https://www.fanragsports.com/nfl/seahawks/richard-sherman-lost-step/
SEATTLE SEAHAWKS
Has Seahawks CB Richard Sherman lost a step?
By
Michael Erler
Posted on Jan 21, 2017
(MARK LOMOGLIO/ICON SPORTSWIRE)
The Seattle Seahawks ended their season in ignominious fashion, during which their secondary was burned to a fine crisp by Matt Ryan, Julio Jones and the rest of the high-flying Atlanta Falcons at the Georgia Dome in the division round of the playoffs. Defense has long been the backbone of this team, especially in their defensive backfield, a.k.a. the “Legion of Boom,” but they struggled mightily once safety Earl Thomas was lost for the season with a broken leg in Week 13 against Carolina.
Thomas briefly contemplated retirement when he first suffered his injury before deciding to return but both he and Kam Chancellor appear to have lost a step after years of laying out — and being subject to — punishing full-speed collision hits in the middle of the field. Meanwhile, neither Thomas nor Chancellor are the senior members of the L.O.B. despite both being members of the 2010 draft class.
That distinction goes to the group’s most famous member, Richard Sherman, who was drafted out of Stanford in the fifth round of the 2011 class but is, in fact, four days older than Chancellor. Sherman will be nearly 30-years-old by the time next season starts and it’s fair to wonder how much longer he’ll be an elite player.
Sherman was named to his fourth consecutive Pro Bowl but wasn’t named Associated Press First-Team All-Pro for the second consecutive season after earning that honor from 2012-14, losing out this time to
Aqib Talib and Chris Harris Jr. of the Denver Broncos and Marcus Peters of the Kansas City Chiefs. The game charters at
Pro Football Focus had him as the 15th-ranked corner in the league, which doesn’t exactly sound elite.
Former Pittsburgh Steelers corner Ike Taylor, now a contributor for NFL.com,
still rated Sherman as his top corner overall, but it’s clear he’s no longer head-and-shoulders ahead of the pack if he is indeed at all. Breaking down the top corners, one can see Sherman lagging behind some of his peers in relevant categories like completions allowed, completion percentage allowed, yards allowed, yards-per-attempt and opponent’s passer rating. If anything, Minnesota’s Xavier Rhodes and Janoris Jenkins of the New York Giants would seem to have beef with him making the All-Pro team.
Player Completion/Attempt Percent Yards Yards/Attempt Touchdowns Interceptions Passer Rating
Xavier Rhodes 33/79 41.8 384 4.86 2 5 39.2
Aqib Talib 26/73 49.3 372 5.10 0 3 53.3
Janoris Jenkins 37/81 45.7 425 5.25 2 3 54.8
Chris Harris Jr. 34/72 47.2 337 4.68 3 2 63.3
Marcus Peters 51/89 57.3 659 7.40 3 6 63.6
Richard Sherman 44/85 51.7 624 7.34 2 4 64.0
Jalen Ramsey 48/90 53.3 703 7.81 2 2 68.0
Josh Norman 44/88 50.0 589 6.69 4 3 72.6
Patrick Peterson 43/74 58.1 539 7.28 2 3 72.9
Adam Jones 43/76 61.8 482 6.34 2 1 83.3
However, while those numbers help inform our opinion somewhat, they obviously don’t tell the whole story. There are hundreds of variables to account for, from the quality of teammates for the respective players (not just their fellow defensive backs but also the effectiveness of their front sevens’ pass rush and run defense), to the different schedules their teams faced, to the game situations of when they did and didn’t allow the completions in question.
The numbers above tell us nothing about who can shut down a Julio Jones or an Antonio Brown in the fourth quarter of a one-possession game. They don’t tell us which of these guys plays the most often on an island against the opponent’s top receiver and which of them get help from a safety. They don’t tell us how much they’re settling in zones, content to allow short completions and how much they’re playing press bump-and-run while their coordinators are running a zero blitz. That’s why sites like
Pro Football Focus are an invaluable resource, to give context to the stats.
The thing to understand about Sherman is that speed was never his chief asset to begin with. He’s 6-foot-3, which is unusually tall for a corner, and was a fifth-round pick due to lack of zip and his relative inexperience with the position at Stanford, where he switched from receiver to corner prior to his senior season. (He also believes Jim Harbaugh, his coach at Stanford, trashed him to NFL personnel people, thus further diminishing his draft stock, but that’s a story for another day.)
He’s so physical and rangy for a corner, and such a dogged student of the game, that he can get by without top-end speed. He also has the luxury of talented teammates like Chancellor and Thomas to help him over the top and top-notch coverage linebackers like Bobby Wagner and K.J. Wright to clog traffic on the underneath routes over the middle. The Seahawks have one of the better group of pass rushers up front too, with Michael Bennett, Cliff Avril and Frank Clark, so Sherman won’t have to cover for as long as some of his peers have.
All those factors should contribute to Sherman not aging in dog years the way Darrelle Revis did for the New York Jets did this past season. Then there was the
inadvertent revelation by coach Pete Carroll that Sherman was playing with an MCL sprain “for the whole second half of the season,” even though the team never put Sherman on the injury report as mandated by league rules.
Carroll tried to cover up for his snafu in is season-ending presser, explaining, “Honestly, I didn’t realize we hadn’t revealed it,” and adding that Sherman hadn’t missed any games or even practices. However, the league is well used to shenanigans from the Seahawks by now. They’ve already been docked a fifth-round pick in the upcoming draft for violating player contact rules during mini-camps last year — their third such infraction in five years — and reportedly that punishment might stiffen to losing a second-rounder instead in light of this Sherman news.
So in the end, this might wind up being quite the coup for Sherman. Not only might he healthier and perhaps better next season, but by not reporting his injury this year, the Seahawks will be less likely to draft his successor. The lesson, as always, even when Richard Sherman loses, he still finds a way to win.