Richard Seymour

One of the keys to the early 2000s dynasty of the New England Patriots defense, Richard Seymour will be enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio in 2022. We have the stats and info on Seymour's entire football career coming up in this edition.

Richard Vershaun Seymour was born on October 6, 1979 in the community of Gadsden, South Carolina. He is best known for playing on the Defensive line of the NFL's New England Patriots from 2001 through 2008 and the Oakland Raiders from 2009 through the 2012 season.

Richard ended up attending the Lower Richland High School in Hopkins, South Carolina.  As a scholastic gridder, Richard received numerous All-Area honors for his play as a defensive lineman. Seymour won first team All-Region honors, first team all-area honors and was inducted into the South Carolina Sports Hall of Fame in 2018. For the spectacular play in his senior season he was voted as the team's best defensive lineman, was a team captain, won an All-Area Player of the Week award, led his team to four All-Area Team of the Week honors, and finished the season with 8 sacks and 83 tackles according to the South Carolina Hall of Fame website.

With stats and accolades like that it is no wonder why college scouts were taking notice of the youngster. The University of Georgia was one of those that heavily recruited Seymour and after graduation from Lower Richland, he left his home state to head south to Georgia to attend school there and continue his football career. His studies major was Housing and Home Economics but his legacy as a Bulldog was playing great football. In 41 games played at the University of Georgia, Richard started in 25 of them. He finished his career with eye popping numbers such as 25.5 tackles for loss, 223 total tackles with 106  of them solos, 9.5 sacks, and 35 quarterback pressures. He was a beast, and his accomplishments were well recognized. Seymour was a four-year letterman who earned All-SEC honors twice and earned All-America honors after his senior season in 2000.

It is no wonder that the New England Patriots used their first round selection in the 2001 NFL Draft, sixth overall, to take the versatile 6'-6" 317 pound defensive lineman. Seymour was in good company with other D-line teammates from the Bulldogs. The defensive line of Georgia was well represented on day one of the NFL drafts as Seymour was a part four future first-round selections in to the League. Besides Seymour himself; defensive tackle Marcus Stroud went in round one of the 2001 Draft to the Jacksonville Jaguars, defensive end Charles Grant  was the New Orleans Saints 2002 top selection, and defensive tackle Johnathan Sullivan  was the 2003 6th overall pick by the Saints.

Seymour was a standout on defense almost immediately. The big man signed a six-year contract worth $14.3 million. He started in ten games and appeared in 13 games for the Patriots during his rookie season. He played at a high level too as, Richard recorded 44 tackles and three sacks and even rpounced on a fumble. He put an exclamation point to his rookie campaign when he helped lead the Patriots to a Super Bowl XXXVI victory over the St. Louis Rams 20-17, shutting down the prolific high powered offense of the Greatest Show On Turf in the process.

During his first eight seasons in the NFL he played in Foxborough. He was part of Patriots teams that won three Super Bowl Championships.  In that same span he was named as a first-team All-Pro three times (2003-2005) and was a five-time Pro Bowler. In New England Richard finished with 357 tackles, 39 sacks, three forced fumbles, and two interceptions. The Pats had to make a tough decision though when Seymour entered the final year of his contract in 2009. Bill Belichik decided to trade his star defensive player to the Oakland Raiders in return for a first round pick in the next NFL Draft. Interestingly that 28th overall pick that they got for Seymour was used to trade back and get even more Draft seleictions.

The trade went down right as the NFL season was starting on September 6, 2009. Seymour was none too happy after spending camp with his New England teammates and at first refused to report to the Raiders in the days following the trade. There were rumors swirling everywhere and it was big news in NFL circles. 

One post said that the Raiders sent Seymour a formal letter ordering him to report within five days or risk being placed on the reserve/left squad list, which would prevent him from playing for any team in 2009, and thus would prevent him from achieving free agency until he played out his contract in 2010. The Boston Herald reported that Seymour was in fact in possession of that letter and it also was stated in pront that on September 11, he was placed on the team's exempt/left squad list.

On September 12, the Globe reported Seymour reported to the Raiders eventhough the Herald had printed that Seymour felt "blindsided" by the trade. Seymour later said there were "personal issues" concerning his family and that an NFLPA grievance filed on his behalf, which claimed the Raiders were not allowed to send him a five-day letter, was a "procedural thing." Fianlly the NFLPA dropped the grievance shortly after, as Seymoure reported to the Raiders on September 12. He was ready to play too and Oakland needed him.  To show the world that there were no hard feelings with Raider's Nation, in the team's first game on September 14, he recorded six tackles and sacked the San Diego Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers twice. The man was a professional. He played with the Black and Silver for four seasons.

The Raiders voided the remaining year of his contract, in 2012 and he became a free agent. Seymour would retire after becoming a free agent eventhough he did entertain offers from other teams and in particular the Atlanta Falcons. Richard Seymour finished his NFL career with 498 tackles, 57.5 sacks, four forced fumbles, and two interceptions. In 2022 former Patriot teammate Ty Law delivered the news to Richard that after three years of being a finalist, he would finally be enshrined into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2022.

The banner photo is of Jim Thorpe with the New York Giants of the National League of Baseball, at the Polo Grounds ready to bat in 1913. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons as a Creative Commons 3.0 share and was shared by Jeffrey Beall.

A Very Special thanks to information obtained from the following brilliant internet sites: On This Day Sports, the Sports Reference's family of website databases, the sources mentioned above in the article & Stathead.com