An open and intimate tribute to Junior Seau is up on the Patriots website currently. It was filmed Friday in one of the Patriots meeting rooms in advance of Seau being inducted Saturday night into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Bill Belichick, Jerod Mayo, Rob Ninkovich, Ryan Wendell, Julian Edelman, Tom Brady, Matt Patricia, Ray Ventrone, Stephen Gostkowski and Matt Slater all shared anecdotes about the time spent playing with or coaching Seau.
In opening the tribute, Belichick said, “Just to give you a little bit of a perspective, Junior played against Jackie Slater and played with Matt Slater,” said Belichick.
“(He played with) 547 teammates and played for over 100 coaches. I would venture to say that all those teammates and all those coaches they would all probably pretty much say the same thing. “Junior had great passion for football, he had great passion for life, Junior came early, he stayed late.” …He had an enrgy on the field that, in my 41 years of coaching, I would say Junior and Bruschi were two guys who worked as hard as anybody and made it as much fun as they did (for everyone).”
Belichick relates a story about the time he told Seau to put his pads on after practice and work on tackling. You’ll appreciate Seau’s response. And all the tributes.