Players Fly to Pro Bowl on Air Waves : Pro football: Some say public relations can be more important to going to all-star game than good statistics.

It’s not so much who you know, but who knows you.

Raiders’ defensive end Greg Townsend forced a pair of fumbles against Detroit Monday night, and ABC-TV’s high-profile broadcasting crew all but purchased Townsend’s plane ticket to the Pro Bowl with unabashed praise.

You want to go to Hawaii--all expenses paid by the NFL--you need national TV exposure, publicity and stats.

Now if you play for the Chargers, you watch Monday Night Football. The last time the Chargers played on Monday night, Don Coryell was the head coach.

The past two years, however, defensive lineman Lee Williams has had the stats to capture the attention of his voting peers. He had 11 sacks in 1988 and went to Hawaii and then had 14 in 1989 to earn a return visit.

But Williams has been moved from defensive end to defensive tackle, and he no longer has the stats, and if you don’t have the stats, then you better get the pub.

“The only thing that hurts Lee is the fact that our organization hasn’t pushed him for the Pro Bowl,” linebacker Leslie O’Neal said. “You look at Charles Mann with Washington, for example. The organization pushed Charles Mann.

“He was going to the Pro Bowl with only three or four sacks, but the organization was telling everybody he was the best player on the team and he was doing things to open it up for other players to have the stats. That’s a public relations thing, and a coaching staff thing. Howie Long has gotten that push, that same type of recognition with the Raiders.”

Williams said he doesn’t care about publicity anymore, and said he does not expect to earn a third trip to Hawaii.

“I know that the two years that I was voted in, it wasn’t because of any superlative effort by our P.R. department,” Williams said. “I got in there because of what I did on the field.

“I think certain people here get accorded more attention in the press than others for whatever reasons. I wouldn’t say it’s ability. You can’t pick up a paper without seeing certain names in it.”

Based on experience, though, the Chargers’ public relations department has always appeared to be an equal opportunity propaganda pusher.

“It s too bad he took it public instead of going to the organization first to talk about it,” Bill Johnston, director of public relations, said. “Our job is to promote the team, 50-some odd players on the team. We treat everyone the same, there’s no preferential treatment.

“We’re here to help promote every player as much as they are willing to help us promote them. But winning is the best promotion.”

And maybe defeat fuels frustration. Although O’Neal is expected to be selected to the Pro Bowl in next week’s balloting among players and coaches, he said he’s unhappy.

“Regardless of how we do the rest of the season, I’m angry,” he said. “It’s a team thing. Dallas is 1-15 last year and they are 6-7 this year, like us, and in one year they’ve turned it around and may make the playoffs. We’ve been going at it four or five years with this youth thing.

“We’ve already lost this year. Maybe we go 8-8 or even 9-7, but there’s only an outside chance at the playoffs. I look at next year and who’s going to put us on national television?”

If the Chargers spend each Monday night in front of their TVs, O’Neal said, the players will have to rely on the organization’s help to achieve individual acclaim. And he said the Chargers have their favorites, players they choose to promote, “and they aren’t always the best players.

“Maybe that’s the relationship certain players have with the team,” O’Neal said. “Maybe the organization wants certain people to go to the Pro Bowl and others not to go. You have to ask those questions, but who in their right mind will give you a truthful answer? How many people will be up front with you?”

Safety Martin Bayless said O’Neal might be more outspoken than the rest of his teammates, but “he can do that because he’s untouchable. But what he’s saying is something many of us feel.

“Sometimes what happens here is that they mention certain players who they think should be Pro Bowl players. But a guy cannot be a Pro Bowl player if he’s hurt six or seven weeks out of the season. There are some players in the organization that they continue to push regardless of how they play. That’s been a problem amongst the players.”

O’Neal cited an example of one present-day Charger who has been given the big P.R. push, but after reconsidering, retracted the identity of the player.

“I don’t want to make any waves and be a distraction to this team,” he said, “but there again I got to look at the fact if Lee Williams doesn’t go to the Pro Bowl, then there’s something wrong. I respect Lee as a player, more than I do a lot of other people on this team. There are a lot of people getting more publicity than Lee is getting, and you know who they are.

“Gill Byrd hasn’t gotten pushed. You don’t see the stories on him. You don’t see his name in USA Today the day before a game when they talk about who’s hot or key matchups.”

O’Neal said players such as Williams, Byrd, Bayless and linebacker Henry Rolling have not been afforded the same attention as some other players with less ability.

He said he wouldn’t say it’s a racially motivated problem, because, “I’m a black player and I’ve gotten publicity. But there again what if it were different, and I had accomplished the things I’ve accomplished? I don’t know what might have happened then.”

O’Neal has understood the power of publicity since the day he arrived in the NFL. And if no one else will talk about his accomplishments, he will.

“I’ve been in this organization since ‘86,” he said. “They didn’t play defense here. You can talk about Billy Ray Smith, you can talk about Gill Byrd and all those other guys, but they didn’t play defense well.

“Billy Ray has been so popular because he was the best player on the defense, but who did they beat defensively back in those times? I see the game balls back in Doc (Brooks, equipment manager’s) office with the defense getting a game ball in the (1985) Pittsburgh game where the score is 54 to 44. That’s ridiculous.”

Byrd smiled; that’s Leslie O’Neal, he said. He has heard his pronouncements and more than once he has advised O’Neal to hold his counsel.

Now if there is someone who has the right to be miffed about missed opportunities, it’s Gill Byrd. Byrd had seven interceptions in 1988 to lead all AFC corners and failed to win Pro Bowl attention. Ditto in 1989, and now here he is again in 1990 with seven interceptions to lead all defenders in the AFC.

“I don’t know if this publicity thing is so much favoritism or just marketability,” Byrd said. “Some guys are more marketable than other guys, so you want to get those guys out to the public.

“A Burt Grossman is more marketable than a Gill Byrd not because Burt Grossman is a white defensive lineman, but because Burt Grossman says what’s on his mind. He gets people’s attention.”

Winning also gets attention. The Chargers have had 11 players selected to play in the Pro Bowl in the past six losing years. They had seven players picked in 1982 when they last made an appearance in the playoffs.

Winning gets big-time attention. It brings national TV exposure, enhances stats and brings so much publicity to players that some begin to complain.