PC Games » It’s been nearly a year since the Seattle Seahawks

made the surprise move of cutting All Pro cornerback Richard Sherman following his Achilles injury during the 2017 season Earl Thomas III Color Rush Jersey , and Sherman’s subsequent quick signing with the division rival San Francisco 49ers. Immediately following the signing there was a lot of amusement from outsiders, who pointed to the small amount of guaranteed money that Sherman received, as well as the overall structure of the contract. So, now that Sherman is a year into that contract and looking at coming into 2019 as a healthier, but even older cornerback, let’s take a look at the contract and see how it stacks up. In order to look at his contract with the benefit of a year of hindsight, let’s go ahead and take a look at where his contract stacks up compared to other cornerbacks in terms of cash flow. 2018 NFL CBs by cash flowPlayerCash FlowAgeNumberPlayerCash FlowAgeNumberNow, obviously, Sherman likely doesn’t see himself as the 20th best cornerback in the NFL, but that’s where his cash flow for the 2018 season ranked him compared to other cornerbacks. However, of note is the simple fact that Sherman played the 2018 season at 30 years of age, and is slated to turn 31 at the end of March. Thus, with cornerbacks often seeing their performance take a nose dive after age 30, let’s compare Sherman’s contract in 2018 and 2019 to only those cornerbacks who are 30 or older. The reason to use cash flow instead of cap hits is the simple fact that at Sherman’s age cash flow is king. Sherman is most likely far closer to the end of his playing days than the beginning, so his goal is to make as much money as possible in however many years of playing in the NFL he has left. Thus, the best measure for how much money he makes is obviously cash flow. That said, the table above doesn’t really paint a fair picture for Sherman because it is comparing him to every other cornerback in the league. To get a clearer picture of where Sherman’s contract stacks up to others in his position Chris Carson Color Rush Jersey , we should whittle the sample down to players who are most similar to him. That means looking at the geriatric division of NFL cornerbacks, and for that I’ll simply use the post-30 shelf. Thus, if we do that, we can get remove all the cornerbacks on the list who are in their twenties. That leaves us with the following. 2018 Cash flow for over 30 CBsPlayerCash FlowAgeNumberPlayerCash FlowAgeNumberA top five cash flow for his age is not all that bad. Actually, the fact that he had a top five cash flow for his age group coming off of a devastating injury like a torn Achilles is actually rather impressive. But how does his contract stack up for 2019? Using the same cash flow metric, here is where things currently stand. 2019 cash flow for NFL CBsPlayerCash FlowAgeNumberPlayerCash FlowAgeNumberObviously, with Sherman coming in at seventeenth, that would seem to make him a middle of the road CB1, but let’s go ahead and see where he stacks up in the old man division. 2019 cash flow for over 30 CBsPlayerCash FlowAgeNumberPlayerCash FlowAgeNumberSo, before free agency he is slated to have the sixth highest cash flow of any over 30 cornerback in the NFL next year. Not too shabby, so that brings us to the question of whether any of the free agent cornerbacks slated to be 30 or over could land a big contract in the offseason and bump Sherman down the list a little. A quick glance at the list of available free agents shows a couple of guys that could potentially do so, but in all likelihood Sherman will hold on to his spot in sixth place. Then the question moves to Sherman’s upside. Sherman’s contract is heavily incentive laden, and there are several ways Sherman could actually move up the list. If he is active in every game and plays at least 90% of the defensive snaps for the Niners, he’ll make an additional $1.25M. That would bump his cash flow up to $10.05M, which would put him top three in the over 30 group. That may or may not be possible at 31, we’ll have to wait and see, but he played well in 2018 and Niners fans likely believe he’ll be even better with another year of recovery under his belt. And George Fant Color Rush Jersey , if he is able to recover to the point where he continues to improve, he still has the outside chance of earning an additional $3M in incentives between the Pro Bowl or the All Pro team. In any case, that brings us to the question about how his contract was looked at as being such a bad deal when it was signed if it is providing him top five or top six cash flow for those his age. The reason for that is simple - structure. Sherman’s contract appears to be working out well, but that wasn’t necessarily guaranteed to him when he signed it. The contract had very little in terms of guarantees, and Sherman likely could have earned similar cash flow with better guarantee protections had he used an agent. Effectively, instead of taking guarantees, Sherman bet on himself. He didn’t bet on himself at the blackjack table when the count was in his favor, he bet on himself at the craps table where the risk was far greater. So far the contract has turned out okay for him, and if the Niners don’t cut him, then he’s in line to make decent money again in 2019. It is certainly not great money, unless he manages to make both the Pro Bowl and is an All Pro, but it’s likely not much less than he could have made with an agent. That then brings the discussion to the question of whether it is the process or the result that is more important. Sherman is among the highest paid over-30 cornerbacks as the result of a less than ideal process, so should his contract be applauded or mocked? Is the actual outcome more important than the expected outcome, or should it still be looked at as a success even though arrived at through a manner which introduced unnecessary uncertainty? Through the first twelve games of 2018 Russell Wilson has tossed 29 touchdown passes, and earlier this year I took a look at every scoring