Super Bowl XVIII with Howie Long | Redskins vs. Raiders

What was that movie with Ben A. F flackwork and Morgan Freeman Some of all fears, Some of all fears he had. There was that kind of fascination with their nuclear building. I was always fascinated by the Patriots, and it was kind of like the nuclear building. You didn't get in there. You know, there are very few people

Welcome to Games with Names. I'm Julian Edelman, They're Jack and Kyler, and we're on a mission to find the greatest game of all time. And on today's episode, we are covering Super Bowl eighteen Washington Redskins versus the Los Angeles er Er Raiders with Pro Football Hall of Famer arguably the most legendary Raider alive, Howie Long. Yes, we get into his best Al Davis story. Howard do you call me? How do you think it tough? I'm like,

People don't realize how hard it is as a dad to watch those games.

They're going against each other. Kyle punches Chris and the ribs and fractures you bro and his incredible twenty eight to three story. I feel like the worst dad in the world. And then we wrap it up by bringing in a new segment. What's this new segment, Jack, Oh, A little something.

I might put you in my hotzea brother, my Pepper, You with some questions, My Pepper, you with some questions.

So you got to stick around to the very end. Let's go. Games with Names is a production of iHeartRadio January twenty second, nineteen eighty four, Tampa Stadium in Tampa, Florida. Super Bowl eighteen.

Dog versus the Silver and Black for all the marbles, and it was allors.

This is just one baby. I like it. I like it. Welcome to Games with Names. On today's episode, we have a very special guest. Folks. We're gonna be talking about Super Bowl eighteen Raiders, those legendary Raiders versus those legendary Redskins defending Super Bowl champion Redskins in this game with the legend himself coworker, father figure of my network. I feel Howie Long, welcome to the studio. I gat to be here. I appreciate you coming.

You've got a great place here for people who are watching and wondering what it's like around here. This place is you're tucked away up in the end of a cul de sac. It's like you're in witness protection. What did you do? I didn't do anything. I didn't do anything, But did you?

So? I remember? Actually, let's segue to this. One of the first times I started working with Howie, he was explaining how he takes a look at all entry ways. You were explaining that you're like very survival when you sit somewhere, like, did you look at all my exit plans of this this culta sac area? Is this safe?

We're kind of you know, we're dug in here, so I mean, if we have to fight our way out, you know, I'm sure you have a reserve here that we can tap into.

Well, got how he will be safe? Right now? Oh? You always do?

You sit in the room and you know it's yeah. The guy with the check shirt, he looks like he can handle himself. He's maybe two ten, you know, he looks like he's still in shape. Maybe he can do some things.

You know.

It's like I always say, I remember I I I was over in Italy with my wife Diane, and what's what's the rapper's name, Kanye Kanye. Kanye comes in and he's got a bodyguard that's like maybe six feet fuck nine. And I said, that guy, really that scares you because if he's six feet in a buck ninety, he knows something really good.

He's a UFC fighter.

He can he he can do something. And my wife's pulling up the camera. I said, look, put the camera down, you know, I said, because at first I got to knock out the bodyguard and then deal with him.

It's crazy now that back in the day when you guys probably went out, you go to the bar, you see a buck ninety guy, You're like, oh, this guy is good. Nowadays everybody everyone's a UFC fighter. You're getting a chokehold. It's crazy or.

We've gotten into the you know what's even scarier. What just happened in New York? And uh, you know, it's a crazy world we're living in. Particularly out here. You're on the four or five, there's a million people and you know, you don't know what everyone else is going through, you know, and you beep your horn. You know, you just be a little more patient in traffic. That's what I would tell my kids. Yeah, just be a little more patient. You never know, you never know.

So in one sentence, why did you pick Super Bowl? This game? Super Bowl eighteen?

I you know, I think in many ways it mirrored kind of the uh I go back to that undefeated Patriots team with the Giants. It was kind of like that. We were I think nine or ten point underdogs. We had lost to them earlier in the year up in Washington. I think Marcus missed and Cliff Branch pulled a hamstring.

Uh.

And Joe Washington, who was great, great player, Uh, he was their change up. Guy Riggins was a hammer. When I say hammer, I mean you hit John, You hit John. It was like the cartoon thing, and second Long backed up, and I think the thought process was we had a big backer, Matt Mellon, who was too sixty two fifty.

Five, a lot like your guys.

