Richard Sherman gets in people's heads. He gets in opposing players' heads, he gets in opposing coaches' heads. Now he's in our heads. In fact, he's so good at getting in people's heads (and at football) that his greatness in these areas has us confused as to who or what caused the Packers loss in Seattle Thursday night.
In our sports culture today, fans and media put way more attention and focus on placing blame rather than giving credit. Why? I'm not sure, but here's my best guess: We're at a place in sports where everybody loves to say "I told you so." We're all coaches sitting on our couches. We can't say "I told you so" when we give credit, so we focus on the negative. Further, in our effort to prove we know more than the guys in uniform or on the sideline, when a certain play or game plan doesn't pan out, today's sports fan loves nothing more than to second-guess said play/game plan. Because when you second-guess what did happen, you can never be wrong in saying what didnot happen would have worked. Thus, the greatness of Richard Sherman has us blaming Mike McCarthy and the Green Bay coaching staff for GB's loss.
Now, I have seen people challenge Sherman's awesomeness by claiming he can't be that great if he only plays one side of the field. This is simply ridiculous. Seattle has obviously made this part of their gameplan, and they know much more about this than any of us will (or can). By making Sherman a staple on one side, it affects the way the safties, linebackers, ect. play. Perhaps Seattle figured that, by putting Sherman on one side of the field, they can put their best cover-safety on the other - because if Sherman practically shuts off one half of the field, it'd be a waste to also have your best safety on that side, no? Also, by placing Sherman on one side, it forces the opponent to adjust to them. There's a big difference between game planning for an opponent and game planning around an opponent. If you force and opponent to game plan around you, you've already got an edge. By playing Sherman on one side, Seattle basically offers a challenge - here he is, you know where he's gonna be, have at it, hoss. For the Seahawks and Sherman, there are only right answers, and the one they choose is to have him play one side of the field. Suggesting he's somehow a lesser player for that holds no water.
As for the other side of the ball - the side we're more concerned about - the Packers did the right thing by forcing Sherman to cover Jarrett Boykin all game. But before we get into that, let's put one thing to rest (I don't want to spend too much time on it because it's so dumb, but it's got a lot of attention); the Packers did NOT go into the game knowing they weren't going to throw Sherman's way, it was just a by-product of what the game dictated. Think about it: Why would McCarthy tell the best quarterback on the planet not to throw to one side of the field? And why would Aaron Rodgers listen? Even if McCarthy did that, wouldn't Rodgers be inclined to take it as a challenge to throw at Sherman? On the field, Rodgers is a quarterbacking robot programmed to throw to the open man, why would McCarthy intentionally mess with that programming? I don't know McCarthy told Rodgers not to throw at Sherman, but it seems pretty implausible that he would have the balls to tell his all-world QB that Seattle's cornerback is better at his job than Rodgers is at his. We're so insistent on placing blame, that let's just say the Rodgers threw Sherman's way a few times and all fell incomplete. In theory, the criticism of McCarthy would have to go away, but I'm convinced that the criticism just would have been focused elsewhere. We just look for the lowest-hanging fruit, and not throwing at Sherman was the easiest and juiciest fruit on the tree of criticism.
Criticizing in this way is just building a straw-man argument. That is: it's framing the conversation in a way (that's not even provable) so that it guarentees one will be on the right side of the conversation. Above that, it's also kind of mentally lazy.
Anyway, back to the decision to put Boykin on Sherman's side. It was absolutely the route to go. Think about like this: if an NBA team could choose who LeBron James guarded on defense, wouldn't they choose to have him defend their third-best player? Why would they want James to take out their best option and force their role-players to exceed expectations instead of allowing James to remove a role-player with the hopes their stars play like stars? Seattle chose right in how they use(d) Sherman and the Packers chose right in trying to gameplan around him. Here's the kicker: Anybody who's upset at McCarthy and/or convinced the Packers decided before the game not to throw to Sherman's side needs to 1) explain how getting the ball in Jarrett Boykin's hands changes the outcome of the game, and 2) show me a play where Boykin, ya know, got open.
Green Bay not throwing at Sherman was not designed, rather them just taking what the defense gave them (or did not give them). Either way, Seattle made GB's passing game look about as average - I won't say bad - as it has looked probably since Rodgers' first season as a starter.
There was a recent article in Forbes Magazine that named Packers fans the best in football, let's prove it by being a little different, let's give credit where credit is due instead of doing what everybody else is doing and forming the angry mob to seek out that week's scapegoat. Seattle was just plain better on Thursday night. McCarthy's not our scapegoat, Richard Sherman is just that good.
