Long Hopes to Revive Career as Ram

Chuck Long, once a promising star in his own galaxy, now establishes a permanent residence behind a wicked-armed supernova, Jim Everett, as Long embarks on a second career with the Rams.

It’s a price you pay for rehabilitation, and Long appears determined to revive his career from the bottom rung.

Before being traded to the Rams from Detroit last week, Long never imagined teaming with Everett. No one huddle was thought big enough to accommodate their helmets. Long and Everett weren’t just college contemporaries, but heated Big Ten rivals; Long at Iowa, Everett at Purdue. They weren’t the best of friends, either. What they shared was a conference, the gift of quarterback, and a common time in football history.

“Me and Jim Everett on the same team?” Long was thinking a while back. “It’ll never happen. But you never say never in this business. I don’t think I’ll have a problem with Jim. I don’t think he’ll have a problem with me.”

In 1986, both shared the same ambitions entering the National Football League. Though many pegged Everett all along as the better pro prospect, Long’s collegiate career was more storied. In fact, only Bo Jackson separated Long from the Heisman Trophy in 1985.

Both quarterbacks were first-round draft choices; Everett going first to Houston, Long to Detroit.

As Long says of his life now, “a lot of it is timing.”

Everett refused to play for the Oilers and forced a trade to the Rams, who paired him with offensive passing whiz, Ernie Zampese. The rest is history.

Long, instead, took his lumps as the lowly Lions starter, showing some promise at first. Then he watched as the team changed coaches, Darryl Rogers to Wayne Fontes, and then offenses, conventional pro-style to the unconventional run-and-shoot.

The slow-footed Long was a trot-and-shoot quarterback at best, and was fighting off of a history of arm problems. Long played in just seven games in 1988 and appeared only once last season following off-season surgery to repair nerve damage in his throwing elbow. He completed two passes in five attempts all year.

“I was out of football for a year,” Long said. “And I was out of football in a run-and-shoot offense. I was probably at the lowest level in my playing career. It’s funny how I got to that point. Everything turned about 180 degrees for me in about a year-and-a-half span.”

Despite the odds against winning his job back from Rodney Peete this summer, Long was determined to do so. Then came his one-way ticket out of town, via the University of Houston.

“I think that all changed when they drafted (quarterback) Andre Ware,” Long said of the Lions’ first-round draft pick.”

Four years after being touted as Detroit’s future, Long was suddenly Detroit’s past, an expendable quarterback coming off elbow surgery. Still, given their stability at quarterback, Long was surprised when the Rams called a few weeks ago.

Perhaps he shouldn’t have been. While the San Francisco 49ers had long ago taken out quarterback insurance with the acquisition of backup Steve Young, the Rams have waged war precariously with Everett, resigned to praying that he might remain standing at the end of each season.

The Rams were looking for a scaled-down version, pay scale and otherwise, of the 49ers’ Young, and enlisted the homeless Long.

Long and his ego had several discussions concerning his new duties. Could he possibly suck it up and shag balls for Everett, knowing he had no shot at the starting job?

“It’s tough,” Long said, “not an easy thing, because I was once a starter in this league. It was something I had to come to terms with. You have to put the ego aside in some cases. “

Long came to this realization: He could either have his spine rearranged by starting for another team such as the Lions, or re-invent his game from scratch with a winner under the guidance of Ernie Zampese.

“I don’t want to get into another situation like Detroit, where I go in, I start, I get banged around and struggle,” Long explained. “Then all of a sudden they’re booing me by the end of the year and they’re looking for other guys. That’s not the type of thing I wanted to get into again.”

But can you teach an older quarterback new tricks? Rams Coach John Robinson thinks so.

“We told Chuck we could put him back in an environment that suits him,” Robinson said. “He’s an accurate and precision passer, not a power passer. Our offense is perfectly suited for him. I think we’ll bring out the best in him.”

And what becomes of current Rams’ backup, Mark Herrmann? That depends on whether Robinson keeps two quarterbacks or three, a decision that hasn’t been made. Robinson thinks of Herrmann as his short-reliever, a competent quarterback who can get the Rams through a game if Everett goes down. If Everett is injured for an extended period, then Long would be the answer.

Long, in the meantime, hopes to re-establish himself with his peers and show the league that his arm is sound again after surgery.

“I think that with time, in this system, I can re-establish myself in the NFL,” Long said. “This is probably the best place for that. The Rams never led me on in any way. I know exactly what I’m getting into. I never like to accept a backup role, but in this case I feel I can accept it.”

Of course, Long also envisions returning someday to center stage and reliving his rivalry with Everett. Because both quarterbacks are 27, though, Long knows his career won’t be blossoming in Anaheim.

“I’m not saying I’d want to leave, don’t get me wrong,” Long said. “If I play rest of my career here, I’ll be happy with that. But it is in back of my mind, that maybe, something will happen down the line. But I’m not going to count on that.”