Richard Sherman is one of the greatest cornerbacks of the last decade. His intense and eccentric personality fit right in with the Legion of Boom in Seattle. He made some iconic defensive plays and helped guide the team to its only Super Bowl in franchise history.
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Sherman gave up over 100 receiving yards only twice in his career. From 2012 to 2017, he even had a legendary streak of 94 consecutive games without allowing that many yards, a testament to how dominant he was while consistently covering the opposing team’s best receiver.
But every streak has a starting point. And the game before Sherman’s impressive run, he was torched by a lesser-known receiver who goes by the name of Stevie Johnson. The Buffalo Bills wideout had his way with the All-Pro corner.
“That was the longest day of my life. You know when you’re out there and you’re like, ‘Should I hop back? Maybe I should hitch? I’mma bail, I don’t know,’” Sherman recalled on Not Just Football.
By the end of the game, Johnson had caught 8 passes for 115 yards and a touchdown. It was the best game he had all season. And he did it against one of the game’s best.
Yet, the kicker is that Sherman’s Seahawks still dominantly won the game. Despite this, the star cornerback was embarrassed by his performance.
“We beat them like 50-14. But when I tell you, [it was] the longest ride home of my life. I’m sitting there looking at the table like I lost. The team won, but this tape looks awful,” Sherman shared.
It’s good that Seattle had Sherman’s back by getting the win. But even more than 10 years later, he still seems a bit perturbed by his performance that day. Perhaps that’s what lit a fire in the corner.
However, that wasn’t the only “Johnson” receiver Sherman struggled to guard. Calvin Johnson made his job tougher than most, just as he did with every cornerback he ever matched up against. When Sherman recalled how the Seahawks wanted him to guard Megatron, he shared an interesting story.
“The Saints kept doing that vice coverage stuff. I damn near wanted to call Malcolm like, ‘What are you doing?’ And our coaches tried to install it. Our coaches were like, ‘We’re looking at this, we might do it in the red zone.’ Me and Brandon Browner both walked out [of] the room.”
Vice coverage is when two defenders line up next to each other to guard a wide receiver. Sherman didn’t want to have somebody standing right next to him while playing cornerback because he thought it was embarrassing.
He didn’t need that crutch to guard anybody and felt it was disrespectful to even suggest it. Sherman never minded safety help over the top, but he didn’t want another defender lined up beside him to guard one player.
In the end, Sherman looks back on these moments and can only laugh, mostly because he went on to have a great career with a resume that hardly cared about one random bad game against the Bills. He went to five Pro Bowls, made three All-Pro first teams, and earned $83.8 million. So, there are far better things to highlight than his head-to-head splits against Stevie Johnson, as funny and random as they may be.
