Richard Sherman: Saints played like they wanted their coach fired

Yeesh. Former NFL cornerback Richard Sherman didn’t hold back on the Amazon Prime halftime show during “Thursday Night Football,” after watching the New Orleans Saints slump into a 16-3 deficit.

He particularly took aim at the Saints defense’s poor performance, going so far as to suggest the unit’s poor effort was because they wanted head coach Dennis Allen to be fired.

“I’m telling you, Tony, I’m confused, I’m vexed, I’m perplexed, I don’t get it. These are good players,” Sherman said. “They don’t want to tackle, they don’t want to make plays. … I don’t understand this, it seems like they want to get their coach fired, that’s the effort they’re playing with.”

Sherman pointed to an uncharacteristic dropped interception by Tyrann Mathieu as one example. Mathieu could’ve snagged his 36th career pick when Bo Nix threw it right to him, only for the veteran safety to lose his grip, and the pass fell incomplete. Mathieu would’ve had a lot of room to run, too.

There were other miscues. A lot of missed tackles, including some bad whiffs by ironman linebacker Demario Davis and a couple of almost-sacks that got away from Chase Young and Johnathan Abram. These are all problems we’ve seen for a month now in their last four losses. They can’t stop the run, allowing 6 or more yards per carry in three of their last four games and giving up 130-plus yards and two scores in the one outlier.

For a coach lauded for his defensive background, it’s been Dennis Allen’s side of the ball slipping away from their fundamentals. And respected voices around the league’s media landscape like Sherman are taking notice.