days. we begin with the remarkable rant heard around the world. richard sherman mouthing off to fox sports erin andrews following the seahawks incredible victory sunday to take the nfc title. the game ended with this, a play for the ages that put sherman s team in the super bowl. but the icing on the cake was surely this. sherman blasting the 49ers michael crabtree moments after victory. well, i m the best corner in the game. when you try me with a sorry receiver like crabtree, that s the result you re gonna get! don t you ever talk about me! who was talking about you? crabtree. don t you open your mouth about the best! or i m going to shut it for you real quick! sherman went on to apologize. and i talk exclusively to rachel nichols. rachel, before we get to your interview, which was a great coup for you and cnn, what was your reaction when you were watching it live to what he did? reporter: well, actually, we hear things like that all of the time. so i was a bit surprise
and they expressed themselves in a true way. i thought society had moved past that. we have a black president. we like to think that as a country, things have changed. of course, to some degree, they have. what did you learn about the state of race in this country just from the few days after that game? i learned we haven t come as far as i thought we had come. if that s all it took to bring that out of people, then it might have already been on the surface. i didn t go out there and scream at anybody, anybody s family or attack anybody but michael crabtree, which was wrong. i understand that. these people were acting like i attacked them in some way, like i went after them. i did my job effectively. afterwards, they interviewed me and i had an interview. regardless of how that interview goes, it doesn t give you the right to say the things they were saying. that s the part that s sad.
welcome back to the ed show. i ll change to a story i find very interesting. i among with other americans took a lot of flak for defending richard sherman after his postgame interview about michael crabtree on sunday night. his so-called rant made him the top trending topic on twitter. a lot of the response was shockingly hateful and down right racist. some called him a thug, a monkey, and many used racial slurs. in the heat of the moment, he was passionate. there is no excuse for folks turning this into an issue of race. and i stand by the kid. he may have let his emotions get
ferguson show. always a delight. and let s start with you, carl lewis. what do you think as an athlete, who has been at the very, very top of your game for a very long time. when you saw richard sherman go off like that, did you empathize? did you understand what he was doing? well, you know, it s really interesting. because people are quick to judge and they don t know the back story. so obviously, there was something between he and crabtree that went back a while. number one. number two, this is a very intelligent, articulate guy who assista does a lot of things and understands what he s doing. i ve been in that situation where you make a play like that for the super bowl. the super bowl is something you only have one shot at. and understanding the olympics, i get it. so the emotion of that moment i think overtook him. and i think it was emotion. yeah, completely agree. let s move quickly carl, to the very reason we ve got you on tonight. chris christie still engulfed in this bri
latin america if he felt the united states would not interfere with his travel but he says he doesn t feel that way, carol. phil black, reporting live in russia this morning. it is the post-game rant that stole the thunder from the nfc title match. cornerback, richard sherman, saved the day for his seattle seahawks but unleashed a storm of criticism on social media but verbally slamming michael crabtree. now, sherman showing some regret but also defending himself. cnn s rachel nichols sat down with an exclusive interview. she joins us to tell us more. hi, rachel. on the field, richard sherman is one of the most brash, most outspoken guys in the nfl. he is also one of the smartest players in the nfl. he graduated from stanford and started working on his master s while he was playing football there. when there was a huge backlash against him the other night, it is no surprise he had a smart take. i asked him about how race