet.I remember when the Bills’ kicker’s wife threatened you with castration.People say a lot of nonsense behind a screen. They won’t say the same in person, but they’ll say, “I used to hate you but man, you’re the nicest guy in the world!” Or, “You’re bigger than I thought!”On a semi-realer note, you developed a villain reputation when you were in the league. Psychologically, how did that affect you?I don’t think it affected me much at all, because I never thought people knew me in the first place. People that don’t know me were judging me off football games, and their opinions didn’t really count in my book. For the people that know me, hang out with me, talk to me, if they don’t like me, they gotta justify the reason. But there’s not that many of those people that I know about.Where is home base for you now? Still the Seattle area?Yeah, I still live in Seattle.What made you stick around and not go back to California?Well, I hate LA. I hate LA with every bit of my soul. That’s the biggest thing. I hate the traffic, I hate the taxes, I hate a lot of the things. But Kam [Chancellor] and I just started a restaurant [in Bellevue, WA] a year ago, so it makes things convenient and more comfortable. Also, I like the house that I’m in.What do you remember about being drafted and moving there for the first time? The rain thing gets really overblown.No, no, no. Don’t do that! It rains every day! Don’t let anybody know anything different! It rains, don’t come! It’s a war zone. I don’t know, they’ll eat your cat! Don’t come!But the fresh air is the coolest thing. When you get off the plane you’re like, That’s it. Once you own property and get comfortable, get used to the time zone, it’d be a drastic change going back at this point. There’s other factors that get involved the older you get, once your kids have roots and are in school and you’ve built community. I could never move east because I hate the time difference. I can’t watch my Lakers at 10:30, I’m sorry.That is easily the worst part about living on the East Coast for me, watching sports. The fourth quarter of playoff games will start at 1:00 in the morning!One o’clock! One o’clock! I didn't like playi
Few people on earth travel as often as professional athletes. With On the Road, the GQ Sports Travel Questionnaire, they’re weighing in on everything from room service to flying comfortably to their favorite chain restaurants.
These days, as a member of the Thursday Night Football broadcast, Richard Sherman is a man of few needs. If you get the Super Bowl champion in a city with an indoor football stadium, and a hotel room that comes with a balcony, ample outlets, and a normal shower, he’s good to go. If the city in question also has a particularly strong jerk chicken restaurant, he’s in hog heaven.
The man has done his fair share of traveling, both during his 11-year playing career and now as a talking head. Though he grew up in Southern California, the 36-year-old has turned his back on La La Land in favor of his adopted hometown of Seattle. When GQ connected with Sherman, he was in New Orleans, taking advantage of all of his favorite things—even if he still has some issues with the Superdome. He shared other stadiums that grinded his gears, why he stuck around in the Pacific Northwest, and a fast food chain that he just can’t quit.
We don’t have a ton of time. I’ll get a run in on the morning of the game, and we go to dinner the night before. It's usually: get in Wednesday during the day, dinner, wake up, production meeting, workout, maybe lunch if you’ve got a buddy in town to hang out with, then go to the stadium. With East Coast games, we don’t get done until 1:00 in the morning, so it’s straight to the hotel to sleep for a couple hours and then a 7:00 flight.
It’s a similar routine to what we’ve been in. With sports, you get familiar with your schedule and figure out what you gotta do: how to pack, how to unpack, your game day routine. When we first started, I did a lot more of my normal game day routine that I did when I was playing. You get to the game and it’s like, I’m not playing. Why am I getting myself hyped up?
No! I’ve never actually gotten that, honestly. Our rival team would have been San Francisco, but those fans love me now! When you’re on the road and you’re not an opponent, people are like, “Man, I’m a big fan! You were one of the best to ever play!” Nobody is ever being really rude in person like that, at least not yet.
People say a lot of nonsense behind a screen. They won’t say the same in person, but they’ll say, “I used to hate you but man, you’re the nicest guy in the world!” Or, “You’re bigger than I thought!”
I don’t think it affected me much at all, because I never thought people knew me in the first place. People that don’t know me were judging me off football games, and their opinions didn’t really count in my book. For the people that know me, hang out with me, talk to me, if they don’t like me, they gotta justify the reason. But there’s not that many of those people that I know about.
Yeah, I still live in Seattle.
Well, I hate LA. I hate LA with every bit of my soul. That’s the biggest thing. I hate the traffic, I hate the taxes, I hate a lot of the things. But Kam [Chancellor] and I just started a restaurant [in Bellevue, WA] a year ago, so it makes things convenient and more comfortable. Also, I like the house that I’m in.
No, no, no. Don’t do that! It rains every day! Don’t let anybody know anything different! It rains, don’t come! It’s a war zone. I don’t know, they’ll eat your cat! Don’t come!
