Richard Seymour is a Pro Football Hall of Fame finalist for the fourth consecutive year. Will the New England Patriots great finally be immortalized as part of the Class of 2022?
Our Tom E. Curran caught up with NFL Films' Greg Cosell and Hall-of-Fame Patriots cornerback Mike Haynes in Los Angeles to get their thoughts on Seymour's candidacy.
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"He was one of my favorite players," Cosell told Curran. "People might forget, I mean, we're in 2022 and obviously Tom Brady went on to have the greatest quarterback arguably to ever play, so people just think about Brady with the Patriots and all those years. But in those early years, that was a defensive team. It was built on defense. And I always thought Richard Seymour was one of the best defensive linemen that I had seen. He was a guy that could line up in multiple positions when that wasn't done a lot in the league. ...To me, he may have been the foundational piece of those defensive teams in the early 2000s."
Seymour finished with 57.5 sacks in his 12 NFL seasons. It's a modest number for a defensive lineman looking to make it into Canton, but Cosell believes that shouldn't hold Seymour back from induction.
"He could pretty much do everything you asked," Cosell said. "The only reason I think it's taken him this long to be thought of as a Hall-of-Fame player is because he didn't put up sack numbers. When it comes to defensive linemen, very often that's the driving force behind whether guys get in or not, the sacks. But that didn't fit what Bill Belichick wanted to do with that particular defense."
Haynes, who like Seymour played for both the Patriots and the Raiders, made it clear he believes the three-time Super Bowl champion deserves a spot in the Hall.
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"I think going to the Patriots for him was a blessing," Haynes said. "To learn there, to develop the right attitude to be a winner, all those kinds of things, then going to the Raiders and doing it there too. I'm hoping he gets in. He's a Hall-of-Fame player. There's no question about that, so hopefully he'll be in."
The Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2022 will be announced Thursday night during NFL Honors, which is set to air at 9 p.m. ET.