Where the hell is 91?
It's second and 14 as NC State quarterback Daniel Evans steps to the line, and that's the only thought on his mind. It's the only thought he's had all night, the singular worry that tonight's entire offensive strategy has been planned around. Where is Chris Long? Evans is still irritated about the play that just ended, when Long materialized on the right side to stuff a draw for a one-yard gain. He must have sniffed out the call before it was even sent in. On the play before that, no one could locate the defensive end as the play clock neared zero and the ensuing panic resulted in an illegal-shift penalty.
Tonight the Wolfpack Radio Network is airing a recurring Chris Long update to help listeners track his whereabouts. ESPNU has a "Long ISO" cam dedicated solely to watching his every swim move, sack and tackle. All of this coming on the heels of a profile on College Gameday and features in USA Today and The Washington Post. Long's ability to physically will the Cavaliers into games has pushed Virginia into bowl eligibility, comfortably in the Top 25, and has radio talk shows chattering about an invitation to the Heisman ceremonies.
Eventually, the media horde at Carter-Finley Stadium in Raleigh begin combing the stands for Long's father, Howie. Yes, that Howie, he of the square jaw, squarer flattop and Radio Shack ads. "He has to be here, right?" shouts the director in the television production truck. Where the hell is 75?
Howie Long is watching, from 2,541 miles away, alone in Studio A at the Fox Network Center in Los Angeles. This is how he catches all of his son's road games, staring at the satellite backhaul in a place where the cameras aren't trained on him but are turned off and pointed at the floor. Everyone on the Fox lot knows to leave him alone, especially when UVa is in a struggle, which seems to be the case every Saturday. Tomorrow morning he'll be Howie the Hall of Fame defensive end, the Emmy-winning studio analyst and Terry Bradshaw's straight man. For now, he's just Pops.
Back in Raleigh, Evans doesn't give a damn about Chris Long's gene pool. He just wants to know where he is on the line. Not until the ball is snapped does he receive the answer, as the end explodes from the left side to shred a hold, sidestep a trap and shift into chasing gear. Evans backpedals, even thinks about a spin, but less than three seconds into the play, the junior is wrangled to the ground as he slings the ball into space. Sack, intentional grounding, 20-yard loss.
It's third and 34 as Evans steps back up to the line.
Where the hell is 91?
If this is your first introduction to Chris Long, if you've just been welcomed onto this national bandwagon, don't worry. You are not alone. For four years he has done his exquisite demolition work in the relative football obscurity of the ACC, a league suddenly bent on rebuilding. For eight years, including high school, he has embarrassed offenses on the remote gridiron island of Charlottesville, Va. One year ago the Cavaliers finished 5—7, and this season they weren't expected to fare much better, earning a preseason ranking of fourth in the league's lowly six-team Coastal Division. But UVa has quietly put together a 9—2 record, compiled in the long shadows of Virginia Tech's defense and Boston College's quarterback, Matt Ryan. After a season-opening loss at Wyoming, the Cavaliers won nine of 10, losing only to NC State, by five, and winning an NCAA-record five games by two points or less.
It was during that streak that the Long watch began, a groundswell powered by 12 sacks—good for fifth in the nation—and a tackle total that ranks second among Virginia defenders, both despite an endless series of double-teams and Wolfpack-like blocking schemes designed to stop him and him only. Long nearly single-handedly shut down the offenses of North Carolina, Maryland and then-undefeated Connecticut so his O could play catch-up. His national coming-out party came Oct. 20 against the Terps on ESPN2, with 10 tackles, five for a loss, and two sacks, the second resulting in a third-quarter safety that proved to be the difference in an 18-17 win. "In our defense, linemen aren't supposed to put up numbers," says Cavaliers outside linebacker and Long's roommate, Clint Stintim, referring to head coach Al Groh's preferred NFL-style 3-4 front. "That's pretty much all you need to know about Chris Long."
True enough, but let's dig a little deeper. Ask people who know him about the myths and assumptions that come with a last name, and you won't find the baggage that often accompanies privileged youth. Even Long's lone tattoo—the one inked in the center of his back in letters so small that if you can read them you're standing way too close—is more about a personal message than a public statement. Those tiny letters spell P-R-I-D-E. But when you do continue to dig, some important distinctions arise. For one, Chris is not Howie. Yes, they share the same position, the same two-gap stance, even the same jawline. But at 6'4", 284, the college senior is already bigger, faster and, depending on whom you ask, smarter than the eight-time Pro Bowler. He's as obsessed with writing and the Discovery Channel as he is with sniffing out reverses. "I'm not going there with who's smarter," Chris says with a laugh as he jogs off the practice field in Charlottesville. "But I like my chances."