You know, your Bill tended to lean towards big tower, big big backers. But you know they Matt would tell you I'm not high tower, you know, to put it in perspective. I remember one time we were playing San Francisco and they were in split backs, you know, full back on the tight end side, halfback on the weak side and pre snap they flipped them. Matt knew exactly what was happening because he's the strong side inside backer.

Before the ball was.

Snapped, Matt started to run into coverage out in the flat before the ball was snapped because he knew the halfback was going to be matched up on him, and that's exactly what they did. And he still couldn't get there, but you know, it was it was one of those physical you know, we watched them on film that year and it was a lot like watching i think the Patriots,

It's thirty four per game.

Yeah, but the total total points?

Oh, let me double check, right.

Yeah, they they set a record that was wasn't matched until that point. And you're looking at my film like nobody's stopping them. People you have to be you know, and I always say it's like Jimmy Johnson and the Cowboys when they ran Lee Joe Garol Moose Johnson.

Is the full back.

He'd shuffle off it whether it's dear eye or far eye where that fullbacks offset or Moose would shuffle over and Moose was just a battering ram. You get a double team at the point of attack, and it's not the first ten times you play that, it's the eleventh,

They had a Houston letterman jacket that they made in the divisional round to play the page because about that, and then they took him home. They watched the game the next week. But it was a big you know, it's a big deal coming off the plane cargo or army unis.

And the thing is that year I'm twenty three years old, you know, I'm thinking, you know, Lester Hayes, Mike Kynes, Ted Hendrix, Reggie Kinlaw, Bill mcel Greg Townsend, you know, Mike Davis, Van McElroy, you know, Matt Millen. Rob Martin was one of the truly big game playing linebackers. He was you know, when he put his hands on you.

You felt it. He was heavy handed.

People don't realize what heavy handed is. No, not everybody's heavy handed.

Martin was a guy that I felt heavy hands on. And I tell the story all the time. Cam Chancellor, Yeah, remember that safety Oh godsha. He was like rooted. When you go in and have to block that force and you just feel, you know what heavy. It feels like they're rooted into the ground and they can use the force their hand to like just move you. My Kyle has that were so it got.

To a point where, you know, I had to say to Kyle, look, stop stop poking me. You know, I mean, he, you know, just popped me one time. I thought, you know, I'm in the driveway up in Montana. And this was years ago, and he was maybe three years in the league with the Bears, and you know he's you know, up in Montana. You're struggling to find a three technique to kind of you know, give him a simulation. So I said, you know what, I'm stum maybe fifty seven

Played pro baseball, got drafted.

He got drafted by the White Sox, went down to Florida State.

So Kyle and I, for you guys out there, Kyle and I became close when he was coming out for the draft. He was training for his draft at Exos here in LA, and I couldn't believe he was a fucking picture. First off, he's like six six, three hundred pounds at the time, and I think he was like maybe three thirty three twenty. But the thing that impressed me the most with them was when we would do our ladder drill. He had amazing quick fucking feet for a guy that was three thirty six six, I mean

Yeah, genetically, and you see it with other players that you know, yeah, are sons of and you know you see it. It's just and you know we didn't push football. So but that getting back to the eighteen you know game down there in Tampa Bay at twenty three, I'm thinking, you know what's so hard about this is easy? I mean you won multiple times. I mean it's with this group.

Run.

You know, I tell Greg Townshend, I said, look it's inside. Run, it's going inside. It's going inside.

You know.

Inside. Let's get tough. This eperiod. Now, is this the greatest game of all time?

You know, your game, your game in the Super Bowl when Chris played for the Patriots, it was so improbable in so many ways.

Same halftime scores, yours another way improbable.

And you know the irony of that is that you know, Chris played, and you know and listen Saint Louis Rams. You know, they had to run with, you know, the greatest show on turf, and it was great. Then when the team is bad and they're winning three games, three games, I mean, you could have thirteen fourteen sacks and be

Eid felt cheap, like cheap light cheap. Yeah, it was.

It was just poorly lit and I never played there. Yeah, it was emblematic of you know, if if a tree falls in the woods and there's nobody there to hear, it doesn't make a sound. Then when you get fourteen sacks there, So Chris was kind of wasting away. He

You didn't say it to him because you thought it would hurt his confidence.

It's a weird position to be in. I know, visually that's not him, uh, but you know he was. Chris. Chris is that guy you have to kill like you, you know, probably more mindset like you. Probably guy you have to kill if you're gonna go, you got to kill him. And what ends up happening is he gets you know, he gets released. So he's a free agent, and you know, there were certain teams that he looked at.

