Last night after the San Francisco 49ers defeated the Cleveland Browns on Monday Night Football to improve to 4-0 on the season, cornerback Richard Sherman said that a pre-game snub by Baker Mayfield motivated the team against the Browns.
According to a report from NFL.com, Mayfield refused to shake the hands of Sherman and DeForest Buckner when the captains from each team met in the center of the field. Here is what Sherman had to say about it:
"What's amazing, and annoying, was him not shaking hands at the beginning," Sherman said. "That's some college s---. It's ridiculous. We're all trying to get psyched up, but shaking hands with your opponent — that's NFL etiquette. And when you pull bush-league stuff, that's disrespectful to the game. And believe me, that's gonna get us fired up."
Since the end of the game last night, multiple videos of the pre-game handshake have since emerged on Twitter, and the footage tells a different story.
The first video that made the rounds on Tuesday, shot from field-level, shows Mayfield shaking hands with Buckner and George Kittle, but his interaction with Sherman is blocked from the camera. When asked about it, Sherman claimed that Mayfield’s quick exit from the coin toss was the real issue.
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