After four consecutive years as a finalist, the wait is over for Patriots legend Richard Seymour.
The three-time Super Bowl champion was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame on Thursday, making Seymour the seventh former Patriot enshrined into the Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.
A seven-time Pro Bowler and three-time first-team All-Pro, Seymour’s value to the Patriots defense during the early dynasty years cannot be summed up in his 57.5 career sacks.
As we’ve grown accustomed to in New England, Bill Belichick’s defense doesn’t ask its defensive line to pin its ears back to get after the passer or penetrate the line of scrimmage often.
Instead, Belichick plays a gap control game where defensive linemen are often two-gapping or holding the point of attack against the run and collapsing the pocket as pass rushers.
Seymour was the prototype for Belichick’s scheme, typically lining up as a five-technique over the tackle then moving inside in passing or short-yardage situations. He was an immovable object who could use his length and hand power to reset the line of scrimmage, shed blocks as a two-gapper, and explode into the backfield when the situation allowed him to do so.
The sixth overall pick in the 2001 draft was so dominant that teams would throw double-teams and waves of blockers at him, so his presence alone kept his teammates clean to make plays.
To fully understand Seymour’s impact, one has to dig deeper than the box scores and study the Patriots’ film from the early-2000s when they were the best defense in football.
For example, Seymour was always in the middle of critical plays even though he wasn’t credited with making an impact on the stat sheet.
Here, a first down for the Raiders likely sealed a trip to the AFC Championship Game for Oakland. Instead, Seymour breaks through the line and blows up the fullback in the backfield, allowing teammates Tedy Bruschi and Ty Law to converge on Raiders running back Zack Crockett to stop him short of the line to gain, forcing a punt.
Tom Brady and the Patriots offense would move the ball into field goal range, Adam Vinatieri sent the game into overtime, and New England eventually won in OT to advance in the 2001 postseason.
If you never closely watched a Patriots game in the early 2000s, you would’ve never known that Seymour made one of the most important plays in the Snow Bowl to keep the Pats alive.
Sure, you’d remember Vinatieri’s kicks through the snow, Brady’s leading a late comeback, and of course, the tuck rule, but a casual fan wouldn’t have remembered that Seymour got Brady the ball back in regulation.
Those were the little things that Seymour did for the Patriots defense that consistently added up to bigger things, which eventually led New England to three Super Bowl championships.
The Patriots made a dynasty out of Richard Seymour’s. Players who weren’t out for their own stats or accolades but instead were willing to go unnoticed by doing the dirty work necessary to win.
Although it took voters four years to get it right, Richard Seymour belongs in Canton, and now he’ll be officially inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame class of 2022.
