The Townsend Address: Four Scores

Chicago’s quarterback ran a “naked bootleg,” devised to misdirect the defense, and everybody wearing a Raider uniform got suckered by it--everybody except Greg Townsend. As a result, the running Bear was left running bare, without protection, as totally exposed as a New England Patriot in a locker room after a shower.

Townsend bore down. Beneath his helmet, the big man’s bald skull, which resembles a helmet, cascaded rivulets of sweat. He also was huffing and puffing, as one might expect from an athlete with a pack of Salems in his locker, but it was Jim Harbaugh whose immediate health was in danger, because it was Harbaugh’s neck that Townsend was breathing down.

“Then he made a U-turn,” Townsend said, reconstructing the play.

Had the quarterback been a hatchback, he would have left skid marks. As it was, Harbaugh spun inopportunely into the headlights of one Aaron Wallace, rookie linebacker, who latched onto Harbaugh’s arm and proceeded to play crack-the-whip. The football squirted free, anybody’s for the taking, until Townsend’s 265 pounds belly-flopped onto it and went tumbling across the Bear goal, five minutes into Sunday’s second quarter.

Recorded for posterity as a 20-yard sack for Wallace, this turning-point play from a big game at the Coliseum won by the Raiders, 24-10, also went into the books as a one-yard fumble return for a touchdown for Townsend, who is turning into the most offensive defensive end in the league.

“That’s four touchdowns in eight years,” Townsend happened to mention.

It is?

“I keep count,” he said.

As well he should. TD Townsend has now accounted for 28 points (including two safeties) in his professional life. Many halfbacks should be so lucky. Vance Mueller is in his fifth season with the Raiders, and still has only five touchdowns. Steve Smith starts at running back, but hasn’t run across the goal line all season. Napoleon McCallum has one touchdown in his NFL career.

Why, Greg Townsend has been as potent on offense as . . . as . . .

“As Pittsburgh’s, I guess,” Townsend said.

A smile crinkles that hard, hairless, made-by-Brunswick head. The man is doing good work and having a good time. Greg Townsend has taken hold of the defensive leadership role for the Raiders, what with Howie Long absent, and he is not about to let go. Blow the whistle, because it is in the grasp.

Having taken his sweet time to report to practice this summer, Townsend eventually got the Raiders to agree that he was worth the seven-figure salary he so wanted. That one put the kid from Compton into the high-rent district, as it were, entitling Greg to joke that should he ever choose to do so, he could afford to live in the sort of neighborhood that would enable him to “drop by Howie Long’s to borrow a cup of sugar.”

While Townsend’s specialty may be tackling, for some reason he seems to turn up wherever the football is, whenever it goes up for grabs. He can tick off all his touchdowns for you without hesitation: the 66-yard fumble runback his rookie year; the flop onto a fumble in the end zone in 1988; the 86-yard interception return of a John Elway pass. There’s a highlight film inside his head.

This latest one was a pleasant surprise. Wallace was the one who separated the Bear from the ball. “Greg chased him down,” Wallace said. “I just got to him second.”

Townsend took no such credit.

“Easiest six points I ever had,” Townsend said.

The fact of the matter remains, however, that the man who leads the Raiders in quarterback sacks came charging at Harbaugh so hard and so often, Chicago’s offense resorted to a variety of trick plays and gadgets. Six times Harbaugh got sacked, including one with nine minutes remaining that meant a great deal, seeing as how the Bears did not get the football back until fewer than three minutes were left on the clock.

Townsend knew a team in dire straits when he saw one.

“You could see that their offense got desperate. They were trying everything they could think of. We made them change their game plan. Once they tried all those reverses and trick passes, they had to settle down and just play football. And once they did that, we knew we’d get the best of it.”

The Raiders are playing the way Greg Townsend is talking--with confidence. They are beating people because he is beating on people.

“The man is headed for the Pro Bowl, if you ask me,” said teammate Max Montoya, who himself has been to three. “I think he’ll be playing in the Pro Bowl this season for sure.”

There’s only one question.

On offense or on defense?