COMMENTARY : Even at the End, Long Didn’t Stop Being Aggressive

As a Raider, Howie Long, who has held down one end of the defensive line for 13 years, is most heatedly remembered right now in Los Angeles for jumping offside.

Some fans have been saying that Long took the Raiders out of the playoffs earlier this month with his encroachment penalties.

But they’re wrong about that. So are the NBC announcers who started that talk.

For that is the way Long plays. Or played. Charging. Aggressive. Intense. Always getting after the passer. And that’s the way some of us will think of him, and describe him, when the kids ask: “What was Howie Long really like?”

He may have been offside more than any other defensive end of his time.

But he also disturbed more quarterbacks than perhaps any other defensive end who has played in a Los Angeles uniform since Deacon Jones.

When Long retired Thursday--choosing for the announcement scene a forum at the Super Bowl--he could look back on a career that included 91 1/2 sacks. And who knows how many “hurries.” All this while continually being double-teamed.

A former teammate, Hall of Famer Gene Upshaw, who now heads the NFL Players Assn., recalled that the thing he appreciated more than anything about his football career was not having to play against Long.

“I’ve never known a more intense player,” Upshaw said.

Al LoCasale, the Raider executive who also knew Long in Oakland, is of the opinion that the intensity was the result of a reproof by a Sports Illustrated writer.

In a memorable nationally televised performance on the day Long was drafted, the writer called him “an eighth- or 10th round-choice” and flayed the Raiders for taking him second.

“From Day 1, Howie was out to prove the (writer) wrong,” LoCasale said.

Long’s passion to succeed, however, antedates the Raiders.

“I used to walk 10 miles to school every day--through the snow,” he told the reporters at the news conference.

He doesn’t look the type. Seeming younger than his 34 years, he stood patiently before the Super Bowl writers in expensive double-breasted threads and a 1950s crew cut that called to mind a nicely groomed collar-ad salesman of 40 years ago.

He was dressed, it could be, for the TV auditioning that will lead him to what he hopes will be his next career.

“I won’t be out on the street,” he promised.

If he felt the need to retire three or four years early, he crammed the explanation into seven words.

“I have been operated on seven times,” he said.

The last remaining Oakland Raider on the El Segundo roster, Long chose a reasonably acceptable moment to retire--acceptable that is, from the club’s standpoint.

For the defensive line is a Raider strength.

If there are no more changes, Coach Art Shell, when he lines them up next July, will simply slip Anthony Smith in for Long next to Chester McGlockton, Nolan Harrison and Greg Townsend.

As the 1993 weeks went by, Smith played more and more and better and better, and not only on passing downs.

Long hoped to discuss all that on Thursday with Al Davis. He is closer to the club owner than any other player. They aren’t good friends, exactly, but they get along.

But as intense as Long is, he said he couldn’t get through to Davis.

As a media man now, he’ll have to get used to that.