House Cleaner

Back when he was patrolling the trenches for the Oakland Raiders, Chester McGlockton was among the NFL’s most intimidating defensive linemen. He also went half-speed far too much, showed up at team meetings at his leisure, and once, on a chilly afternoon in 1997, refused to shed his full-length coat as he lazily jogged through drills at practice.

Hello, Jon Gruden. So long, Chester.

Then there was Jeff George. Just about any pro quarterback would give his left arm for George’s right one. This Raider threw passes so sharp they actually whistled. He also ran the plays he chose to run, angrily tore into Gruden after being corrected in front of the team at practice, and announced on the radio--the radio!--that his nagging groin injury would keep him out all year. That’s how his coaches learned the news.

Bon voyage, Jeff.

Remember Larry Brown? He was the Super Bowl MVP in Dallas the season before Oakland signed him. Picked off two passes against Pittsburgh that basically hit him between the numbers. The Raiders quickly discovered he was a liability in bump-and-run coverage and sulked when things didn’t go his way. When Gruden was hired as coach in 1998, Brown stopped by his office to grouse about the team signing veteran cornerback Eric Allen and drafting Charles Woodson.

Two words from Gruden: Get lost. Actually, the coach used a few more words, but they’re unprintable.

As the Raiders prepare to host Baltimore in the AFC title game Sunday, a lot of people are scratching their heads about how quickly Gruden rescued a team in a free fall from grace. He did it by subtraction as much as addition. Ridding the locker room of bad apples was a top priority.

“He did a good job of having sit-downs with guys,” receiver Tim Brown said. “If someone acted as though they didn’t want to be here--in the past you could act that way and get paid pretty good--he got rid of them, or allowed them to leave and go other places. I think that was a big step for this team, to know that if you’re going to be here, you have to want to be here. If you don’t want to be here, go someplace else and play.”

James Trapp heard that spiel, and now he’s playing cornerback for the Ravens. He has since found religion. When he was playing for the Raiders, all he found was trouble.

Trapp was one of the hard cases. He had the type speed that melts AstroTurf and leaves Al Davis weak in the knees. An alternate on the U.S. 400-meter relay team at the 1992 Olympics, Trapp won the NFL’s Fastest Man competition four years later, nipping teammate James Jett at the wire.

Trapp also had the team’s shortest fuse. As a Raider rookie in 1993, during a playoff game against Denver, he left the sideline in street clothes to join a brawl on the field. Two seasons later, he poked San Diego receiver Tony Martin in the eye, kicked Ed McCaffrey in the ribs after the Denver receiver had made a touchdown catch and had to be restrained from going after a referee in a game against Kansas City.

Wherever Trapp went, turmoil was only a step away. When he was a freshman sprinter on the Clemson track team, he and North Carolina’s Kevin Braunskill had an altercation on the awards stand at the Atlantic Coast Conference indoor championships. They argued, then pushed each other before Braunskill clobbered Trapp with the championship plaque.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Trapp recalled a few years ago. “He broke it over the top of my head. I had a hard head, I guess, but I was bleeding a little bit. I started chasing him around the gym.”

In short, he was a perfect Raider.

The season before Gruden arrived, Trapp started every game and played by his own rules, paying only casual attention to then-coach Joe Bugel. He was flagged for a personal foul against Atlanta, and Bugel pulled him from the game. McGlockton--a friend of Trapp’s from Clemson--didn’t like that decision. The big man walked off the field in protest, refusing to reenter the game until Trapp was allowed back. The boycott lasted one play, then both players got their way and trotted onto the field together.

Over the last few seasons, Trapp has matured. He has been appointed captain of the Ravens’ special-teams units and is a nickel back in their defense. Still, he has the same lava in his veins.

“Guys around here call him James Trapp during the week and Joe Trapp on Sunday,” said Russ Purnell, Baltimore’s special-teams coach. “He changes personalities. He’s not a nice guy on game day. His eyes kind of glaze over and he becomes a football player.”

McGlockton was a whale of a football player too, although that didn’t sway Gruden, who happily let the Pro Bowl defensive tackle slip away to Kansas City before the 1998 season. McGlockton had his own way of doing things, and the Raiders privately worried he might have a negative impact on rising star Darrell Russell.

This is how crazy things got in 1997: In a game at Kansas City, McGlockton sauntered over to the Chiefs’ sideline during a break in the action and exchanged pleasantries with then-coach Marty Schottenheimer. The mere sight of mingling with a hated rival had Davis squirming in the visiting owner’s box. Imagine how he felt when word circulated that McGlockton had allegedly told Schottenheimer: “Tell your linemen to stop blocking me low; I want to play for you guys next year.”

There were other embarrassments off the field. McGlockton, who earned $1 million in his final season with the Raiders, was fined $5,000 in spring 1998 for allegedly stealing cable TV. The problem came to light when his wife asked the cable company for an extra remote control for the family’s illegal unscrambler.

That was typical of the 4-12 team Gruden inherited. And it took a while for him to get things on track. The Raiders had consecutive 8-8 seasons before going 12-4 this season. Gruden took some heat in 1998--both from inside and outside the organization--when his vaunted offense failed to produce big numbers.

In November 1998, after losing at home to the Washington Redskins--one of the worst teams in football--the Raiders and Gruden hit a low point in their season. An irate Davis stormed into Gruden’s office the week after the loss and tore into him. One source familiar with the situation said that Gruden snapped right back and essentially told him, “If you’re going to fire me, fire me. Otherwise, let me coach this team.”

Said the source, “Those two didn’t say a word to each other for about a year after that.”

Apparently, Gruden and Davis have a relatively healthy relationship now. The coach is reverential when talking about the owner, at least. Davis almost never speaks with reporters.

Gruden clearly has put his stamp on this team. He has turned Rich Gannon and Tyrone Wheatley into household names and has pumped new life into the sagging careers of such players as receiver Andre Rison and linebacker William Thomas.

The reputation of the Raiders is changing too. Guard Steve Wisniewski, who four years ago was called the NFL’s dirtiest player by Sports Illustrated, now has a dirty little secret: He spends his free time coaching his son’s youth soccer team.

Not so long ago, tackle Lincoln Kennedy, the Raiders’ biggest player at 6 feet 6 and 325 pounds, squeezed into tights and made a cameo appearance in the Oakland Ballet’s version of “The Nutcracker.”

Russell, the former USC star defensive tackle, shamelessly admits he carried a Mr. T action figure with him everywhere as a kid. Pity the fool that separated Russell and his doll.

These are not barroom-brawling hellions, they’re pretty nice guys. They were all Raiders before Gruden arrived, but they’re players the coach chose to keep and build a team around.

The Raiders still take some chances. Rison came in with a reputation--and a rap sheet--yet has caused no trouble this season. The team took a risk in drafting kicker Sebastian Janikowski, who has had brushes with the law, and so far that hasn’t backfired.

“Over the last couple years, since Gruden has been here, we could all see that something special was happening,” Brown said. “It took a little time for it all to come together. They brought in some players that in the past probably wouldn’t have been here. These guys are football players.”

NFL PLAYOFFS

Sunday’s Conference Championships

NFC: Minnesota at N.Y. Giants, 9:30 a.m., Channel 11

AFC: Baltimore at Oakland, 1 p.m., Channel 2