Humility is key for NFL’s most feared secondary, says Legion of Boom coach

Richard Sherman, Earl Thomas and the rest of the Legion of Boom are the face of the Seahawks defense, but there is a puppet-master behind the scenes who has orchestrated their rise to power.

If you want to know what really makes the LOB tick, you must get to know secondary coach Kris Richard. He’s their maestro: molding a group of players, made up primarily of low-draft picks and free agents, into the most feared secondary in the NFL.

Richard said that behind all the bravado and talk, what makes the LOB so good has nothing to do with talent.

“It’s one thing to be a fantastic football player,” said Richard, “it’s another huge thing to be a humble, fantastic football player.”

According to Richard, greatness is a direct result of a drive to get better, and be humble while doing it.

“These guys want to be great,” he said. “They accept and take coaching, which makes it easy. It makes it easy when you have a bunch of young, humble guys that want to be great, and they do exactly what you ask them to do, how you ask them to do it.”

Sherman and Earl Thomas both signed huge new deals in the offseason along with a Super Bowl win and a Madden cover boy, inflated egos could become a problem.

But Richard said it hasn’t been an issue. “When you get rewarded, it’s do you change what got you there, or do you stay true to who you are. That’s always what it’s been about. It’s about being true to who you are and not allowing outside influences, accolades or things of that nature to come-in and disrupt us as a unit, first and foremost, and then you as an individual.”

Key players from the LOB left in the offseason and there are fresh faces being initiated into the secondary. Richard said the new guys have been accepted with humility and without ego.

“Whoever comes into the room, it’s an ‘each one, teach one’ philosophy, where we’re only going to be as good as the next man,” Richard said. “It’s on all of us to give each and every single next guy or each other our absolute best.”

That’s why the Legion of Boom is so good. The players push each other far harder than any coach. That’s why Richard said leading these guys is so fun and so easy.