On Sept. 6, 2009 the Oakland Raiders sent the New England Patriots a first round pick in exchange for DT Richard Seymour. It was one of those out-of-nowhere trades that caught everyone by surprise. As a fan of the Kansas City Chiefs, another AFC West team, I liked the trade because I thought it favored the Patriots by a wide margin.

I'm still not so sure that's a great trade for Oakland but Seymour showed up in a big way against the Chiefs. His full impact can't be seen in the box score (although he lead everyone in tackles) but he was a big, big part of how the Raiders held the Chiefs to 104 yards on the ground.

"In the run game," Todd Haley told reporters on Monday, "the Oakland Raiders did a very good job inside, specifically [Richard] Seymour. I know I don't talk about other players a whole bunch but he really was a problem for us yesterday. Richard Seymour, he's a great player. That's one of those things that we need to learn form.

"We can't allow a top player to disrupt our game plan as much as he was able to do that. It was throughout the game and it caused us problems even late in the game when we were trying to run out the clock."

Seymour was a significant factor on Sunday. It seemed that the announcers were consistently calling his name as he disrupted the backfield. Haley referenced Seymour's tackle behind the line of scrimmage late in the game as a critical play, even suggesting the Chiefs were lucky that Seymour didn't steal the hand off.

Richard Seymour was the leader of a defense that slowed down the Chiefs. The good thing for the Chiefs is that, while the Raiders created a blueprint of sorts to beat the Chiefs, not every team has a Richard Seymour to help them out.