When I mean that's he's a good coach. They were, they were rolling that year.

Really really liked him and like what they were doing. And you know, then he's driving a Richmond airport to get on a flight down to Dallas and who calls Bill. There's a sound thing that happened. You know, it's his trumpets from heaven when Bill calls, and you know, Bill gets on the phone and you know that voice, and you know, my point to him was, at this point, you've made all this money, you know, why are you playing?

Can help you with footb You can help with flip.

I mean, I coached eight years in high school and you know, did all that and wanted them to have the foundation of football. And here is the biggest decision he has to make, because you don't make the decision on where you go in the draft. And he goes to Saint Louis at the second pick, and you know his fade is sealed. So my thing was and we're covering the game, which and I was fine during the week. When we walked in the stadium on game day, it kind of hit me. And I've never had that feeling,

Yeah, clear, it focuses you up, and you know you're nervous. You get hit, you're in a fight, and let's go. That's I always like to get a hit. That's why in my first play always, if it was a run play, I was going on to thump that safety.

Yeah, and first play was so important, particularly in a three man front when you're playing in the two gap scheme, and I mean a true two gap scheme. You know you're sit, squat and catching. It's a linebacker defense. And yeah, the irony was our defensive line was, you know, the strength of the team.

But we played. We had to get the third down to get in that. So here we are.

I walk into the stadium and it's the Super Bowl. Fox is covering. He got the pregame. It's four or five hours long. You know, we've got our own as you know now as a as a broadcaster, there's there's a lot going on, a lot going on, a lot going on. There's thirty two sections, and you know, what are we talking? What's the order? You know, who's talking about?

What?

You know?

Et cetera. Because you don't want to be redundant and you want to be on.

Top of it. But this hits me. And you know, I think it's Usher, who is there during the day. He kind of had had his kind of all all access pass into our green room and everything else. He's a huge Atlanta fan and you know, which is great. And he's a really nice guy. And I want to say that upfront, he's a really nice guy. But here we are, it's twenty eight to three in the third quarter, and I'm standing next to Terry and I get kind

You're out of your mind, Terry.

And then you know, I would I would say the giant catch was the most improbable catch. I think your catch was the most amazing catch I've seen. And seriously, I mean I was there. I'm looking at him like, oh my god, that just happened, and I'm looking for the review to see if your hand's under it, and and it was just the sequence of things that had to happen, including Chris getting a holding call down down on It was like first and then it.

Goes to first, and then they decided to throw it, and then we got to throw it. What if you run the ball three times, it would have been a fieldbal position.

Your field goal game's over, You're winning the Trophy. You know, thank you, but you know, certainly not from a game management standpoint, situational football. And you know, I think you know the head coach probably you know, it's one of those things where it's like the Chicago game a couple.

Of weeks ago.

You know, it's he's gone and yeah, and you don't make that decision and uh, that.

Was completely the eb refluse. That's malpractice. Yeah, I mean this.

Regardless of what's going on. And you wonder what's the coordinator saying to Williams in his headset and you know, what's he telling him and.

He's checking a play. Yeah, just the clock's running down. The fact that they have never it seems so foreign to them that they haven't gone over this type of situation.

Well, there's a lot of there's a lot of there was a lot of turnover there and you know, voices, and it's a young ki. He's a rookie. Now he's played a lot of snaps in college. But you know, to start a drive at the one yard line and to be in field goal range immediately, I forget the exact twenty one or twenty two or whatever it was in the sack and well, the first first play is

Yeah, and you can't change your play when you have the like. That was the That was the thing with Caleb. That was his fault of the whole thing. First off, it's the coach's fault. Yeah, this is you gotta you see that. No one knows what's going on. That's what you're evaluating as a coach on the sideline. It's still players. Let's let's do that. But then secondly, Caleb, you can't change the play when there's only this minute. He changed the play at the last second. You see, he tried to audible.

So to get back to the the improbable, I mean when I say improbable, there were so many things that had to happen in that half and and everything, including the two point conversion, you know, I mean.

It was amazing and we put him five for that game. It was amazing.

And I and I remember, you know, Chris came on the set and Diane was there, and you know, the

But here we are.

I'm We go back to the hotel and I remember it like it was yesterday, and the family's there, and you know, it's one in the morning and you can't get room service. I tucked him in the sending us some burgers down the lobby, and we're sitting around having burgers. And I go back up to the room, finding it like four in the morning and the game was being replayed on NFL Network, and I had to watch it

What would the average what was the average win? Our biggest our biggest win total was eighteen when we went by ten points against the Rams. Yeah, it's usually always been four three three four, yep, you know, but that's how we wanted to play the game. Yeah, that's how Bill wanted. He wanted to control the game.

