PRO FOOTBALL / DAILY REPORT : RAIDERS : Still No Sign of Long as $4,000 Fines Mount

Howie Long has been coming to Raider training camp for 13 years.

But he’s not in camp at Austin, Tex., now, and there’s no sign he’ll be coming soon.

Although he is being fined $4,000 a day for staying away, the veteran defensive lineman is refusing to report. He wants to renegotiate his contract, which calls for $8.33 million over five years. Long received $1.4 million last season, the first year of the deal. He will earn $1.5 million this season, then $1.65 million, $1.8 million and $1.98 million in 1996, when Long will be 36.

That deal, an extension of Long’s old contract, was negotiated before the wave of free-agency signings drastically altered the NFL pay scale. Suddenly, there’s a Reggie White earning $4.2 million a year for the Green Bay Packers, Bruce Smith getting about $3.4 million from the Buffalo Bills and several other defensive linemen above $2 million.

But the Raiders appear determined to stand firm, taking the attitude they did last summer when defensive lineman Greg Townsend wanted to alter his contract.

Townsend eventually gave in without an increase and reported on the weekend the season began.

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Earlier this week, it was reported that officials from the Texas city of San Marcos, located 20 miles south of Austin, were attempting to lure the Raiders, offering Southwest Texas State University as a new training site.

Raider owner Al Davis laughed off that report.

“We’re happy as hell where we are,” he said, referring to the team’s base in Oxnard.

But Davis subsequently received a phone call from Texas Gov. Ann Richards, who continued the lobbying effort.

Bottom line: Oxnard has nothing to worry about.