10 Reasons Why Richard Sherman Can Run My Agency

By now, you’re probably sick of reading articles that begin by saying you’re probably sick of reading articles about Richard Sherman. His leap from NFL taunt master to household name is due partly to his postgame rant last Sunday, but much more to the complexity of the man himself. Sherman may be a trash talker on the field, but he’s an extraordinary person off it. The two seem hard to reconcile.

As he puts it: “Just because you hear Compton, you hear Watts, you hear cities like that, you just think ‘thug,’ ‘he’s a gangster,’ ‘he’s this, that, and the other.’ And then you hear Stanford, and they’re like, ‘oh man, that doesn’t even make sense. That’s an oxymoron.”

I live in Seattle, and like most people there, I was familiar with Sherman before the incident. He was a communications major in college, and I’ve long thought he’d be great at what I do. But after this past week, I’ve reassessed him. Now, I think he can run my agency. Consider the offer open, Richard. Here’s why.

1. His pivoting ability is unparalleled. His rant was a PR disaster, make no mistake about that. Our social sentiment analysis shows that negativity towards him jumped 100% afterwards. Then with an interview and a blog post, he stopped the slide in its tracks. In the days after, he deftly changed the conversation from one about sportsmanship to one about race and education.
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. He’s smart as hell. Sherman was second in his class in high school and graduated Stanford in four years. Some say he did it with 3.9 GPA, which is astonishing for a liberal arts major. There are reports that he has a near photographic memory and can recall images of formations months after he’s seen them.
   
   
3. He can write at a professional level. If you haven’t read his blog at Sports Illustrated’s MMQB, you should. Some of its entries offer a case study in how to have an opinion and make an argument for it.
   
   
4. He’s an excellent data analyst. Surprised? Read this blog post on how he uses data to break down quarterbacks.
   
   
5. He knows how to talk to different audiences. On the field, he talks smack better than anyone. On his Twitter account, he speaks his fans’ casual language, often deliberately misspelling words. But when he’s addressing a serious audience, he writes like this: “In Seattle, we chart players the same way scouts do, and we approach games with heads full of tendencies translated from raw data.”
   
   
6. He’s decisive. On Saturday before the game not a single social media post contained the words “Richard Sherman” and “thug” or “douche.” Since the game, 57,000 mentions have included them. So what did Sherman do? He addressed the “thug” issue head on, calling it a racist code word. This is not an original idea, but he made a persuasive, even humorous argument for it.
   
   
7. He’s a thought leader. Sherman offers opinions on a wide range of hot button topics for football players, including concussions and why football players aren’t paid in the preseason.
   
   
8. He’s transparent. In an age where it’s difficult for brands and celebrities to keep a secret, Sherman doesn’t have to. He says what he thinks, and he is who he is. Not many people can get away with being honest, but his general decentness (off the field) allows him this.
   
   
9. He’s good for brands. Or maybe just lucky. Just prior to the game, Beats by Dre released a commercial in which Sherman, exasperated with reporters, puts on a pair of the brand’s headphone to hear what he wants. Its views have exploded. With his rant and subsequent explanations, he’s also become the story of the Superbowl, garnering more than 1.7 million tweets, and—on Sunday—was mentioned in 7.2x more social conversations than Tom Brady and 5.3x more than Peyton Manning. You’ll also notice he never swears, even when ranting.
   
   
10. He just may be a marketing genius. The similarity of the firestorm to the Beats by Dre commercial led some to say that the rant was staged. It’s possible. In the commercial, Sherman takes particular offense to the word “thug,” just as he did during the actual controversy. If this was his own initiative, he should stop worrying about going to Disneyland after the Superbowl—and book his ticket to Cannes.

Photo: Getty Images