Richard Sherman: If NFL wants to police tackling, it should 'put flags on quarterbacks'
The 49ers cornerback opens up on tackling rules, the Niners' season and his new daily-fantasy business venture
If you like your opinions sugar-coated, then
Richard Sherman probably isn't for you.
For as long as he's been among the NFL's big-name cornerbacks, the four-time Pro Bowler has also been known to keep it real, as in not hide his feelings. The peak of his emergence, after all, during the
Seattle Seahawks' 2013
Super Bowlrun, came not only as a lock-down starter in the "Legion of Boom" but as the man who delivered one of TV's
most emotional post-game interviews in recent memory.
It should come as no surprise, then, that Sherman has plenty to say about
the NFL's new tackling rule.
Passed at March's owner's meetings, the rule outlaws any contact initiated with the head or helmet, and predictably, it's spawned months of player and coach confusion in a game built on contact. Sherman is among those players, and he's
been among the most vocal about it, explaining on Twitter that "even in a perfect form tackle, the body is led by the head."
ESPN's Chris Mortensen reported this week that the NFL is working to better explain and officiate the rule in hopes of changing on-field behavior over a three-year window. But Sherman, who's
taken charge on player-safety issues before, remains adamant that tackling will be impossible to regulate so long as the NFL keeps allowing players to tackle.
"I think that for them to police this in that way, with such a strict and very difficult-to-officiate rules, it's only going to hurt guys more," he says, speaking over the phone as he promotes The Daily Number, a new
fantasy football app he's co-founded. "Guys are trying to pull up or pull off at almost 20 miles per hour. That's really difficult for anybody to do, and I think it'll lead to more injuries. There's nowhere to hit other than if you're aiming for the chest. You can't police that out of the game."
League is in a tough spot
Sherman acknowledges the NFL is in the precarious position of appeasing both fans of a contact sport and those concerned with the long-term health of its players. It's hard to make football safe without making it something other than football, after all. But Sherman also thinks that if the NFL's goal is to produce
football, it needs to realize it will always, at some level, be dangerous.
"I think there's inherent risk in it," he says. "Both sides understand that. I kind of compare it to boxing, in a way. If you told boxers, 'Don't knock each other out,' because of brain damage or because you'll shorten each other's lives, well, what else did you think was going to happen?"
(It's not as if Sherman is against saving brains and lives, either. He's previously gone on record to explain why "Thursday Night Football," in its current format, "
endangers its players." He's called "TNF" an example of the NFL's hypocrisy over player safety, saying that the short-week games will survive "as long as the dollars keep rolling in.")
How to fix it
What's the solution, then? In Sherman's eyes, it's effectively up to the league to commit to one side or the other. No one's fighting player safety, but at what point does enforcing safety become mandating no contact or -- even worse -- hurting players more?
"If you don't want the quarterbacks to get hit, put flags on them," Sherman says. "If you put flags on quarterbacks, I guarantee guys will master snatching flags off them. But to handicap a defense this way is just ridiculous. You have running backs putting their heads down, and the defense is penalized for initiating contact at the head."
And despite all of that, Sherman still finds reasons to embrace today's NFL.
For one, his 2018 is shaping up to present new challenges -- and rewards -- on several fronts.
After seven years, four All-Pro selections and two Super Bowls in Seattle, he's now playing for the Seahawks' NFC West rival, the Niners, under a self-negotiated three-year contract. In just a few months in what was once enemy territory, he's seen enough to expect big things out of San Fran and their handsomely paid gunslinger, one-time
Tom Brady heir
Jimmy Garoppolo.
"I think we have a really great chance of being special this year," Sherman says. "I think we have the quarterback, I think we have the scheme, and that's doing a lot of damage right there."
