For monstarr, who said Sherman didn't have a great game up until the last play. Yeah, not. Rewatched the game and noted Sherman every pass play. The Hawks played predominately man coverage, surprise to no one expect Babalot (or whatever the fuck his name is), who tried to discredit Sherman by saying we play mostly zone
. They targeted him twice. Once on the holding call, which was legit no matter what Sherman thinks...didn't need to do it at all, was in great position and even if Crabtree catches it, it was a curl route short of the first. The second...well, we all know what happened.
Frankly you could barely see a lot of Sherman's coverage because he wasn't on the screen because they were clearly avoiding his area. He was the 3rd or later read on nearly every play if they even made it that far in progressions, which they didn't for the most of the game. In the first half, Kaepernick's first read was to his left on nearly every play (hilarious for any QB outside of a south paw...). They must have thought this was negatively affecting their offense, because in the 2nd half they had atleast 2 receivers on the right side so Kaepernick's first read could be the slot or TE on the right side. Sherman twice lined up over the slot on Boldin (two times of the times that Sherman might have been the first read).
I thought it was hilarious (as did many Niners fans) that Kaep said he takes the 1 on 1 Sherman on Crabtree matchup all day, but they had that matchup throughout the day and could have had it any play they wanted as Sherman was 1 on 1 with everyone....yet they didn't challenge him. The other Sherman target was a broken protection roll out to the right, they didn't really go after him.
Watching that tape gave me even more appreciation of Sherman and how he affects the offensive playcalling and philosophy. Gameplanning specifically for Sherman and completely avoiding him...
This post was edited by Meeker on Jan 24 2014 05:06am