Sherman covering the opposing #1 WR - Super Bowl XLIX

With the amount of success we've seen with Sherman covering the opponent's #1 WR this year, does anyone think we could have seen a different outcome in the Super Bowl had we deployed that strategy?

I know he had a bum shoulder and all but would it have made a difference in the 4th quarter when the Pats came storming back?

Hard to say. If the Pats had been killing us with the deep ball/deep routes, I would say yes, but it was all underneath short routes to Julian "What Concussion Protocol" Edelman that did the damage. Not sure that Sherm is as effective neutralizing those sort of routes.

DangerousDoug":3k1favnn said:

Hard to say. If the Pats had been killing us with the deep ball/deep routes, I would say yes, but it was all underneath short routes to Julian "What Concussion Protocol" Edelman that did the damage. Not sure that Sherm is as effective neutralizing those sort of routes.

Click to expand...

I'm not sure it would have had an impact either. Just one of those things where maybe if Pete was open to it last year, perhaps things could have turned out slightly differently. It's really made a huge impact in a number of games this year.

Not sure if it would have made a difference. The whole secondary was banged up.

12thbrah":1vcc1t3m said:

Not sure if it would have made a difference. The whole secondary was banged up.

Click to expand...

I look at it this way. The Pats had 4 scoring drives, all of them for 7 points each. If maybe this strategy could have shortened one of those 4 drives and made them punt or go for a FG, we could have won.

It would have been a gamble. Have they ever practiced that way?

HomerJHawk":233k2ivp said:

It would have been a gamble. Have they ever practiced that way?

Click to expand...

Not until this year after Cary Williams was repeatedly getting torched. Might have started when we played the Bengals. AJ Green started out blazing hot and I think he would have had a long TD very early but it got called back for a penalty. Sherm started covering him exclusively shortly after that and shut him down.

This is an odd year. Or maybe not, depending on your view. I think in the past coupla years we
pretty much knew what worked and tweaked it.

This year we had to find out the hard way that what we had was not working. Example Sherm Island
being exclusively right.
Kudos to the players, and probably most especially to the coaches, for working their way through it.
Many teams could have folded through this adversity. Not ours.

To me, the loss of Lane in SBXLIX was a HUGE detriment. Losing him was just awful in that game.

Seahwkgal":7wbd3gtr said:

To me, the loss of Lane in SBXLIX was a HUGE detriment. Losing him was just awful in that game.

Click to expand...

If Seattle has a healthy secondary for that game, the "2nd and wrong" never happens, or at least doesn't cost them the game.

Before the game started the entire secondary might have had 2 good arms and 2 good legs between them all.

marko358":ham3g222 said:

With the amount of success we've seen with Sherman covering the opponent's #1 WR this year, does anyone think we could have seen a different outcome in the Super Bowl had we deployed that strategy?

I know he had a bum shoulder and all but would it have made a difference in the 4th quarter when the Pats came storming back?

Click to expand...

I think that just means LaFell or Amendola would have had a huge game. Brady was picking on Simon the whole game.

Seahwkgal":2sv9fnkc said:

To me, the loss of Lane in SBXLIX was a HUGE detriment. Losing him was just awful in that game.

Click to expand...

I would say it eventually cost us the game really. We wouldn't have needed the "call" to win.. they would have sealed that 10 point victory and won going away if they had Lane in there.

Will forever be puzzled by having Burley as an inactive too, though I guess they had to have an extra safety active since Kam and Earl weren't right.

Sucks.. both of our Super Bowl losses had HUGE injuries to an underrated member of the secondary.

I don't think it was the secondary injuries that was the turning point. Yes it hurt us to lose Lane and have everyone else hurt, however in my opinion, when Avril went down, Brady started lighting us up. Avril pulls and Edelman, we win that game by 20. Just my opinion.

Who was NE #1 WR?

Hasselbeck":3ty42p6d said:

marko358":3ty42p6d said:

With the amount of success we've seen with Sherman covering the opponent's #1 WR this year, does anyone think we could have seen a different outcome in the Super Bowl had we deployed that strategy?

I know he had a bum shoulder and all but would it have made a difference in the 4th quarter when the Pats came storming back?

Click to expand...

I think that just means LaFell or Amendola would have had a huge game. Brady was picking on Simon the whole game.

Click to expand...

The biggest thing, is would Brady pull a Rodgers, (didnt he throw away from sherm most of the night?) So if you have Sherm shadow Edleman and take him out. I would live with forcing Amendola and Lafell try and beat us. Amendola is by far their best WR (behind Gronk but he's a TE)

In my opinion, Lane & Avril's injury mattered more in that game. Tom Brady wasn't doing much until Avril went out.

The secondary was a shell of itself that game. We didn't lose because of defensive scheme. We got beat. It happened, it's over.

There is 3 reasons we lost.

Lack of adjustments on defense. We kept doing things that didn't work, Wright on Gronk was a disaster and we kept doing it.

Injuries, as has been started the entire starting Secondary was hurt. Sherman had one good arm with his elbow injury, following Edelman with only one arm to bump and run with probably would have gotten Sherman torched. Simon shouldn't even have been active with how bad his shoulder was, and Burley should have been. The deciding factor on injuries, Avril's was the worst since once he went down our pass rush dried up which helped to expose Simon even more, and Lane's injury made Simon have to play.

The offense didn't show up until the end of the 2nd quarter and almost completely left the building after it got the 10 point lead. The offense was truly pathetic for the majority of the game.