Elvis Sighted in End Zone With the Ball

The Pro Bowl? Man, forget the Pro Bowl. “Last year I got robbed out of the Pro Bowl,” Elvis Patterson is saying. “The Pro Bowl won’t be a real Pro Bowl until the best players get to be in it.”

The Pro Bowl was in Hawaii; Elvis wasn’t. He thinks he should have been. After all: “I redesigned the way special-teams football is played.” Elvis performs only on special occasions. He isn’t first string. He isn’t even second string. Doesn’t matter. Elvis is Elvis’ biggest fan.

In the proud tradition of Raiders who say what they mean and mean what they say, we are pleased to introduce Elvis Patterson, 32, die-hard defensive back and kick-return kamikaze, owner of a diamond ring from Super Bowl XXI with the New York Giants, someone who blends right in with this motley crew of Raiders.

Hey, you know the Raiders. Real characters. Real rascals. For example, take the lineman with the one-liners, Bob Golic, who, forced against his will to watch Sunday’s 28-7 victory over Kansas City at the Coliseum, stood in his street clothes holding a scrap of cardboard, on which he had scribbled:

WILL PLAY

FOR FOOD

Patterson got to play. He made one tackle. That’s it. Exactly one tackle. You could look it up. Assisted on one other. But oh, what a tackle. It had everything. You name it, Elvis got a piece of it. He blocked a kick. Then he blocked the kicker. Then he found the football. Then he got a touchdown. It was like one-stop shopping. He got everything he came for without making two trips.

“And it couldn’t have come at a better time for me,” Elvis is now saying, continuing a thought. He is thinking about all of these NFL punters who are too slow in getting off the punt, the way this Kansas City dude was. “If he’s a slow punter, then each and every football game I could block a punt. I feel like I should have blocked 10 punts by this date.”

Bryan Barker never knew what hit him. Or who. The Chiefs were on their 20, first quarter, second possession. Elvis eyeballed the snapper, Kani Kauahi. He spotted a hitch. There was a moment’s hesitation between the time the 275-pound Hawaiian held the ball and hiked it. Elvis notices things like this. He prides himself on things like this. He plays special teams and therefore considers himself a specialist.

“I rushed outside. The punter was really slow. I beat the wing by a little bit. I reached with my hand around the wing guy when the punter was stepping up. I put my hand on the ball and took it right off his foot. Then the ball bounced around in the end zone.

“My next job was, I had to knock the punter out of the way. That was by design. Once I got rid of him, it was just me and the ball. The fact that he got injured, that wasn’t by design.”

As Elvis fell on the ball, Barker fell on his side. He stayed there a long time. Then the punter was helped to the sideline. He stayed there the rest of the day. Kansas City had to use its kicker, Nick Lowery, as its punter. Nobody bothered blocking any of Lowery’s punts. They never went very far, anyway.

Barker, holding his arm, said afterward: “All I can remember is that the punt was blocked. I just ended up lying there. The rest is a blur.”

So is Elvis. That is all he is on special teams, a black-and-silver blur who makes a beeline for anyone who happens to have the ball. Almost always, he gets there first. Almost always, he knows where to go. Elvis has this theory that wherever a kicked football is first touched, the person carrying that ball will eventually circle back to that same place. Better ask him to explain it.

It is one of many theories Elvis has developed. He is passing them along to Derrick Hoskins, a Raider rookie out of Southern Mississippi, someone who is alternately called “my protege” and “Number 20” in every Elvis mention. There are times when Elvis cannot stop talking about his protege, Number 20. He even says: “Number 20 is going to be the best of the special-teams players after I leave the Raiders. You won’t believe how good Number 20’s going to be.”

A protege? Why not? After all, the Raiders are one big, happy family. In the album of Elvis’ greatest hits, the flip side of Sunday’s punt bash was a hit Elvis put on one of his own coaches, Jack Stanton, during a preseason disagreement. He body-slammed the 54-year-old coach of the Raider defensive backs to the ground. As body-slamming a coach is about the dumbest thing any athlete can do, Elvis was lucky the Raiders didn’t slam him right out of the NFL. “That was put behind us the day that it happened,” Elvis says. “He’s gonna be here and I’m gonna be here and we’re one big, happy family.”

One that is happier after it has won. Elvis sure was happy Sunday, even though he sure is tired of the other team sending three or four men after him on every kickoff. How can he make the Pro Bowl that way? Especially after last year, when: “I exemplified everything that a special-teams player should be.” Oh, that Elvis. He knows a real pro when he sees one.