He’s One of the Greats in NFL; Ask Him If You Don’t Think So : Chargers: Leslie O’Neal is a confident young pass rusher who believes in his ability.

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

Specifically, O’Neal is talking about the NFL. 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.

The names that usually come to mind in any discussion about outside linebackers are Lawrence Taylor of the New York Giants, Cornelius Bennett of the Buffalo Bills and Andre Tippett of the New England Patriots. Most people remember O’Neal as the rookie defensive lineman-comet who flashed into the NFL in 1986 and was leading the Chargers in sacks with 12 1/2 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 entire 1987 season and the first six games of 1988.

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

In the last two weeks, a lot of people have remembered that 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 pounds. And he still doesn’t mind talking about himself.

Is he the same player?

O’Neal, in stream-of-consciousness, on the uninjured O’Neal of 1986:

“Young guy in the league; just finding his own; frustrations of playing the first part of the season with a cast on his wrist; still starting to play well; just starting to jell as a player; just getting comfortable with the cast; starting to catch back up sack-wise with the other guys in the league; great player against the run; good player rushing the passer; getting a lot of hits on the quarterback; not missing a lot of tackles; getting accustomed to what my body and mind can’t do; total confidence as a player but maybe not as patient as I should be.”

O’Neal on the player he is now:

“Still adjusting to speed and angles and so forth, overrunning plays at times, overestimating speed at times; missing tackles because of that; patient in that I realize stats will come if I go out and play solid; realizing that stats aren’t the total key to making it in this league; it’s playing well every down and showing a lot of positive things.”

It is no accident that O’Neal talks that way, kind of gliding from one phrase to another, never hurrying, but never pausing long enough to allow the person talking to him to be sure where he is going with the conversation. He glides through dialogues the way he glides through blocks en route to the offensive backfield.

Pass rushers aren’t normally thought of that way. But, O’Neal says, “I wouldn’t trade what I have with anybody.”

According to Ron Lynn, Charger defensive coordinator, O’Neal hasn’t returned physically to where he was before the injury.

“But mentally, I think he’s far superior to what he was then,” Lynn said. “I think he’s got a better feel for what we’re doing and what he can do. Overall I think he’s a 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, Charger defensive line coach, uses film of O’Neal just that way. If you are a defensive lineman and you join the Chargers, Cunningham will show you film of the way O’Neal rushes the passer, telling you that’s the way it should be done. “Leslie does things on the pass rush that almost have to be shown in slow motion to be appreciated,” Smith said. “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 said. “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 predicted, O’Neal remained calm.

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

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, Richard Steadman of South Lake Tahoe, told him arthroscopic surgery after the season was the answer instead.

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

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

After O’Neal had chased fleet-footed Philadelphia quarterback Randall Cunningham all over the field last Sunday in the Chargers’ 20-17 upset, 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 would have been an almost certain choice in 1986, but the injury ruined his chances. In fact, even though O’Neal has been around since 1986, the 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 told of Cunningham’s remarks. “I take it he feels like I’m playing at a Pro Bowl level now.”

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 concluded that 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,” said 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. When O’Neal was 5, his father was disabled by an industrial accident in the family’s home town, 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, I am a different person than I was before my injury,” O’Neal said. “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.”