SEATTLE — Of course this week ended with a Richard Sherman interception.
After a quiet game, Seattle’s loudest player finally had a ball thrown in the Seahawks cornerback’s direction. And in what has been a very eventful week for him, Sherman stepped in front of what could have been a game-tying touchdown pass and instead turned it into a game-clinching interception in a 20-13 Seahawks victory.
That interception, Sherman’s eighth of the season, capped a hectic and productive 11-day span for the second-year cornerback. Last Thursday, he flew to St. Louis where a day later he had his appeal of a four-game suspension heard by the league. Despite missing two days of practice, he was dominant in Seattle’s win over San Francisco, picking off one pass, breaking up another in the end zone, and returning a blocked field goal 90 yards for a touchdown, all against his former college coach.
Sherman then started this week not knowing if it would be his last of the season. If suspended for violating the league’s policy on performance enhancing substances, Sherman would have not only missed Sunday’s game against St. Louis, he would have also been out three more games, meaning Seattle would have had to make it to the Super Bowl for him to play again before next season. On Thursday, Sherman received word he had won his appeal, a massive piece of good news for both him and the team.
After such a crazy week and a half, however, Sherman didn’t find many ways to stand out against the Rams for most of Sunday afternoon. That wasn’t because Sherman was playing poorly, but rather because Rams quarterback Sam Bradford wisely spent the better part of four quarters avoiding throw the ball in Sherman’s general vicinity. But with the game on the line, facing fourth-and-ballgame, Bradford couldn’t afford to be careful and he tried to force a pass to Austin Pettis, and as he has done so many times this season, Sherman made Bradford pay.
“I was hunting,” Sherman said. “I was waiting on the opportunity all day. I’ve been patient, I’ve been playing tight coverage and I didn’t get many opportunities, so when I get an opportunity to overlap, I overlapped and got my hands on it.”
Oh, and Sherman also had something to say, on Twitter anyway, about another piece of news that involved him. Sherman was one of the NFL’s most notable Pro Bowl snubs when teams were announced last week. And while he has insisted that he isn’t bothered by that, Sherman couldn’t help but take a not-so-subtle shot at one of the cornerbacks chosen ahead of him, Arizona’s Patrick Peterson.
“Crabtree had 172?? Who was guarding him? Wow…. Says a lot,” Sherman wrote.
Crabtree, of course, would be San Francisco’s Michael Crabtree, who happened to be playing against Peterson’s Cardinals on Sunday.
Crabtree had eight catches for 172 yards and two touchdowns.
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