Richard Sherman realized just how overmatched he was one fall Thursday night in Philadelphia.
He had to contest Eagles’ wide receiver DeVonta Smith and quickly realized that his time in the NFL was up.
“DeVonta must’ve run this comeback [route] and I had him under control, you know what I mean? I was like, ‘Bang, quick jam, easy, got him under control,’” Sherman explained his experience guarding Eagles wide receiver DeVonta Smith on his podcast. “He must’ve stopped, and I tried to stop, and my whole groin said ‘snap snap snap snap.’”
“At that moment, I was like, ‘Yeah, this is probably my last year. I don’t got it for these young dudes right now.’”
The play occurred on the opening drive for Philadelphia – a 3rd and 12 play that was thrown to wide receiver Quez Watkins for 23 yards.
Sherman, who was 33 at the time, clearly came up hobbling and would come out on that very next play and missed several games thereafter with what the team called a “pulled hamstring.”
The Buccaneers would go on to win the game 28-22, and Tom Brady threw for 297 yards and two touchdowns while running back Leonard Fournette added two rushing touchdowns of his own.
Smith, a rookie in 2021, had just four catches for 41 yards in that game.
Though, Smith did catch 95 passes for 1,196 receiving yards and seven touchdowns last season.
The future Hall of Fame cornerback — who played 11 seasons in the league, went on to play just one more game in 2021, a win against the Miami Dolphins on Dec. 12, where Sherman had an interception.
From there, Sherman called it a career, being placed on Injured Reserve in January as Brady and Co. fell to the eventual Super Bowl champion Los Angeles Rams in the NFC Divisional Round of the playoffs.
Sherman, a three-time All-Pro who won a Super Bowl with the Seahawks, now works as an analyst for Amazon Prime, joining their “Thursday Night Football” crew alongside Tony Gonzalez and Ryan Fitzpatrick.
