Brad Seely has been coaching for 37 years. He has been in the NFL since 1989.
The Raiders new special teams coordinator has worked with extremely successful coaches, including Bill Belichick (with whom he won three Super Bowl championships), Pete Carroll and Jim Harbaugh. Each stop in his coaching career has provided him with new knowledge and understanding of the game.
He has learned what it feels like to win and what it takes to get there throughout his career. "I expect to go to the playoffs; that's just part of every season," he said. "At the end of the season, we're going to have a good record, we're going to go to the playoffs and compete. I guess you get a little spoiled maybe and hopefully that's the way we get."
Coach Seely most recently worked with the 49ers, where punter Andy Lee led the NFL in net punting average in 2012. That same season, the 49ers led the NFL in starting field position and ranked second in opponents starting position. He also had success with San Francisco's place kicker, David Akers, who set the NFL single-season record for most field goals (44) in 2011. During that season, Akers and Lee both earned Pro Bowl selections and Seely was named Special Teams Coach of the Year by Dallas Morning News' Rick Gosselin.
One thing is for sure when it comes to Coach Seely, he has high expectations. "I expect a lot of the players. I expect a lot of myself and all the coaches here to hopefully make the players as good as we can," said Coach Seely. "Hopefully the players want to be as good as they can be. We're always striving. Maybe we make some guys mad every once in a while because I'm not a 'hug-em-up' guy; I'm more of a, 'hey, we can do better than that.' There's not a lot of love out there sometimes, but hopefully in the end, they know we're all trying to make them the best player they can be."
And well-rounded players are what the special teams coordinator believes is the ultimate difference between a successful and unsuccessful squad. "I think the players are made up of winners," Coach Seely said. "They're winners in their own lives, and I think it's a bunch of guys that come together and are accountable and responsible to each other, and then the skill level is really good of that group."
Coach Seely helps facilitate that success. "Number one, you have to show that you care about them and you have to show that you care about what you're coaching," he explained. "You have to show them that you care about being successful. All of those things, you can put it as enthusiasm, you can put it as energy, whatever that is on the football field, that's what you want to convey because that's what you want the players to have. To me, if you're kind of slow and not a lot of energy, I think your players can be that way."
His job is also finding players that will give their all on special teams. "In special teams, it's really, you can't talk the talk, you have to walk the walk," said Coach Seely. "You watch a guy on film…that's where you're going to find out. A guy can't tell me wants to be a Pro Bowl player; he wants to be the best in the world. Well, show me. Show me on the tape. It's pretty easy. You can click it on pretty fast and find out if a guy is all that he professes to be."
Coach Seely is hard at work watching film of current players, possible free agents and potential draft picks to determine who the winners are that could help the Raiders return to success. "I've seen this organization be at the top in this league, and be a team that people feared," said Coach Seely. "People didn't want to play this team, and that's what we want to get back to. We want to be that team that nobody wants to see on the schedule; they don't want to play the Raiders."
All of the work is to reach the ultimate goal, which he thinks is what Raider Nation hopes for, too. "I have the same wants and desires that they do – I want to win," Coach Seely said. "They want us to win; I want to win. We're going to try to do everything in our power to put the best football team out there and to have the most success we can every time we line up."
