Why is nobody throwing Richard Sherman’s way this year?

So far in his first season with the San Francisco 49ers, Richard Sherman is getting dodged like he’s the same player who earned five consecutive trips to the Pro Bowl between 2012 and 2016.

In the five games with the 49ers (he missed Week 4 due to a calf strain), Sherman has been in coverage on 198 pass plays. The ball has gone his way just 10 times. Receivers have just two receptions against Sherman so far in 2018, an 18-yard catch for Vikings wide receiver Stefon Diggs in Week 1 and a 10-yard reception for the Packers wide receiver J’Mon Moore in Week 6.

On the year, Sherman has allowed a 39.6 passer rating, the best among starting cornerbacks.

By every observable metric, except maybe interceptions, Sherman has been the best cornerback in the NFL in 2018. That’s especially impressive considering his 2017 season ended in November due to an Achilles tear and his recovery cost him practice time in the offseason with his new team.

Has he actually been that dominant? Probably not, but there could be big ramifications for Sherman’s wallet, regardless.

Despite having one cornerback who has one side of the field closed for business, the 49ers have still allowed the seventh most passing yards and fifth most passing touchdowns.

Sherman’s 39.6 passer rating is a shiny number for a secondary that is Swiss cheese, otherwise. Here’s how the other San Francisco cornerbacks have fared:

It was Ward who gave up plays of 54 yards and 60 yards to the Packers’ Jimmy Graham and Marquez Valdes-Scantling, respectively, on Monday Night Football. And it was Mabin who was taken to school by Aaron Rodgers in the fourth quarter and gave up a game-tying touchdown to Davante Adams.

Rodgers didn’t look Sherman’s way much, but did he really need to? Throwing literally anywhere else has been a recipe for success for opposing quarterbacks.

Of the 10 times Sherman has been tested, he’s done his job and forced eight incompletions. So at the very least, he hasn’t let any receivers run wide open yet in 2018.

If the trend of quarterbacks looking elsewhere continues, he could finish the season with some all-time great cornerback stats.

In 2017, the Cincinnati Bengals’ William Jackson led all cornerbacks with an average of 26.4 coverage snaps between receptions he allowed. Sherman is at 99 snaps per reception. That’s a number astronomically higher than any cornerback has ever had in the stat since Pro Football Focus started recording it in 2006 (the record belongs to Nnamdi Asomugha with 31.1 in 2010).

The rest of the 49ers secondary helps explain why Sherman is so far out in front, but it’s a stat that should land him in the Pro Bowl, regardless. If a cornerback allows a reception once every three or so games, how could he not get every accolade possible?

And that’s when it gets interesting.

Sherman acted as his own agent in the offseason after the Seattle Seahawks released him. When he signed with the 49ers he bet big on himself, and was criticized harshly, as a consequence.

Instead of negotiating a traditional deal that would saddle San Francisco with some dead money should they choose to move on from the cornerback early, Sherman’s three-year, $27.15 million deal is heavily incentivized and could leave the 49ers with as little as $3 million in combined dead money in 2019 and 2020.

UNLESS, Sherman is an All-Pro in 2018. If that happens, his $16 million in base salary for the 2019 and 2020 season becomes fully guaranteed.

Add that guaranteed salary to his $1 million prorated signing bonuses that hit in each of the next two years and $2 million roster bonuses, and Sherman will be one of the highest paid players at his position until he becomes a free agent at age 33 in 2021. It helps too that he doesn’t have to split anything with an agent.

There’s plenty of time for this to all go south, though. There are two games left on the schedule against the high-flying, undefeated Rams — beginning with one in Week 7. But the 49ers already got through games against the Vikings, Packers, and the Patrick Mahomes-led Kansas City Chiefs.

If quarterbacks stick to the throw-at-every-49ers-player-except-Sherman strategy, the veteran cornerback may make out like a bandit.