The Raiders’ trade for Richard Seymour was made on Sunday, the NFL has it listed in their trades, Raiders.com has it listed on their transactions page, and William Joseph was cut to make room on the roster. So why isn’t Seymour in a Raiders uniform yet? Better yet, why isn’t he even in Oakland yet? The trade is not officially completed until Seymour takes and passes a physical and reports to practice. But since the news of the trade has went down, there has been no movement going on. Just a lot of talking and speculation.
First it was pondered whether Seymour would refuse to report to the Raiders but that idea was seemingly unfounded. Simply a bunch of NFL analysts that think no good player would welcome being traded from the NFL darling Patriots to the NFL pariah Raiders. Then came practice on Monday and Seymour wasn’t around and so it was time to kick the speculation into high gear.
Where is he? Why? Has anyone spoken to him? Is he holed up in his house curled up in the corner refusing to come out? Is he pulling a Morgan Freeman in Lean on Me, shouting “I don’t have to do nothin’ but stay black and die”?
Cable attempted to nip some of the speculation in the bud in his press conference today:
“I have talked to him… We have attempted to make a deal. There are some issues still between him and the Patriots that are being worked out. Hoping that that will get resolved as quickly as possible. We know that the player wants to be here but we have really no control over those issues. So that’s really all I’m going to talk about it for now.”
He was then asked again if Seymour specifically said he wants to be in Oakland to which Cable said “Yes”.
So what could be these “issues” he needs to resolve with the Patriots that are keeping him from being in Alameda taking his physical and getting his new Raider throwback jersey?
According to Patriots spokesman Stacey James, via Greg Rosenthal of Profootballtalk.com, the Patriots are completely unaware of any difficulties surrounding the deal. And when have you ever known the Patriots to lie about anything huh?
A while after that, Tom Curran of the Profootballtalk.com, which is sounding more and more like ESPN with the amount of Raider hatred they are spitting, spoke to former Patriot Rodney Harrison (and current NBC analyst the company that PFT is now a part of…hmm). Harrison said he spoke to Seymour and he said,
“He is not thrilled… Put yourself in his position, He’s going from a first-class organization to one of the worst in the NFL.”
He then went on a rant about his own opinion of the Raiders and how horrible they are compared to the Patriots. But when he was asked about whether Seymour would report to the Raiders, all he could say was “I don’t know that” and then continued to rail on with his opinion.
Hey..uh… Rodney? No one gives a flying F–K what YOU think of the Raiders, got it? You were a Charger, Chief and Patriot so it is a pretty safe bet that you are just a little bias in this situation.
So we still haven’t heard a single person publically say there are any problems (Cable said “issues” not problems) keeping the deal from going through. And despite the circus of media, most of whom don’t really care much for the Raiders, insisting that there is no way Seymour wants to play for the Raiders, we have nothing to go on but conjecture.
What could he be fretting about anyway? He has three rings already. He has held out for more money with the Pats three times and is still underpaid for a five time Pro Bowl player (Under 4 mil a year). One thing he knows he will get in Oakland is paid. His line mate Tommy Kelly has proven nothing and he was briefly the highest paid defensive tackle in football prior to last season. Last time the Raiders sent picks to a team for a high profile player was the DeAngelo Hall deal and they gave Hall a sickeningly huge payday to the tune of $70 million. The Pats NEVER sign those kinds of checks. They think that every player should just be honored just to be a Patriot. Even though the Patriots have never shown any loyalty to even the players that were the most loyal to them.
But don’t take my word for it, just ask Rodney Harrison:
“You look at the move made by [Patriots head coach Bill] Belichick, and you can see him saying, ‘I’d rather get rid of a guy before the last year of his contract.’ You know what? That’s the business… I knew that and instead of my getting whacked [by New England], I whacked myself.”
So despite Rodney Harrison getting all lathered up about the Raiders and “whacking” himself off, it makes little sense for Seymour not to welcome the chance to be a Raider at this point in his career. He will be appreciated in Oakland in a way that he was never appreciated in New England, with a contract to match his production and with a loyalty that is unmatched as well. And if he can fix this team’s run defense, he will have truly achieved greatness.
But until further notice, let’s keep all of this in perspective considering it is just ONE DAY following a trade no one expected to happen– least of all Richard Seymour– and everyone expects him to arrive from completely across the country ready to go? Can he pack first? Kiss the wife and kids? Get his affairs in order?
Sure, Tom Cable would love to have Seymour in the fold, as Cable said “Just as soon as possible”, but I would at least give it another day before I start getting impatient. As for now Seymour is still in Boston. The flight alone is a long one so unless he takes a red eye flight Monday night, he probably won’t be at practice Tuesday either.
If we don’t see Seymour trotting out on the field by Wednesday for practice, then we can get impatient. The Raiders have a longer week than most teams being that they don’t play until Monday. If they were playing on Thursday then Seymour wouldn’t even need to bother because he wouldn’t be playing in the game anyway. But with the first game being a home game and the game being Monday, if he gets here by Wednesday, he will have five days of practice. That should be sufficient time to give the Chargers a few fits trying to figure out how to keep him under wraps.
All the while, the Chargers still need to figure out how to keep Tila Tequila under wraps.
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