Life Is a Snap for This Pro

His name is Adam Lingner, but hey, just call him Super Snapper. I mean, why not? This guy has been to more Super Bowls than O.J. Simpson, Walter Payton, Eric Dickerson, Herschel Walker, Randall Cunningham and Bo Jackson combined.

Is it his fault that he has played in 162 NFL games and made the starting lineup once ? That he never catches, carries or kicks a football and makes tackles only by accident? That his uniform is cleaner than a cheerleader’s? That he buckles his helmet, jogs on out, plays one play, then jogs back to the stack of Gatorade cups and says, “Whew. Tough game.”

Snapper. This is Lingner’s position. Not center. Snapper. No, excuse me-- long snapper. Technically, Super Snapper is not even an offensive lineman any longer. He snaps on punts. He snaps on extra points. He snapped on Scott Norwood’s infamous missed field goal in Super Bowl XXV.

“As long snapper,” begins a thumbnail biography of the 10-year veteran from Illinois in the Buffalo Bills’ own postseason brochure, “(Lingner) has not had a single bad snap.” Nice stat.

What? You’ve never even heard of Lingner? Doesn’t matter. Adam is as real a Bill as is Thurman, Jim or Bruce. If they get a Super Bowl ring, then he gets a Super Bowl ring. That’s how it works. So what if he isn’t as filthy as they are after a game? Or as rich? Or as famous?

Then again, did any of them ever have his own theme song?

“Sing your song,” I say.

He takes requests.

“My song? Sure.”

And there he stands, a 268-pound pro football player, crooning a tune to the melody of “The Addams Family” theme, a real finger-snapper.

“He’s friendly and he’s dapper,

“He is the Bills’ long snapper,

“He’s really quite a rapper,

“The Adam Lingner Show.”

Not bad. Back when he had his own program on WGR, the Bills’ flagship station, that was Adam’s intro.

He sure was pretty darned popular for a substitute center. Recognized in malls. Hit on for autographs. A modeling agency heard about him and liked his look. Next thing Lingner knew, he was being posed in catalogues for Sears’ Big & Tall, or sashaying down runways, showing more moves with a single turn than he ever needed on a field. A snap here, a block there. Go back to the bench. Wait for the Super Bowl.

For a virtual non-player, Super Snapper became such a success. ESPN called a year ago and said, “Yo, how about camcording your whole week’s Super Bowl XXVI experience?”

“My week? Sure,” said accommodating Adam, who filmed everything he saw, including the people who were filming him . “I think they wound up using, like, a minute and a half,” he says.

And this time?

“No, not this time,” Lingner says. “Spending all that time with a movie camera made me think of the parent who brings a camera to his child’s first school play. You’re so busy looking through a lens, you forget to watch the play.”

This time, Lingner wants the experience to, well, linger. Buffalo has lost two in a row. That he knows. He also knows how unlikely the chances of coming back for four in a row, Super Snapper or not, will be. So, this could be it. A championship ring is the main thing, but it’s important to look around, stop and smell the Rose Bowl. Do the town.

Like, for example: “I like sushi. And Los Angeles is a good town for sushi, as you know,” Lingner says, laughing. “Richard Dreyfuss was a couple of tables over. Too bad I didn’t have my TV camera.”

Buffalo is a good town for chicken wings. Darned hard to get good Buffalo sushi in January. But Buffalo is also a good town to be a Bill. The players become personalities. Lingner became such hot stuff that his status with the team might have been enhanced. One popular school of thought among Buffalo players is that defensive tackle Jeff Wright, a starter since 1990, is not particularly thrilled with his income because Lingner’s is reportedly greater. Lingner, who never starts.

“I used to wonder myself,” Lingner says. “I’d see the kind of money Jim Kelly was getting. And I’d think, ‘How could this guy be making so much more than that guy, when Kelly’s never even won a Super Bowl?’ But then I’d go to the mall and see No. 12 jerseys for sale, No. 12 pajamas, Jim Kelly posters, Jim Kelly coffee mugs, Jim Kelly key chains, and I’d realize: ‘Ahh, that’s why.’

“Brian Bosworth was the first one I really noticed that way. What did he ever do? How many games did that guy ever win? But he was a master of self-promotion, or maybe someone else did it for him. He was bigger off the field than on.”

Lingner never even started for his college team until his senior year. Now he’s a 10-year pro. He broke in with Kansas City and filled in frequently for the injured Bob Rush at center. Then the Chiefs waived him. Then New England hired him for one game and never used him. And then Buffalo signed him, used him as a snapper and special teams player for 12 games . . . and waived him at their next camp. The glamorous life of a football star.

He made it back to the Bills. Snapped in 1990 with swollen, hyper-extended fingers. Made it to the Super Bowl. Made an accurate snap on Norwood’s game-deciding kick, only to see the ball drift wide of the upright. Returned the next season, snapping in Buffalo’s snow and wind.

“Has proven he is nearly flawless,” reads his bio.

And on he plays. Against the Raiders this season, Lingner actually made a tackle. He got another against the Patriots on punt coverage. Bruce Smith, beware. Two for two. A regular tackling machine.

“Now I’m not even a real offensive lineman,” Lingner says, still laughing. “They don’t even list me as backup center. They don’t even list me as backup backup center. They tell me mine is still an important job. I hope so. Maybe this is the year I make that all-important Super Bowl-winning snap.”