Keenan Allen: Richard Sherman is not a shutdown corner

The San Diego Chargers got the best of the defending Super Bowl champions on Sunday, and part of the reason for that was their willingness to throw toward Richard Sherman. Rather than ignoring Sherman’s side of the field completely like the Green Bay Packers did, the Chargers stuck to their game plan and came out on top. And Keenan Allen was apparently not impressed with Sherman’s skills.

After the game, Sherman would not speak with the media but did send a tweet addressing the Chargers players who said he was “exposed.” Allen, who caught five passes for 55 yards, downplayed Sherman’s ability.

“He’s just a normal guy,” Allen said, via ESPN.com’s Terry Blount. “We can go at him. We took some shots at him. We are not going to shy away from him. He’s not really a shutdown corner. We definitely wanted to come out and show we could go any way we wanted to and that we were in control of the game.”

There was one play in particular where Allen beat Sherman on a nice double move (you can watch it here), but Sherman allowed only three catches. Most people wouldn’t call that getting “exposed.” Allen is the Chargers’ No. 1 receiver and was dominant as a rookie last season, so you could even argue that Sherman did his job. Malcolm Floyd didn’t see it that way.

“Keenan was lighting up Sherman,” Floyd said.

I definitely wouldn’t call that type of production “lighting up” anyone, but I will say that Sherman ignoring the media after the game was not a good look. No one loves to talk more when they’re successful than Sherman. If you’re going to talk that much when you win, you shouldn’t run and hide after a loss.