#37

 

JUNIOR SEAU

Junior Seau, like Dick Butkus, was a great player on a bad team for the majority of his career. Seau’s San Diego Chargers had their moments, none better than the 1994 season when they won the AFC before being totally overmatched in the Super Bowl by the 49ers. But most of the time they weren’t very competitive. They could not climb over the .500 mark in 10 of Seau’s 13 seasons for his hometown team.

As a result, there was an undercurrent of whispers hinting that Seau had been overrated. Even though he had been a Pro Bowl player in all but his rookie season and had been a first-team All-Pro six times, Seau’s image started to get the best of his onfield production.

Talk about a mistaken impression. Seau went on to play parts of three seasons with the Dolphins and three more with the Patriots. Injuries held him back from time-to-time in those six years, but when he was in the lineup he was still a dominant player who could run, diagnose the play, and make the tackle.

Seau had retired after the 2007 season, but when the Patriots were hit by injuries in second half of the 2008 season, Bill Belichick called Seau and asked him to return to help the Pats finish the season. “I had kept myself in shape and I had wanted to play all along,” Seau said. “When I got the call from Bill and he said he needed me, that’s what I needed to hear. A football player has to be needed to be able to play. That’s all I needed to hear.”

Seau was needed by his team for all of the 13 years he was in San Diego. Throughout most of that time, the Chargers could not do much on the offensive side of the ball. But even in the worst of the Chargers’ seasons, Seau simply refused to allow opponents to run the football. In 2000, the Chargers were an atrocious 1-15 and had the worst offense in the league. Opponents had little trouble throwing the ball on them, but even with all their difficulties, San Diego allowed only 3.0 yards per carry, second only to the formidable Ravens defense which gave up 2.7 yards per attempt.

Skeptics might point out that the offense gave away so many turnovers and the defense was quite vulnerable against the pass, so the run defense figures were skewed. Actually, that’s not true. The Chargers were behind most of the time and usually by a lot in the second half of games. It’s at that point when teams want to run to keep the clock moving and get the game over with. So the Chargers were playing phenomenal run defense and much of it was Seau’s doing.

He always took special pride in stopping the run, whether it was in San Diego, Miami, or New England. “They wanted to run the ball on us and put their imprint on the game and their footprints on us,” Seau explained. “That could not be allowed to happen. I viewed it as my job to stop the run and they were trying to show they had more talent, ability and desire. That was not a battle that I was going to let someone else win.”

It was precisely that attitude that made Seau a wanted commodity in Miami and New England in the latter part of his career. Many questioned Belichick when he brought in the 37-year-old Seau prior to the 2006 season, but the move paid off because the Pats went from the 17th ranked defensive team in the league to the 2nd. Seau, who continued to show the ability to go from sideline-to-sideline to make plays, had 69 tackles (30 solo) and played a key role in the leadership of the defense.

Seau’s best season probably took place in the Chargers’ Super Bowl season of 1994, when he posted 155 tackles (124 solo), 5.5 sacks, and 3 fumble recoveries. He was the focus of a 49er offense that took the field knowing it was the superior team. “We were very confident entering that game,” said 49er tight end Brent Jones. “We had Steve Young, Jerry Rice, Ricky Watters and we felt we couldn’t be stopped,” Jones said. “But at the same time they had Junior Seau. We knew he was a great player and we had to respect him. We ran most of our plays in areas where he was not going to be a factor. We didn’t want to take any risks by putting the ball in his area any more than we had to.”

Jones was talking about Seau’s relentlessness. The 49ers knew that Seau was capable of destroying a running game and wreaking havoc all by himself. He maintained that level of play throughout his run in San Diego and he recovered at the end of his career to demonstrate that ability with the Patriots. When Belichick decided to pick up the phone, he called Seau even though he was nearing the end of his first season of retirement.

Seau would finish his career in 2009, and he appeared to settle comfortably into retirement with several media jobs. However, Seau’s life ended tragically when he committed suicide in 2012. Seau’s family sued the NFL in 2013 over brain injuries he suffered during the course of his career.