pass he had thrown through the first eight weeks of the season. Now seems like an opportune moment to look at each of the touchdown passes he has thrown in the five games since then. I’ll simply start with his touchdown passes against the Los Angeles Chargers in Week 9 and work my way forward. Touchdown 17: Week 9 against the Los Angeles Chargers 7:02 in the first quarter against Cover-3 zone.Touchdown 18: Week 9 against the Los Angeles Chargers 1:53 in the fourth quarter against Cover-3 zone.Touchdown 19: Week 10 against the Los Angeles Rams 11:23 in the first quarter against a single high safety. Touchdown 20: Week 10 against the Los Angeles Rams 4:27 in the third quarter against a single high safety.Touchdown 21: Week 10 against the Los Angeles Rams 2:00 in the fourth quarter against cover-0 (no high safety). Touchdown 22: Week 11 against the Green Bay Packers 8:07 in the second quarter against cover-0 (no high safety). Touchdown 23: Week 11 against the Green Bay Packers 5:11 in the fourth quarter against a single high safety. Touchdown 24: Week 12 against the Carolina Panthers 6:48 in the third quarter against two high safeties. Touchdown 25: Week 12 against the Carolina Panthers 3:33 in the fourth quarter against a single high safety. Touchdown 26: Week 13 against the San Francisco 49ers 1:32 in the first quarter against two high safeties. Touchdown 27: Week 13 against the San Francisco 49ers 13:49 in the second quarter against cover-3. Touchdown 28: Week 13 against the San Francisco 49ers 1:20 in the second quarter against cover-3. Touchdown 29: Week 13 against the San Francisco 49ers 14:24 in the fourth quarter against cover-3. In short, in looking at the 29 touchdown passes Wilson has tossed this season, only four of them have come when the defense was playing two high safeties. Further Rashaad Penny Color Rush Jersey , the longest touchdown the Seahawks have thrown against a defense playing two high safeties has beentwelve yards in length, while more than half of Wilson’s scoring tosses have come from 15 or more yards against a single high safety or no safety. Why is that? It’s simply the system. As I’ve noted multiple times throughout the course of the season, the Air Coryell system is designed to stress the defense by getting five receivers in the pattern and then attacking the weak part of the defense. In this system the pre-snap reads are vital, as they determine where the primary target is for the quarterback. On Tuesday I took a look at why the Hawks keep running on second and long, and how the data seems to show that this may be no more than a function of how the safeties are aligning. In order to further support this idea that the pre-snap reads for this system dictate what the offense does, let’s take a look at Russell Wilson’s game log for 2018 and focus on his touchdown passes. Russell Wilson 2018 GamelogWeekOppCmpAttCmp%TDIntRateSkYdsYdsWeekOppCmpAttCmp%TDIntRateSkYdsYdsLooking at that, it becomes pretty apparent that Wilson has shredded defenses this season, but that Week 4 game against the Arizona Cardinals certainly stands out. What is up with Wilson having at least one touchdown pass in every game except against one of the worst teams in the NFL? Well, for that, let’s flip on some film and look at how Arizona lined up defensively against the Hawks. Here is how they aligned defensively on the first five plays of the game. The first four of those plays were runs, with the Hawks only running out of the five wide formation with no back in the backfield for Wilson to give the ball to. What is readily apparent is that even when the Cardinals are playing with just a single deep safety, they are playing a soft zone. That is what Arizona does under head coach Steve Wilks. Wilks was hired by the Cardinals from the Carolina Panthers where he coached under Ron Rivera. Rivera and Wilks first worked together for the Chicago Bears under Lovie Smith, and where they ran the Tampa-2 that Smith had learned under Tony Dungy. In short, the Tampa-2 is the defense that typically gives the Air Coryell offense the most problems because it takes away the deep pass and forces the offense to repeatedly execute and work down the field in chunks. It’s basically the same concept as Pete Carroll’s cover-3, but the Tampa-2 doesn’t require an All World safety with insane range like Earl Thomas to be successful because the safeties have less ground to cover. During the 1999 NFL season when the St. Louis Rams and their greatest show on turf were lighting up the scoreboard, NFL teams averaged 20.8 points per game. The Rams that season averaged 32.9 points per game, and were held under that league average of 20.8 points only once. That lone game where the Rams were held below league average? It was the NFC Championship game against the All World defense of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Doug Baldwin Color Rush Jersey , which, of course, ran the Tampa-2 under Tony Dungy. Getting back to the Week 4 game against the Cardinals, let’s take a look at Russell Wilson’s passing chart against the Cards, courtesy of NFL’s Next Gen Stats. That’s a whole lot of short passes, and only one attempt deeper than 12 yards. What happened on that lone deep pass attempt? Was there a coverage breakdown? Was it a scramble drill play? Well, let’s take a look at the defensive alignment when the ball was snapped. Simply put, on the one play where Wilson tried to complete a pass of deeper than 12 yards, the Cardinals were not in a soft zone. So, what happened after that? The Cardinals went right back to their soft zone alignment, as is seen on the pre-snap alignment for the next five plays. Why am I going into all of this heading into the Monday Night Football game against the Minnesota Vikings? Well, simply put, and as I’ll look at more over the next several days, the Vikings do a mixture of things which could give the Seahawks offense problems. Does that mean they’ll shut down the Hawks? Not at all.It just means that the Hawks will need to be on their game and ready to execute.