Richard Sherman: authentic, unapolegetic

Nobody is better at explaining the intricacies of NFL football to a lay audience than Richard Sherman.

Nobody is more willing to steer an interview straight into a ditch than Sherman, either.

It is the yin and the yang of his media presence, the grin and the growl, and Wednesday was an opportunity to see both sides.

On the one hand, there was Sherman making it very clear that he would not be answering questions from Mike Salk during an interview that aired on the radio station I used to work at. On the other, there was an interview Sherman did with Kevin Clark of TheRinger.com in which he pointed out Kyle Shanahan’s expertise by referencing a 2016 game between the Seahawks and the Falcons that you might remember because Sherman became observably upset on the sidelines. OK. Wait. I’m going to need to be more specific. That was first time Sherman became observably upset on the sidlines that season.

I find Richard Sherman to be an absolute treasure, and I do not say that to cast any sort of shade on either my former employer or anyone who was part of that interview. It is my belief and my experience that if you talk about Sherman for any length of time in any sort of critical context you’re going to say something that makes him bristle. Sherman is not unique in taking issue with public critiques. What is unique is his willingness to make that his discomfort very clear and in very public settings.

He did it on “First Take” early in his career when he told Skip Bayless “I’m better at life than you are.” He did it in 2016 after Jim Moore asked him a question that was really more an observation, and a few minutes later, when Sherman walked off stage he said he would end Moore’s career.

I consider Sherman one of the players I’ve most enjoyed covering, and he may be as mad at me at he is at Salk. I remain blocked by him on Twitter, and he didn’t respond to the last text message I sent him. It comes with the territory when you cover Sherman.

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Sherman is that increasingly rare person in the world of big-time sports who is willing to be transparent about what he actually feels. This is not always flattering. In fact there are times that it has been off-putting and cringeworthy, but I’ve always respected this.

I felt similarly about Mike Leach, whose political beliefs were pretty antithetical to my own. I thought he could be too callous in the way he talked about his own players, that Leach was boorish toward the media, but I also thought that anyone who dealt with him had a pretty good idea of exactly what they were getting. He was not disingenuous as so many people are. Being authentic takes courage, and I’d rather talk to someone who honestly disagrees with me than waste time with someone who is saying what they think they’re supposed to.

When Sherman engages, you get all of him, and it has been that way from the very beginning when he was a rookie in 2011. His first start came against the Cincinnati Bengals, and in the week afterward he talked about eating food off the plate of A.J. Green, a fellow rookie who had been a top-five pick.

"I would say he's probably one of the most overrated receivers out there," Sherman said that week in an interview with Curtis Crabtree, how now at Q13. "He wasn't anything special. (Andy) Dalton was a good quarterback. He makes good decisions, but A.J. Green is just a lot of noise talking and bad routes."

The media tends to focus on the more combative quotes and gestures for the simple fact that the audience tends to be more interested in combative quotes and gestures. Sherman was happy to provide them. He changed his Twitter account to Optimus Prime the week before a 2012 game against the Detroit Lions and Calvin Johnson, who was nicknamed Megatron. There was tension with Jim Harbaugh, then the 49ers coach.

Now, there is more to Sherman than just his need for conflict. He has been an incredibly supportive teammate, especially to younger defensive backs. He’s very supportive of Tariq Woolen, the Seahawks rookie, and has even worked with him. Sherman is also willing to provide actual insights into the techniques and rules of the scheme to dunces like me who covered the team. People invariably describe Sherman as smart, and he absolutely is, but I’ve also felt that description can make it sound like Sherman’s intelligence is unexpected or a surprise. I would call it unparralleled. I have not met a single coach or player who is better than Sherman at explaining what was actually happening on an NFL in a way that is accessible to someone who does not understand as much as he does.

His interview with Clark is a fantastic example.

Asked to explain what makes Kyle Shanahan such an effective head coach, Sherman referenced a very specific instance in which Shanahan had found a fatal flaw in Seattle’s defense. Now, Sherman didn’t reference the game or even the year, but he left enough clues.

“He had Dan Quinn there,” Sherman said, “so Dan Quinn ran our scheme.”

This would be Atlanta where Quinn was named the head coach in 2015 and hired Shanahan as offensive coordinator. They worked together for two seasons before Shanahan was hired to be the 49ers head coach.

“I’m sure they ran it throughout training camp,” Sherman said, “and he [Shanahan] figured out the holes in the scheme.”

In Week 6 of 2016, the 3-1 Seahawks hosted the 4-1 Falcons. Seattle led 17-3 at halftime, but Atlanta scored 21 points in the third quarter. It was the last of those three touchdowns in which the Falcons used the formation Sherman outlined to Clark.

“He brought in two tight ends to the single receiver side,” Sherman said.

Both of these tight ends lined up in a three-point stance, meaning their hands were on the ground. They positioned themselves outside the left tackle. Then there was a single receiver on that side of the field, which Sherman referred to as being detached.

