Townsend Has His Day in the Snow : Needing a Hero, the Raiders Finally Find One in the End

It was overtime, the L.A. Raiders and the Denver Broncos. And, as usual, Greg Townsend was just kind of out there.

The Raider defensive end was one of those faceless gladiators whose name is on the tip of almost nobody’s tongue. He was a man in a hard hat and bird cage whose existence each fall and winter is to lean, push and bang into another man in different colored hard hat and bird cage. This man is usually as big or bigger than he is. In some countries, they call this sumo wrestling. In America, it is professional football line play.

The headlines and the shaving commercials usually go to the other guys, the smaller ones who run with the ball, throw it or catch it. Or to the more famous sumo wrestlers named Long or Alzado.

So, with 10 minutes 15 seconds left in the overtime period, with the American Football Conference West lead and likely prime playoff position at stake, with a crowd of 75,042 screaming and stomping, with a huge national television audience watching, and with your basic Denver snowstorm swirling in his face, Greg Townsend was not among your likely heroes.

In fact, to that point, Townsend had been credited with no tackles--zero, count ‘em--and had attracted attention mainly for a holding penalty earlier in the game.

But a hero he was to be, swooping in on the Broncos’ John Elway, jolting the ball from the Denver quarterback in a simultaneous hit with teammate Howie Long and then gathering in the fumble after it had skittered away from another teammate, defensive end Sean Jones.

Suddenly, the Raiders had the ball on Denver’s eight-yard line. And it was only a matter of a robot-like swing of the leg by kicker Chris Bahr on the next play to make it fact: The Raiders had won, 17-14, and Greg Townsend, indeed, was a hero.

Townsend, of course, had it in proper sumo wrestler perspective.

“This is one of the best moments ever. . . . “ he said, his voice trailing off momentarily. “I don’t know of anything that can top this.”

The emotion was sincere. The tears he was unsuccessfully fighting back were proof enough. And it was with an almost evangelical zeal that he described the motivation that made him keep going, keep trying, despite the frustrations of the day and the cold, snowy weather.

“I kept saying to believe, believe, believe,” Townsend said. “I kept telling everybody that. I started that along the sidelines and I kept on it.

“And personally, I did. I did believe we were going to win. I believed that it was something we had to talk about and something we had to make happen. And we did.”

And then, as one wave of reporters followed another, Townsend described, in vivid detail, the play that he and his teammates had made happen.

“I had an outside rip on from the left (a quick step and rush to the outside of the offensive tackle) and I beat the other guy off the ball,” he said. “Once I got past him, I reached out with my left hand and got ahold of Elway’s right shoulder. I pulled down hard.

“As soon as I did that, I saw Elway looking for the ball, and so I started hunting it, too.”

Teammate Jones, rushing from the right, got to the ball first, pounced on it and watched in frustration as it squirted away.

“It hit my stomach and just bounced off,” Jones said. “At that stage, I was just hoping somebody else from our team would get it.”

That somebody else, of course, was Townsend, who saw that as justice being served.

“I caused it, and I got it,” he said. “That’s only right.”

Actually, there was considerable discussion about who caused the fumble. Television gave the credit to Long, who had steamed up the middle and seemed to arrive at Elway’s body at the same time Townsend did. And the official stats also listed Long as the causing party in the making of this fumble.

But Townsend’s detailed recall seemed to be reason enough to give the defender his due. And Long said he didn’t much care, just “as long as one of us got it. I know I was trying to get to it and I just couldn’t. It was like one of those dreams where you can’t quite get there.”

Somebody who was even more confused about the whole thing was the man Townsend beat on the play, offensive tackle Ken Lanier.

“Yes, I was late off the ball,” the Bronco player said. “And when you’re late off the ball at a time like that, you’ve had it.

“Actually, I don’t know much about what happened. I don’t know who got the hit or the ball. At least I didn’t ‘til you just told me. Mostly, when you are out there like that, you are guessing a lot.”

Guessing a lot? Doesn’t the offense know the snap count? Isn’t that one of the things the quarterback tells them in the huddle? Isn’t it the defense that is guessing and at the disadvantage?

“No, not most of the time,” Lanier said. “It’s usually so loud out there, especially at the end of the line, that you can’t hear. You just kind of play off the other man, go when he goes. The other guy even has a better angle to look at the ball. He has the advantage then, not you.”

Whatever advantage Townsend had, he made the most of it. And his moment in the sun, or in this case, the Denver snow, was inspirational enough to prompt a pretty fair summary one-liner from Sean Jones.

“Townsend’s our bounty hunter,” Jones said. “When there’s anything out there with a price tag on it, he gets it.”

Not bad stuff, from one sumo wrestler about another.