The Judgment to Rush : O’Neal Emerges as Focal Point of Chargers’ League-Leading Pass Rush Unit

Rushing the passer is arguably the most demanding job in pro football.

The rules are set to protect the passer and ensure that points are scored, thus keeping the audience awake and the advertisers happy.

“They do everything in the world to hogtie the pass rusher,” said Gunther Cunningham, defensive line coach of the Chargers.

“A pass rusher has to beat not only the rules, but also these gigantic offensive linemen, who now go near the top of the draft, stand about a 6-foot-6 and weigh 300 pounds. They have great big long arms that they use to wrap around the neck of the pass rushers and pull them down. It’s mayhem, unbelievably brutal.”

Cunningham, although clearly biased, argues that pass rushers are more difficult to come by than quarterbacks. There may be one great pass rusher in each year’s college draft, he said. It happens that the Chargers may have plucked the one blueblood pass rusher from the 1986 draft.

In Leslie O’Neal, a slightly undersized but unusually savvy defensive end, the Chargers found a guy around whom a promising group of young pass rushers could coalesce and become the best in pro football.

That’s no mistake. The Chargers now have the leading pass rush in the National Football League. With a record-tying 12 sacks in Sunday’s game against Dallas, the Chargers upped their season total to 45 sacks, one more than the second-place Denver Broncos.

If there’s one thing tougher than rushing the passer, it may be accepting that the Chargers, of all teams, have risen to this level.

Any football fan worth his recliner knows the best pass rushers wear black jerseys, play in media centers and fill their spare time doing razor blade commercials.

O’Neal and his cohorts, including Lee Williams, Earl Wilson, Chuck Ehin, Dee Hardison and Terry Unrein, seem out of place in a town that has been through a 10-year romance with the forward pass.

They are still too new to have a catchy nickname and seem uneasy with the designation of being No. 1 in the NFL at dumping quarterbacks.

“I think we have a chance to maybe become the best group of pass rushers,” said O’Neal, a lot more tentative in an interview than he was in pursuit of the Cowboys’ Steve Pelluer, whom he sacked five times.

Cunningham also was reluctant to acknowledge the displacement of teams such as the Bears and Raiders by his upstart pass rushers.

“We’re in an embryonic state yet--still groping and seeking an identity,” he said. “There’s a lot more to it than just leading the league in sacks. We have to get the point where we have a guy who can win a game with a big play, like a sack or punching a ball loose or getting a fumble. We gotta have that guy who can make a play nobody can make, except for a Lawrence Taylor.”

O’Neal just could turn out to be the man he has in mind.

With 11.5 sacks in 11 games, he is a strong candidate for rookie of the year. O’Neal ranks fifth in the league in sacks, behind Taylor (16.5), Rulon Jones (13.5), Dexter Manley (12.5) and Williams (12).

Williams originally was credited with 1.5 sacks against Dallas, which put his total for the year at 10. However, Charger coaches, after reviewing game film, gave him two more sacks, and subtracted one each from linebackers Gary Plummer and Thomas Benson.

O’Neal and Williams are en route to becoming the best pair of pass rushers in the game, according to Cunningham.

“I don’t think there’s another team with two ends who have as much quickness and can do as many things as Leslie and Lee,” he said. “They are players who can help take us to our objective of being a dominant force that can win games defensively.”

O’Neal may be gifted enough to become the next Lawrence Taylor, in Cunningham’s view.

“He’s quick and strong and mean, but mostly it’s his cranium that makes him so special,” Cunningham said.

“If there is a player with more savvy, I’d like to see him. Brains is what really separates Leslie from the rest of the pack. He is by far the most intelligent player, at this stage of his career, that I have ever seen.”

O’Neal seems to have a feel for the game, a sense of what blockers will try next, that can’t be acquired through coaching.

“The average fan probably doesn’t understand how technical the game has become,” Cunningham said. “It is very analytical and requires a sense of anticipation. A player must ask himself, ‘How will they deal with me next?’

“Leslie just seems to have a mental vision of what’s going to happen next. It’s like an extraordinary driver who sees things out of the corner of his eye. He can avoid an accident that an ordinary driver is not going to see until it’s too late.”

O’Neal, a native of Little Rock, Ark., had enough foresight to select a college that he thought would enhance his chances of being discovered by pro scouts.

He was recruited by Arkansas, but couldn’t think of another player besides Billy Ray Smith who had made a name for himself rushing the passer as a Razorback.

He was recruited by UCLA and heard a pitch from Irv Eatman (former UCLA lineman, now with the Kansas City Chiefs), but decided there was more emphasis on quarterbacks and receivers than pass rushers in Westwood.

The only conference that showcased defensive linemen to his satisfaction was the Big Eight. He chose Oklahoma State, which had produced enough capable defensive hands to make him believe they took this part of the game seriously in Stillwater.

As it turned out, Tony Casillas of arch-rival Oklahoma wound up getting more publicity and going a bit higher in the draft, but O’Neal didn’t mind.

“Oklahoma had the tradition and the name, but that made me work harder, and I felt I earned everything I got,” O’Neal said. “Keith Jackson of ABC once said something during a game, that he thought I should be an All-American, and I think that helped me a lot.”

O’Neal has helped himself as a rookie by learning to relax and be patient. In the first game, he just missed sacking Miami’s Dan Marino four or five times. Williams told him the sacks would come in bunches, and he was proved right on Sunday.

“I’ve made progress adjusting to our scheme and picking up on how the offensive line is setting up,” O’Neal said. “I didn’t have a good game at Denver two weeks ago, but I was more comfortable against Dallas. I didn’t feel the burden of being the only one to get the quarterback. That helped me relax and play better.”

The development of players such as O’Neal and Williams has altered Cunningham’s perspective on coaching.

“I used to just kick players in the butt and try to beat it into ‘em,” he said. “Now I have guys who come to me and ask good questions that make me think. It’s a lot more fun this way.

“Our guys are still at Stage One. There’s a lot of potential left. We’ve come a long way, but losing nine games puts a dark cloud over it. We put the fear of God in John Elway two weeks ago at Denver, but my players and I felt responsible for the loss to Dallas. At least, that’s the way it feels in my stomach.”