“He’s not connected to the line of scrimmage,” Sherman said. “So he’s out wide or in the slot. A tight end can be that way, too.”

Shanahan had discovered that Seattle’s Cover 3 defense followed a rule against this single receiver formation: It instructed the cornerback to follow the receiver.

“When you have one receiver, it’s pretty much man-to-man,” Sherman said. “Hey, I got that guy locked up.”

This creates an opening, though. Remember, Seattle is running a Cover 3 which calls for the cornerback to be responsible for the deep third on his side of the field. If he’s following the receiver, and that receiver runs toward the middle of the field? It creates a void at the back of the defense.

Sherman followed his man – Julio Jones – on the slant. The two tight ends on that side of the formation?

“He ran the tight ends on seams,” Sherman said. “Touchdown. Uncontested.”

This was not a busted coverage. Sherman had followed the rule that was installed to account for that formational wrinkle. Shanahan had discovered that rule and then engineered a situation to take advantage of it.

“It broke the defense,” Sherman said. “It literally was against every rule that we had so we had to change the rules of the defense in order to combat that situation, but nobody had ever done it. So, sometimes you run into situations, where, ‘Man, these guys suck. Like, these guys made a mistake.’ Well, they beat the scheme. The scheme can be beat.”

It’s fascinating. When I first heard the explanation, I thought Sherman was describing the first of the three touchdowns Seattle gave up in the period. It was after that touchdown Sherman became volatile on the sidelines, the rest of the defense eventually gathering around him and jumping up and down to get him reengaged.

On that play, Sherman had lined up across from the outside receiver, who was actually a tight end (Austin Hooper). The receiver — Jones — was in the slot with another tight end attached to the line of scrimmage off the left tackle. Hooper had started toward the middle of the field before coming back toward the sideline, Sherman plastering to him in man-to-man coverage. Jones lined up inside in the slot, meaning he was detached. There was only one tight end with his hand down, attached to the line of scrimmage.

While that is clearly a different play than the situation Sherman was describing, it was out of the same personnel grouping: 13, which means there is one running back, three tight ends and one receiver. You also had a similar dynamic in which Sherman matched up in man coverage against the outside receiver while the rest of the secondary played Cover 3. The result was the same, too, as a receiver ran open into that clearing and scored.

It gives you an idea of just how complex an NFL scheme actually is, and as I said, Sherman is better at explaining this sort of thing than anyone I’ve come across.

He’s also more open with his emotions, too, and is very blunt about that in public settings. It happened again Wednesday when he joined 710 Seattle Sports at the request of his former teammate K.J. Wright. Everything was fine for the first couple of minutes until Salk stepped in to ask a question.

Salk: “You know the voice, Richard Sherman with us here on Seattle Sports on 710. When you went elsewhere – first to San Francisco and then to Tampa – what did it teach you or what did you learn about the differences between those places and what you had seen here in Seattle?”

Sherman: “Well, first off, first off, I remember when I exited here, and I remember some words from you, that were a lot different than what I had heard when I was here. You know what I mean? It’s a little different. I’m going to answer the questions from Brock and K.J., but we’re going to excuse you out of this.”

It goes on from there, and I’ve got a transcript at the bottom1 if you’re a sicko who likes awkward interaction, and that’s exactly what it was: awkward. Sherman is within his rights not to answer questions from someone or not cooperate though it does make you wonder why he agreed to do the interview given who was involved. Then again, he said he agreed to the interview for Wright.

From Salk’s perspectivehe, he handled it very professionally and expressed a willingness to talk about and discuss whatever it was Sherman had a problem with. Sherman declined. As a host, Salk is certainly not obligated to follow a guest’s direction.

Sherman simply isn’t someone who feels obligated to follow the script that has been laid out for him. It’s an inextricable part of what made him so interesting to cover and makes him so compelling for me even know. In a media environment where it’s increasingly easy to predict what people will say, Sherman remains undeniably authentic whether it’s delivering insights or expressing his emotions.

He’s a bit of a double-edged sword in that way. Or maybe it’s two different sides to the same coin. I’ve certainly been on both ends. The interview I enjoyed doing most was when he was the guest for “Seahawks Live,” which aired live on Thursday nights from the Pearl Bar in Bellevue’s Lincoln Square. I’m also still blocked by him on Twitter after suggesting the Seahawks should trade him after the 2016 season.

Polarizing is the word that I’ve seen many people use to describe Sherman, but I don’t think that’s the most accurate. Complicated is another frequent modifier, and that doesn’t fit, either. Sherman is honest. He’s so honest, in fact, that he’ll express his opinions and feelings and create an awkwardly adversarial situation. Is it unnecessary? Probably. Is it awkward? Yup.

I’ve decided that’s just part of the package with Sherman. It’s not a dealbreaker for me. That emotional transparency is just part of who he is, and while that may result in unnecessarily burnt bridges and confrontations, it also produces some incredible insight and really compelling storylines. I find Richard Sherman to be an absolutely captivating human being, and I’m here for all of it even if he won’t talk to me, either.