Attacking Richard Sherman

I'm not a fan of his mouth or attitude but I am a fan of his game. He can flat out ball. That said he does get a lot of help. You can't run a slant unless it's really shallow or you're going to get blown up by either a linebacker or one of the safties one of which is the size of a linebacker anyway and the other hits like it. His length makes throwing down the sideline very difficult. Brady was picked off that way in 2012. You can beat him with a post route but I don't think the Pats have that personnel and I'm not sure the OL will hold up long enough for those routes.

However I don't think you can ignore his side of the field either.

I think there's two players you can attack him with both who are very different. One would be splitting Gronk out wide and taking away Sherman's size advantage with somebody bigger and probably just as fast. The second is the exact opposite direction going with Edelman and letting him try to stay with the elusive little guy especially if his elbow is an issue. I believe using a combination of both could keep him off balance.

He's also very susceptible to the double move and clutch and grab when he knows he's beat. He's not nearly as patient as Revis is where he's mirroring routes. If you go on youtube and search for Richard Sherman getting beat most of them are double moves. There's also a nice clip of Larry Fitzgerald lighting him up.

Rub routes are the obvious other choice but you can't leave the ball out there or he'll under cut it. I think in general the Pats would be wise to use rub routes with double moves to wisely take a few shots. I think most people want to do the quick hitters but Seattle loves playing downhill. You need both.

If he's on one side...make him cover someone you're not going to throw to anyway. If he switches sides, deception, underneath and rubs

He doesn't switch sides which brings up another point. You could potentially put the other receivers on the other side and then swing Edelman in motion a let Sherman try to pick him up off the line in the slot. Making him defend the in and out makes him a lot less effective.

Sherman lives on turnovers off the deep ball. I'd take him out of his comfort zone and force him into short to intermediate coverage routes with designed pick plays. Further to that, I would have everyone playing on him rough him up to test his elbow.

ausbacker said:

Sherman lives on turnovers off the deep ball. I'd take him out of his comfort zone and force him into short to intermediate coverage routes with designed pick plays. Further to that, I would have everyone playing on him rough him up to test his elbow.

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Good points. Brady's deep ball isn't the best in the NFL. He errs to an overthrow if anything. Brady EXCELS at the dink and dunk game, Seattle is susceptible to that. I think there philosophy is that you'll mess up and throw a pick. Brady might throw one, but I think he's pretty good at that type of game too.

Avoid Sherman. Only throw to his side if the guy is wide open. You don't think he's crafty enough to try to lure the QB into a bad throw? Just look at what Revis did to Luck. His INT came off a rub route. Sherman is not invincible, but you don't throw at him if you have a choice.

Force him to tackle and play physical - it's not his strong suit. Make him fight through bunch formations and work him over in the running game if possible (a challenge for sure given their speed at LB but that's where the good game planners separate from the average ones). Take a look at Denver's game plan in their game at that atrocity of a stadium in Seattle this season, there was some good concepts there, although not enough as the Donkeys lost. San Diego played big boy football against the Hawks and held the ball away from them. This helps keep Lynch off the field which is very important to beating them

I think they should test that arm injury early and often. Can't be like Green Bay in their first match-up and not even attempt to utilize the right side of the field.

My strategy would be to run Amendola at him as a sacrificial lamb lol. Open up Julian underneath.

Make him tackle Gronk, early on.

Marko said:

Make him tackle Gronk, early on.

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Or, short pass to #11 and Gronk takes Sherman down in a passing tackle.

I say we run short passing and running plays right at Sherman and force him to use that arm.
Sherman would love nothing better than to just defend passes all day - we haven't run many screen passes this year ... time to run a few at Sherman.

I expect 2 or 3 completions max on Sherman's side, Brady is better off looking elsewhere for most of the game.

We change this one a poll lol...some people thing we should put a mediocre target on that side and avoid Sherman completely...which begs the questions is the rest of the D gonna focus on the opposite side?

Others say attack him smartly with players who pose a problem for him...but those are some of out best weapons!

I think we should start off testing that side in both pass and run w our best guys like OP said...and if it doesn't work change philosophy and put the weakest weapon on that side and avoid it

But I would love o see Sherman get repeatedly torched by 2-3 of our guys

I'm normally a proponent of genuine sportsmanship and fair play. With punks like Shermdick, that goes out the window. I would start with solid (clean) shots to his elbow, followed by helmet under the chin. If he EVER gets his hands on the ball, I would expect whoever tackles him to walk away with a fist full of severed dreadlocks. Make that two fists full. I want that Japanese donkey punk battered into silent submission.

I want Amendola to have the game of his life for multiple reasons. First, if he has a big game that means our offense is firing on all cylinders and then we can rip the Legion of Boom for letting the forgotten Amendola do anything in the first place. lol.

On a more serious note, I bet Brady goes at him unlike Rodgers. The shifty Edelman will probably shake free quite a bit. I wouldn't test Sherman deep but everything else is fair game.

I would like to put Lafell with him. Run the ball and let Lafell f@#$ him up. Blocking that physical will put so much strain on his elbow, that we'll see if it's truly an issue or not early.

Hopefully the Pats find a way to test Earl Thomas' shoulder. He's going to think twice about diving into Gronk.. or he's going to injure himself again. Whatever he wants to do.

I don't think roughing up Sherman is a viable plan. He gets to choose when his elbow is engaged in the play.

For example, I don't think it's very relevant to the run game. If his elbow's bad, he can't block without disaster, but that doesn't mean he can't endure being blocked. It just means he only has one arm to safely fight off blocks with. Since as a general rule even two-handed CBs can't fight through blocks from Patriots WRs, I don't think that his presumed disability is that big a deal on running plays.

Where it might matter more is when he presses. It might be OK to leave guys on the line against him who, if he were healthier, might play off. But he might also just get a pain-killing shot and play exactly the way he usually plays.

I'm not super concerned about him as in think he is more hurt than the Seahawks are letting on. I'm more wondering how chancellor is going to be trying to defend Gronk