But the fresh air is the coolest thing. When you get off the plane you’re like, That’s it. Once you own property and get comfortable, get used to the time zone, it’d be a drastic change going back at this point. There’s other factors that get involved the older you get, once your kids have roots and are in school and you’ve built community. I could never move east because I hate the time difference. I can’t watch my Lakers at 10:30, I’m sorry.
One o’clock! One o’clock! I didn't like playing primetime games on the East Coast. That’s another thing about Seattle that people don’t get. This time of year, it doesn’t get dark until, like, 9:00. They’ll FaceTime me and ask why it’s still light outside.
Exactly, that’s what I mean! College will sometimes start at 9! You’re sitting there with a full slate of games before breakfast. Lunch, you get a different slate. Then at 5:30 you get a great slate and you get to bed!
Maybe Miami. That was the only place where we ever actually did anything, walked around a little bit. Most of the cities—at least for me, I don’t do anything—the most I would do is go to a mall for 30-40 minutes and then come back to the hotel. I’m locked in. I honestly didn’t get to see a lot of the cities when I was playing because we were there for such a short amount of time and it felt like a distraction.
I can’t say there were any cities that were more fun than the others. When I went to San Francisco, obviously it was cool coming back to Seattle to play. It was like flying home. Glendale, Arizona was cool, even though it was a house of horrors for us. But the area was nice!
I like Dallas’ stadium. That was always fun; the turf was always bouncy. You gotta, like, walk through a glass bar [to get to the field] where people are drunk. I hated Oakland, they had roaches in the stadium. I didn’t like Qualcomm before the Chargers moved. Playing at the [LA] Coliseum for the couple years the Rams were there was fun, because it just brought me back to college. I had some really good memories there. Houston—I like the indoor stadiums. Well, I like those indoor stadiums. I’m not a big fan of the Saints’ stadium. It’s just so dark! Bro, trying to locate the ball? Please, please be there. I know it’s up there somewhere.
I mean, it affects you. But I do way better in cold than I do hot. I’m not great in hot weather. My coldest game was that Minnesota game before their stadium was built, at the University of Minnesota. I think it was negative-25 wind chill, the third or fourth coldest in the history of the league. It was uncomfortable, but you could always run to the heaters. When it’s hot, there’s not enough water you can drink or enough shade in the world. No matter what, your body is just panicking.
Five pounds a quarter! Those guys are dying!
No, I like hotels. It’s always something new, even the ones you’ve stayed at before, it’ll be a different room. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s not good and you don’t want to stay there anymore. They need to check on this room. We were in Miami and my roof was leaking because I guess the air conditioning was in the ceiling and they had to come fix it. But I enjoy staying in hotels, and my kids enjoy it.
It’s just gotta have the plugs by the bed. I don’t want to unplug the lamps and all that crap. Plugs by the bed, set the thermostat to 68, and I’m good to go. A little balcony, if you can get one, is nice from time to time. I like to sit out there at night and have a glass of wine or something, hang out, decompress. But I’m a pretty simple human being. A nice shower to steam in is nice, but that’s about it. Low maintenance, baby.
Have you stayed somewhere where the shower doesn’t have a drain? It’s just slanted? Then the whole bathroom is soaked! Bro, I see what you’re trying to do, but put a little lip on it or something. It’s aesthetically pleasing, but it’s not functional.
Just give me a shower! This isn’t an art piece.
Right now I’m an Uber Eats guy, because I always try to get jerk chicken. That’s my favorite meal. Sometimes that’s a little challenge. The most I’ve ever gone to find a place is like ten miles. Now I Uber Eats everything. That’s helpful.
100%. If I can’t get the jerk that’s exactly what I do. I gotta go with something familiar. I’m rarely venturing, unless someone knows a place.
That’s crazy. I can do Chipotle or any of the fast food chains. I’ve been trying my best to stay away from beef, so if I can find something with chicken or salmon, I’m good to go. But yeah, Chipotle goes. Taco Bell still goes. They’re gonna have a hard time prying me off Taco Bell. They could do a whole documentary about how it’s the worst thing in the world for you, and I’d be like, Damn…quesadilla?
I will take a good açai bowl if I can find it. West Coast stuff. I’m trying to keep this girlish figure together. If I get a workout in, get my açai bowl, then I probably won’t eat again until halftime of the game or whenever we’re done with our first segment.
I like the Cayman Islands. That’s where I go if I need to hide away for a while. I like Hawaii, and the kids always have a good time. We’re going to Europe in November, going to Paris for the first time. We’re going to take the train from London to Paris, which’ll be fun.
My grandmother just went to Dubai. She was having a time there.
That’s what I said. She called me when she was there and was like, “I told you I was going!” She kind of flexed on me a little bit.
