Phoenix

Richard Sherman, the brash Seattle Seahawks cornerback who is considered one of the best players in football, is a perfectionist. This comes out in film study. Or how he can recall a play with expert precision from two years ago. Or even when he dances. “He does this robot-type dance. You should see it. He’s a perfectionist in that, too,” said cornerback Tharold Simon.

But if you are looking for the best example of perfectionism from the league’s most perfect cornerback, you have to just look at the field on any Sunday. That’s when he’s fixing his teammates’ jerseys.

“I’m just looking at him like, ‘What’s going on?’ ” said Simon, recalling the time he had a crumpled jersey in the middle of a game. “And he’s saying, ‘I gotta fix you; I got to fix your jersey. Gotta get you right. That’s it, right there.’ ” And then he walks away.

This is a trait in Sherman no one can quite explain, but every Seahawk has a story about it. What tends to happen, over a 60-minute game, is that defensive players’ jerseys become a tangled, wrinkled mess. “You can barely read the numbers,” said defensive lineman Tony McDaniel. And so, Sherman does something unusual. He goes around fixing the jerseys whenever they get too crumpled or untucked. Players admit to confusion about the tactic, but it is, they say, a mixture of football strategy, sportsmanship and abnormal attention to detail. Still, it can get weird.