Sherman: Seahawks a ‘middle-of-the-road’ team. Their chance to move into fast lane is vs 49ers
It wasn’t exactly bulletin-board material. Not with what else Richard Sherman said this past week.
He said he has “no relationship” with Russell Wilson.
He said of the Seahawks: “You just expect they wouldn’t cut you while you were hurt.”
Seattle’s now-former All-Pro cornerback is returning with his new San Francisco 49ers to play as an opponent for the first time on Sunday at CenturyLink Field. Before he got to town Saturday Sherman lobbed this back at his former team, when he was asked if he was surprised at how well the Seahawks are doing without him, with the entire “Legion of Boom” secondary gone and most of the team’s Super Bowl core departed.
“They are 6-5. It’s not like they are 8-1 or 12-1; if they were that I’d be very surprised,” Sherman told reporters at 49ers headquarters in Santa Clara, Calif., this past week.
“They are kind of middle-of-the-road.”
Thing is, Sherman’s not wrong.
Yes, the Seahawks have rallied in two straight games to beat fellow playoff contenders Green Bay and Carolina and gain full control of their playoff fate. They are a half game behind Minnesota (6-4-1) for the fifth of six playoff seeds in the NFC with five games remaining in the regular season. Four are at home for Seattle, including one next week against Minnesota that could give the Seahawks head-to-head tie-breaker edges over just about every fellow wild-card contender in the conference.
Yet Seattle is one of six teams in the NFC with five or six losses. Entering Sunday’s game they are the seventh-place team in the 16-team conference.
Yep, that’s middle of the road.
But now it’s December. Wilson’s and the Seahawks’ most successful month under Pete Carroll.
Time to move into the fast lane in the drive for the postseason, beginning in Sunday’s home game against Sherman’s depleted 49ers (2-9).
San Francisco has done this in its last seven trips to Seattle: And 0-7 record, those losses by a combined score of Seahawks 189, 49ers 80. Eric Branch of the San Francisco Chronicle noted 49ers quarterbacks in those last seven Seattle games have three touchdown passes, eight interceptions and a passer rating of 61.4.
“We are confident,” said Wilson, the NFL’s winningest quarterback in November (19-8) and December (also 19-8) the last six years.
“We have no fear.”
As All-Pro linebacker Bobby Wagner has said for weeks, Seahawks need to “stack wins” to move out of the middle of that road.
To do that, to win their third in a row on Sunday, they need to run—again—and to stop the run better than they have in the last month.
In November Wagner and his defense with nine new starters since last season’s opener allowed 160 yards rushing by the Chargers, 149 by the Rams and then a season-high 220 by the Panthers last weekend. That was the most Seattle had allowed on the ground in a win in six years; Minnesota rushed for 243 yards but the Seahawks won 30-20 at home on Nov. 4, 2012.
Seattle will again be without Pro Bowl linebacker K.J. Wright. He has been away from the team all week getting what Carroll has called “special” treatment on his knee the 29-year-old had surgically repaired in August. The team doesn’t know when or if Wright will return this season.
Run-gap discipline and missed tackles at the line have been the Seahawks’ biggest issues in stopping the run.
“We need to do better. It’s definitely an area we need to improve on,” Wagner said. “We pride ourselves on our run defense, and it hasn’t been up to par. I take it upon myself to make sure that we do that better. We’re still making plays that we need to make when the time presents itself, but we definitely have to be more consistent when it comes to the run game.
“A lot of it is just taking our shot and being on our keys and communicating.”
San Francisco will test the Seahawks to see if they’ve fixed their issues. The 49ers are fifth in the NFL in rushing offense. They are the only team that features old-school, two-back formations with a fullback and a tailback.
Matt Breita is San Francisco’s lead runner, with 738 yards while averaging 5.8 yards per rush largely outside the tackles. Fullback Kyle Juszczyk is also an adept receiver with 23 catches including one for 56 yards.
“It does challenge us some in the multiplicity,” Carroll said of San Francisco’s variety with two-back sets. “The formations are the same that you see in other personnels, but they just show them all in one. You line up, it could be I-formation. It could be spread. That’s a nice part of their offense. ... Hardly anybody’s doing it.”
The 49ers have reasons for doing it that way. Whiz-play designer Kyle Shanahan has had to adapt. San Francisco lost quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo in week three to a season-ending injury. That effectively ended its season that began with the 49ers a chic pick for the playoffs.
Nick Mullens, a practice-squad quarterback last season as a rookie from Southern Mississippi, will start again on Sunday at Seattle.
Mullens and the Niners will again be without their two top receivers. Pierre Garcon is out because of an injured knee. Marquise Goodwin remains away with family issues.
So Sherman’s 49ers have fallen off the trail. Into a ditch alongside the road, in fact. That’s why Sherman’s return game in Seattle has gone from its originally scheduled national showcase on a NFL Sunday night to a secondary afternoon afterthought nationally.
But it remains very much a forethought from here to the Bay Area.
Sherman has played in nine of 11 games this season in his San Francisco debut, coming off the torn Achilles tendon last November that led to the Seahawks waived him injured in March rather than paying their former foundational player the $11 million they would have owed him for 2018.
Last week Tampa Bay went at Sherman like few teams have in his eight-year career. Smaller, faster Mike Evans caught five passes for 113 yards on Sherman.
This week, Sherman deflected blame for Evans’ big day as the 49ers lost 27-9 at Tampa.
“Quarterback (Jameis Winston) moving around and creating kind of backyard football. I mean, it is what it is when it gets at that point,” Sherman told reporters in Santa Clara, Calif. “You can only cover so many routes for so long. When a quarterback is playing backward football you are going to give up completions. most of the plays were all over the place.
“We are going to have to figure it out this week.”
Yes, they are.
Wilson has had the time to extend plays and throw down the field for decisive plays. Plays such as the touchdown to David Moore on fourth-and-3 and the 43-yard improvisational strike to Tyler Lockett with 1 minute left in the last-play win at Carolina last weekend.
Wilson’s been able to do that because Seattle continues to use its No. 1-ranked rushing offense early in games to stop opposing pass rushers from focusing solely on pressuring Wilson.
The fun game within Sunday’s game will be Sherman going against his former Seahawks and Stanford teammate Doug Baldwin. Seattle’s Pro Bowl wide receiver said this past week this is the best his felt in a season of injuries to both knees, an elbow, and last week at Carolina a pulled groin through which he played and had five catches.
“That’s going to be really fun,” Sherman said.
Does Sherman expect the Seahawks to challenge him?
“I hope so,” he said.
He’s not alone.
This story was originally published December 1, 2018 at 2:43 PM.
