O’Neal Ends His Silence with Loud Performance

Charger defensive end Leslie O’Neal broke his season-long silence Sunday, and after the team’s 27-21 victory over Phoenix, there was no shutting him up.

O’Neal said he began making himself available to reporters again because he had sat down with one from Sports Illustrated in the team’s hotel Saturday. And while the conversation was off the record, he feared his comments might be published.

“I felt bad talking to him and leaving out our local media,” O’Neal said. “Even though everything I said to him was totally off the record, I just ended up getting myself in a position where I was talking to him, and it just wasn’t right not to talk to everyone else.”

O’Neal, prominent in the Chargers’ playoff drive, had kept his silence. O’Neal talked to reporters last summer after signing a one-year contract, but then stopped talking without explanation.

“I never thought it would get this big or this bad,” O’Neal said. “No one was real rude to me and I didn’t mean to be rude to anyone else. The major reason I just didn’t talk earlier in the season is I wanted to establish myself as a player.

“I think sometimes you carry that title of being a loner or a guy out there on his own, and suddenly people don’t look at you as a player, but as a troublemaker . . . especially in a market like San Diego, where we’re not getting a lot of media attention because we’re not winning. And now all of a sudden this guy is making these statements, a lot of people don’t agree with these statements, he’s the problem to what is going on. So this year I wanted to take myself away from that.”

O’Neal, with 12 1/2 sacks this year, had his way with left tackle Danny Villa. In the second half, he almost single-handedly shut down the Cardinal offense.

“I’d rather play against a guy like Luis Sharpe (sidelined with an injury), who is one of the best tackles in the league,” O’Neal said, “because a team will say he’s one of the best and leave him one-on-one with me. When you bring in a guy they don’t necessarily trust, they give him a lot of help.

“We’re making plays as a team. In the past we wouldn’t have gotten the sacks or the fumbles. We knew we had to keep working to pull this one off. We came together, and we knew our mission.”