Awaiting decision on Sherman’s suspension appeal

By Jim Moore

For good reason, we were all talking about Richard Sherman after the Seahawks’ 42-13 win over the 49ers Sunday night at CenturyLink Field.

The Seahawks cornerback returned a blocked field goal 90 yards for a touchdown and recorded his seventh interception of the year when he picked off Colin Kaepernick in the end zone in the fourth quarter.

Then again, we’ve been talking about this guy all year – when we’re not praising him as one of the best cornerbacks in the NFL, we’re amused by Sherman after he gets in Tom Brady’s face and changes his Twitter name to Optimus Prime before his matchup with Megatron.

He talks smack and clearly has fun as a player. He’s also a terrific interview. I love almost everything about him – with a heavy emphasis on “almost.”

There’s a 1 percent chance that Sherman will win his appeal for violating the NFL’s performance-enhancement drug policy. The fan in me wants him to win his appeal because it would obviously help the Seahawks’ chances of winning the Super Bowl.

Sherman is arguing that his urine-specimen cup leaked, causing testers to use a second cup underneath the first cup. So the basis of his case is a flaw in the testing process. Sounds flimsy and fishy to me.

Maybe he’ll get off like Ryan Braun did when the Milwaukee Brewers slugger successfully won his drug-policy appeal because of a faulty testing process last January.

Braun never said he didn’t take a PED. Neither has Sherman. So are we supposed to be OK with that? Are we supposed to hope he wins his appeal based on a faulty process even if he took a PED? If he took a PED, he cheated, didn’t he?

As is usually the case, I’m probably missing something. But if you have a moral and ethical bone in your body, don’t you have a problem with this?

In the scheme of things, it’s not that big of a deal to me. I won’t think less of Sherman – if he took a PED, he was trying to get an edge and no doubt figured he could get away with it.

But if I’m a rabid Seahawks fan, I’d be mad as hell at Sherman if his appeal is denied. I should be mad as hell at Brandon Browner, too – as you know, the Seahawks’ other starting cornerback is serving his four-game PED suspension as we speak. Browner will miss the Rams game and then be eligible for the playoffs.

By taking a PED – if he did – Sherman jeopardized the Seahawks’ season. They can say “Next Man Up” all they want, and in Browner’s case, the Seahawks have persevered nicely in his absence. But the “Next Man Up,” whether it’s Marcus Trufant or Walter Thurmond or someone else, he’s not going to be nearly as good as the play-making Sherman.

At some point, maybe in Washington or Dallas next week or in Atlanta the following week, the Sherman-less secondary will be burned.

Forget about us as fans. What if you’re one of Sherman’s teammates? You work as hard as you can to get to this point in your career, playing for a team with a legitimate shot to win the Super Bowl.

Then one of your teammates makes a decision that could blow the whole thing up.

The Go 2 Guy also writes for his website, www.jimmmoorethego2guy.com; www.seattlepi.com; and www.kitsapsun.com. You can reach Jim at jimmoorethego2guy@yahoo.com and follow him on Twitter @cougsgo.