‘He put fear in opposing offenses’: Kam Chancellor, Pro Football Hall of Fame nominee

Kam Chancellor was the soul of the Seahawks’ back-to-back Super Bowl teams.

He changed his position in the NFL. The Super Bowl-champion enforcer was one of the few safeties playing in the early 2010s that opposing offenses specifically game-planned to stop.

Even current Seahawks who were in high school at the time know that.

“He put fear in opposing offenses,” Josh Jones, the latest successor to Chancellor as Seattle’s starting strong safety, said Wednesday.

He said that the day after the Pro Football Hall of Fame announced Chancellor as a first-time nominee for induction in the Hall’s Class of 2023.

Chancellor became an iconic Seahawk from when the team drafted him as a fifth-round steal in 2010 through the neck injury and threat of paralysis that forced him to retire at age 30 following the 2017 season.

He is one of eight players who played at least some of their careers with Seattle that are among the 129 modern-era nominees for the next Hall of Fame class. The list includes former NFL MVP running back Shaun Alexander, running back Ricky Watters, quarterback Dave Krieg, running back Fred Taylor, offensive lineman Jahri Evans, defensive end Dwight Freeney, linebacker Chad Brown and kicker John Kasay.

The full, 49-member Pro Football Hall of Fame selection committee will review 15 modern-era finalists during its annual meeting early in 2023 to choose the Class of 2023.

Chancellor was the soul and force of the league’s top-ranked, Super Bowl defense in the mid-2010s. He is one of nine first-time Hall nominees. Players have to be five years removed from last playing to be first considered for Hall of Fame nomination.

“Nobody could stop that defense. And he was the heart and soul of that defense,” said Jones, who was playing high school football in suburban Detroit when Chancellor was in his prime for Seattle.

In high school and in college at North Carolina State, the 210-pound Jones looked to Chancellor as the standard for how to play safety.

“He was smart. He was physical, and he played every play like it was his last,” said Jones, who has replaced injured-again Jamal Adams as Seattle’s strong safety. “Especially growing up, as a younger guy being like a bigger safety, big in stature, that was the first guy that you looked up to.

“That was Kam Chancellor. He meant a lot to this game. And congrats to him, I hope he is (a) first-ballot (Hall of Fame inductee).”

Chancellor still lives in the Seattle area in football retirement. He often comes to Seahawks practices and the team facility. He also is a regular attending Seattle Metro League football games at Memorial Stadium in Seattle Center.

Seahawks defensive coordinator Clint Hurtt’s first year as Seattle’s defensive line coach was Chancellor’s last season playing, five years ago.

Hurtt uses the accountability Chancellor played with and held his teammates to as the standard for the direct, personal way the coordinator coaches the current defense.

“You know there’s a legacy here for playing great defense, so there’s always a standard to uphold,” Hurtt said. “You want to have your name in the upper echelon of those guys that have played here and set that standard and played through that level. Obviously, Kam, K.J. (Wright), Bobby (Wagner) when he’s done playing, and Richard (Sherman) and Earl (Thomas).

“There’s so many guys I was fortunate my first year here to see at the tail the end of all that. And what was so impressive about all of them is their work ethic every single day and the level of accountability on the field.

“Sometimes, in football, everybody thinks when you approach somebody and can come up a little abrasive, they think that’s bad or confrontational. This is a violent game and there has to be a high level of accountability. So I try to get these guys to understand. Sometimes the word, the message is going to go across rough, but you know enough it’s coming from a place of love because you are always going to be on the same page to reach that level of greatness.

“And I believed that’s what helped those guys get to that spot. When you don’t do your job, you heard about it. It didn’t matter how it came across, but because the relationships were so strong, you knew where it came from. It wasn’t personal.

“Getting to that point, it what makes you unique. You have a special football team when you get to that point.”