Confident O’Neal Says Nobody Does it Better : Chargers: Don’t feel sad for the rest, but this outside linebacker believes he’s reaching the top of his profession.

Leslie O’Neal is confident enough in his enormous abilities to say this: “I feel there is no one better than me.”

Strong stuff.

Specifically, O’Neal is talking about the National Football League. More specifically, he is talking about the outside linebacker position the Chargers shifted him to this year. Before that, he was a defensive end. The change in nomenclature is deceiving. Essentially, O’Neal is a pass-rusher.

And he is wise enough to qualify his contention that nobody does it better.

“There are still some steps that I must climb to let everyone know that I am the best,” he says.

Smart stuff.

The names that usually come to mind in any discussion about outside linebackers are the New York Giants’ Lawrence Taylor, Buffalo’s Cornelius Bennett and New England’s Andre Tippett. Most people remember O’Neal as the rookie defensive lineman/comet who flashed into the NFL in 1986 and was leading the Chargers with 12 1/2 sacks before a knee injury ended his year in Week 13. Still, the voters named him the NFL’s defensive rookie of the year.

Few people remember the agonizing rehabilitation that forced O’Neal to miss the 1987 season and the first six games of 1988.

But in the past two weeks, O’Neal has collected 5 1/2 sacks and is tied with Denver’s Simon Fletcher for the AFC lead in that category at 9 1/2. During those same two weeks, the Charger defense that had 15 sacks in the first seven games has added 10 more.

In the past two weeks, a lot of people have remembered they had forgotten about O’Neal. And they are wondering if it’s the same guy. The answer: It is, and it isn’t.

O’Neal, the eighth player selected in the 1986 draft, still looks the same. His playing weight still fluctuates between 250 and 260 better and more valuable guy now than what he was.”

One thing O’Neal hasn’t lost is the pass-rushing technique he brought with him from Oklahoma State. Charger outside linebacker Billy Ray Smith says it’s the stuff of training films. And Gunther Cunningham, the Charger defensive line coach, uses film of O’Neal for just that purpose. If you are a defensive lineman and you join the Chargers, Cunningham will show you film of the way O’Neal rushes the passer. And he will tell you that’s the way you should do it, too. Even when O’Neal was still a rookie, veterans were trying to copy his moves.

“Leslie does things on the pass rush that almost have to be shown in slow motion to be appreciated,” Smith says. “Things like the way he uses his hands and the way he maximizes body leverage at the point of attack.”

And that’s not all. O’Neal is relentless, a trait appreciated by one of the hardest-working Chargers, free safety Vencie Glenn. Glenn is the son of a former football coach, and “work ethic” is as important to him as “trust fund” is to a scion of the Rockefeller fortune.

“Leslie O’Neal is a workaholic,” Glenn says. “Leslie’s always going to be in a dogfight with you.”

Moreover, O’Neal usually finds a way to fight the dog on his own terms. When the rehabilitation from his knee injury took more time than originally predicted, O’Neal remained calm. As late as March of 1988, he talked openly about the possibility he would never play again.

“If I have to walk away from football, I think I will be able to do it with a cool head,” he said at the time. “I didn’t ask to be hurt, but it happened. I deal with it. I had fun the year I was playing, being around, meeting different people, being in the limelight. That was fun. But eventually it comes to an end anyway.”

O’Neal finally returned in the middle of last season. But he wasn’t close to the player he had been.

“I wasn’t playing the game,” he says. “I was more or less surviving it.”

The knee swelled up after each game and limited his practices to one a week. Still, he managed four sacks. And he refused to have his knee drained each week. The surgeon of his choice, Dr. Richard Steadman of South Lake Tahoe, told him that arthroscopic surgery after the season was the answer instead.

“Leslie didn’t let anybody rush him,” Glenn says. “He did it his way. That’s the way he is. He’s his own man. Very independent. He believes in himself.”

Steadman turned out to be correct. The arthroscopic surgery he performed in January eliminated almost all the swelling. O’Neal missed very little training camp last summer, and now he practices every day. O’Neal says the surgery also ended the nagging “popping and grinding” he felt in the knee.

“I look back at the beginning of this year and see how much stronger I feel now,” he says. “I think I will even be stronger by the end of the year. And by next year I expect to see another vast improvement.”

Scary stuff.

After O’Neal chased fleet-footed Philadelphia quarterback Randall Cunningham all over the field last Sunday in the Chargers’ 20-17 upset victory, Cunningham singled O’Neal out for praise that was higher than even Cunningham realized at the time.

“O’Neal’s a great ballplayer,” Cunningham said. “He should be in the Pro Bowl again. He’s big and fast. He came off that serious injury. He played a great game.”

All true. Except for one thing. O’Neal had never played in the Pro Bowl. He almost certainly would have been a choice in 1986, but the injury ruined his chances. In fact, even though O’Neal has been around since 1986, the same year Lynn arrived, he has played in only 31 regular season games--many of those in a limited capacity.

“That’s a compliment,” O’Neal said, eyes twinkling, when informed of Cunningham’s remarks. “I take it he feels like I’m playing at a Pro Bowl level now.”

For his efforts against Philadelphia, O’Neal received the “gold card” award from his teammates. This award gives O’Neal “taping” privileges (he doesn’t have to wait in line), free coffee, juice and donuts and the honor of riding to and from the practice field in a golf cart. Gold cards are voted on only after victories.

O’Neal caught a break in the schedule this year because the Chargers didn’t play on artificial turf until the eighth week. Three of their last seven games are on the non-grass playing fields that are so hard on surgically repaired knees. Still, O’Neal expects to keep getting better. The NFL sack leader after nine weeks is Minnesota’s Keith Millard with 13.

O’Neal isn’t the only one who thinks his play can improve. After looking at the Eagles’ game film, the Charger coaches decided O’Neal could have had six sacks. And they told him so.

“I’d say he is already back past where he was physically before the operation,” says Charger offensive lineman James FitzPatrick. “He’s always had that raw physical talent. But the thing that separates him from everybody else is the pride he takes in improving his technique. It’s like a double-edged sword.”

O’Neal says he is just happy to be playing again. And an examination of his past quickly provides part of the reason why. When O’Neal was 5, his father was disabled by an industrial accident in the family’s home town of Little Rock, Ark. O’Neal’s father struggled through several operations. And his condition actually regressed at one point when a hip replacement operation went bad.

“Yes,” O’Neal says, “I am a different person than I was before my injury. The injury reinstalled the thought that on any given play, it can be over. You don’t realize what you had until after it’s gone and you get it back.”