How Richard Sherman’s rant revealed the secret to punditry’s success

Then came the interview.

The default, instinctive (i.e. Twitter) reaction to the interview was shock at what seemed to be Sherman's raw anger, and his lack of class and sportsmanship. Everything he did–from imitating a choke, to screaming into the camera–was in fact unsportsmanlike. Everything. And that's an easy judgment to make. 

It doesn't require much critical thought to acknowledge that Sherman is in the wrong here. Just common sense.

Really, the choke-sign is worse than what he said on camera. Any athlete is expected to act, on the field, with a minimum degree of respect for the opposition. That standard is more difficult to uphold in football, particularly for defensive players, because in order to succeed they have to channel their energy, rage, and passion into pummeling the opposition.

NFL players need to have a functioning on/off switch, where they realize that they have to smash into the guy with the ball, while also helping him up off the ground, dropping to a knee when he's seriously injured, and (hopefully) shaking his hand after the game. 

It's tough to do, but more often than not, it's done pretty well. And sometimes, players slip up and let their on-field emotion spill into the post-game interview, as Sherman did. It's not a huge offense. Really, Sherman's outburst gave fans–many of whom naively view football as a benign real-life version of chess–a window into the type of emotion required for many defensive players to succeed.

It was angry and mean-spirited, but so is football, so at least his tirade serves some useful purpose. As Bill Plashcke of The LA Times ” target=”_blank”>said as much to CNN:

“If you catch me in the moment on the field when I am still in that zone, when I'm still as competitive as I can be and I'm trying to be in the place where I have to be to do everything I can to be successful … and help my team win, then it's not going to come out as articulate, as smart, as charismatic — because on the field I'm not all those things,” he said.

That's fair, and understandable. During a game, adrenaline is used to run, jump, and hit. When it's still flowing after the game, uncontrolled, it will probably come out verbally, if the player doesn't concentrate on controlling it. 

In a perfect world, events would have unfolded as follows: people quickly reach the correct conclusion–that Sherman is self-centered and arrogant. ESPN focuses on the biggest sports event of the year, the Super Bowl. And CNN focuses on news, instead of on things ESPN likes to cover.

In actual life, this is how events unfolded: Sherman was initially condemned by the Twitterverse, with some people lobbing unfair, insulting, and blatantly racist attacks at him. Pundits then used the occasion to bolster their own racial tolerance bonafides by condemning people who tweeted racist anti-Sherman things around MLK Day (Who knew that, of Twitter's 645 million users, there are a handful of racists and imbeciles?). 

And then, the most interesting part of this whole story happened–really successful and intelligent writers and commentators defended Sherman's interview.

Tommy Tomlinson wrote