It’s been quite the NFL season and when I say that, I don’t necessarily mean it as a good thing because we have seen so many stars go down with injuries. It started with Eric Berry rupturing his Achilles in week one after facing New England. David Johnson injured his wrist in week one, J.J. Watt fractured his leg in week five, Aaron Rodgers broke his collarbone in a divisional showdown against the Vikings, Deshaun Watson went down with a torn ACL in practice, Andrew Luck’s season has been shut down due to a lingering shoulder issue and we can’t forget about Odell Beckham Jr breaking his ankle. We can now add all-pro cornerback Richard Sherman to the list of injured superstars. His season is done for this year with a ruptured Achilles.
Since being drafted by the Seattle Seahawks, he’s been one of the best cornerbacks in the business. He has 32 interceptions, the most in the league by a corner since 2011. When you look at the position of the defensive back, they’re smaller guys, but that isn’t Richard Sherman. At 6’3, he has the long arms to really be a disruptive force at the line of scrimmage and will jam a receiver off his route. He’s an extremely intelligent football player that once played wide receiver in college at Stanford so he knows what a wide receiver will do from a route perspective. When I think of guys that are able to play off the receiver, sit back in coverage and as the receiver cuts in on his route and the corner can make the play, nobody does it better than Richard Sherman as he is the very best at playing in a zone coverage. When he’s on the field, he’ll allow who he’s covering to get his yards underneath on a short route, but he takes a lot of pride in defending the deep ball down the field. He has great vision, awareness and he always wants to make a play for his team.
This is a humongous loss for the Seattle Seahawks defense and this could put a damper on their chances of coming out of the NFC as they are considered to be a contender year in and out. Last season, they were without Earl Thomas after he broke his leg and his absence absolutely devastated the Seahawks and teams attacked the middle part of the secondary quite often. I’m wishing this guy a very speedy recovery.