For another, the Longs are not the Mannings. Yes, there is a gold blazer from Canton hanging in Dad's closet. Yes, the Long boys come in a gang of three: Chris, Kyle and Howie Jr. work hard, never get into trouble, love their mother and—just like Cooper, Peyton and Eli—were raised in a genteel Southern community, attended a fine private school and love to toss the pigskin around the yard on cool fall afternoons. But the Longs have never eaten Christmas dinner while devouring a stack of third-and-long cut-down film. Howie's boys were never rocked to sleep to tales of weakside blitzes and fables of the four-man front. All three have been great prep players, but this spring Kyle is headed to Florida State to pitch and play first base and little Howie is eyeing a lacrosse scholarship in two years. "I remember going to Dad's games when we lived in LA," says Chris. "But, honestly, I didn't go to many. I think I was 8 when he retired, and when I did go to games I wasn't really paying attention. People think football was this giant part of our lives growing up, but somehow it just wasn't."
It was no big deal because Dad never let it become one. When he came home to Diane and the boys, he checked his jersey at the door, a mentality that continues to this day. "I was so consumed with football when I played that I never brought it home," he says from behind the desk of his home office, getting in his NFL-on-Fox film studies before school lets out. "Home was my escape from the game. We never sat around listening to stories of, I remember one time when I went head-to-head with so-and-so. The boys probably learned more about me from my teammates than from me."
Finally, the family politely asks that everyone stop suggesting that Chris' meteoric rise up NFL draft boards is a result of some magical training that he receives from his father. Or that it's because Howie is dialing through his league phone directory to drive up the stock price. "Dad's hardly ever at practice," says Chris, "even though my family lives just a few miles from campus. When he's there, it's during open session when everyone else's parents are there too. We watch tape, but for only just a little while each week and only if I ask him to check something out for me."
Pops attends only home games—"The last road game I went to I think they showed me on camera seven times," says Long—and when he's there, he tries to blend in with the crowd. He talks football only when Chris brings it up, and when those conversations do take place they deal in basics such as hand placement and leverage. When there is advice it is much more fatherly than football: "Don't try to be cute, be you," or "Whatever you do, go as hard as you can."
"It's true," says Dad. "When we talk football, we talk fundamentals. The only time I coached him was in high school, and that's when he was playing offensive tackle. Have you seen his move at the line? It's all pass-over moves. If you pull the film of every play of my 13-year career, I don't think you can find me using a pass-over move once … not once. So I couldn't even begin to understand how to coach it. What you see on the field are Chris' natural instincts and great defensive coaching. As a parent, you have to trust the program that is taking care of your son. Coach Groh knows what he's doing."
After 40 years on the sideline, yes, Al Groh does know what he's doing. He's also learned to recognize players who know what they're doing, then to have the guts to let them do it. A longtime loyal soldier and confidant of Bill Parcells', Groh keeps his comments short, tight and to the point. From Army and Air Force to New York and New England, he came to love his second seat behind The Tuna and learned not to gush about players. Not when he was in charge of the legendary Giants linebacking corps of the early 1990s, not when he coached Ty Law and Willie McGinest with the Patriots and not when he directed Bryan Cox and Mo Lewis with the Jets.
But when the former Cavaliers defensive end is asked about the current one, he pours out praise like a hydropump. Groh was the first to utter the word Heisman, the first to suggest that Chris might be better than Howie, and so far the only person to dare invoke a comparison to the defensive name that needs only a number—and it's not 75. "If the Heisman went strictly by the definition of the best player in the game today, then it is hard for me to imagine that there are many players out there who are better than Chris Long," says Groh, his voice building momentum as he speaks. "I got the question the other day, How often do I see him do something amazing, something that a nonfootball person wouldn't even notice? The answer is every play. The only player I've had the pleasure to coach who was as dominant in his level of competition was 56.".
That would be 56 as in LT, the original LT, Lawrence Taylor, one of those once-a-decade dominators who allow a coach to live with the 3-4, moving up and down the line to create stress and havoc simply by standing there. When the man who used to coach 56 first came out and said it, the words rocketed through NFL BlackBerrys from Miami to Seattle to, of course, Oakland. "You hear stuff like that, and you don't really know how to react," says Long, now blushing. "It's an honor to have your name mentioned by a guy like Coach Groh and certainly in the same sentence as one of the all-time greats."
He says it in a way that would never reveal the fact that he has stood among the all-time greats his entire life. One would never know that he was his father's first choice to be his Hall of Fame presenter onstage in Canton seven years ago, but in the end the 15-year-old told his dad that it might be too much for him to handle. The obvious reaction to that story might be, Don't sweat it. He'll get a second chance when he's inducted himself. But that's too far down the road to even imagine. To even consider such a thought wouldn't be the Long way.
Right now there are games to play. There's a three-game losing steak to Virginia Tech that needs to be snapped on Nov. 24, which would lead to a trip to Jacksonville for the ACC title game and, just maybe, to New York for a trophy ceremony. Not until after the bowl game—and only then—will Chris Long worry about the next step, what promises to be a whole new level of "Are you as good as your dad?"
Meanwhile, Pops will keep on keeping his distance. Sitting alone in Studio A, chatting with Diane on the phone while texting Kyle and little Howie. Football has never kept the family together, nor has it torn it apart. But for now, for these few hours on Saturday afternoon, one simple question binds them like blood.
Where the hell is 91?