But you have to be really, really confident in your ability to run situational football, to play that kind of a game without a guest. Every possession, every first down, every punt, every field goal, every kickoff is important. Yeah, it's like you can't turn the ball over. You can't. There's so many things that can't go wrong.

Without a doubt. I mean that that I did the same thing like three years later and just watched that game. Like, when I retired, I saw that game for the first time TV copy. I don't think I've ever watched our super Bowl front exactly.

You don't.

You don't watch him, Yeah, but it was on and I was sitting there like, how the fuck did we win this game? Like everything had to happen and it was point zero zero, zero zero one chance of winning. But for you this, you know, we're talking about super Bowl eighteen right now, we're discussing super Bowl forty or fifty one. Your first super Bowl was this. This is your son's first super Bowl. Way better, Way better, your son.

It's so much you know, listen, you have a daughter, yeah, and you know when when our kids had you know, now Kyle has kids and Chris has kids. I think there's more of an understanding. You think you know, but you don't know what you're willing to do for your kids. Yeah, you know, jump in front. I always used to say to them when you know, they were younger, at the kitchen table, I said, look look around the table. These are the people who are going to jump in front

Success, whether it's high school, college.

You know, I'm watching my grandsons now play flag football, and it's it's different, it's more and it's more enjoyable because I can, yeah, because I can just have fun. Yeah, And I love those boys so much. And my perspective at sixty four is so much different than it was when I was twenty five through thirty five raising kids and playing football, and then after that at Fox and you know, getting back to get the team stretch on Monday to coach high school football. But it's way better.

That.

Now, did you say anything special to Chris before the game or did you guys have a moment, because you know, my parents and my family went ever before a game. They knew Friday after that I was zero, dark thirty, I was gone, you know, like I had my routine. Friday was our day. My dad would you know that that was the thing. But for you and your family,

It was because if you played defense, you probably understand offense a little bit more, you know. It wasn't until year seven I didn't realize. One formation that bothered me was DOT two tight ends balanced formation, one back in the backfield, quarterback under center, and I and when you're in a two gap scheme, the first step is everything. You have to mirror that tackles first step.

Uh.

And I never had a bead on where they were going with the ball other than well, that tight end is bigger than that tight end. If they're going to run the ball, chance I was going to run the ball over here or if if if they're not, it's going to be a counter O T tight end, and it's gonna be the tight end and the tackle pulling.

What I would say was I'd look.

At the last three games, and I'd kind of go through formations and things, and I'd say to Kyle, you know, when he was in college playing at Oregon, because he you know, he played six games in college, gets drafted in.

The first round. Yeah, all pro his first three years.

I mean, that doesn't happen exacually when you take a year off and you're working in a surf shop.

Yeah, he's, you know, a specimen.

He's a freak show. And you know people have that like God comes down and puts his hand on your shoulder and says, you're gifted.

What are you going to do with it?

Whereas Chris Grinder grinder grinder, and you know, my thing was, you know, head on a swivel, don't stand around piles. And there were certain formations and things that were I felt were pertinent and tells. You know, I'd say, Kyle, look if that that defensive end and the three men front reduces down to a three technique and they walk the safety up, the slot's coming, and he'd say, under what's that?

Kyle didn't even know what under was. Gren Fire was like they do you know what Nickel defense was?

Until you know what his thing was, and It made sense because kylein played very little football in college, and you know in Oregon they ran to play every seventeen seconds. He said, look, Pop, they were on a play every seventeen seconds. I'm just looking for somebody to hit. And that's what he did, and it was in the direction of where the play was going. And it makes that that kind of you know, we're looking at micro, not macro.

Yeah, I mean offensive line. That's that's kind of like an offensive line mentality, though, I you know, it's foreigner. They're different. They're different because you're a deep, you're a guy. It's foreign to the hogs man. They Yeah, they have their own they have their own little language. They sit and they have their own area in the locker room. They're always you know, the guys that just yeah, we'll fucking go do this right now, let's lay you met him,

You know, for example, i'd be I'd be the studio at Fox, and you know Kyle and Chris. You know, there'll be games where they were playing simultaneously. Mike, Mike, Michael Straham was kind enough to you know, we're doing the pregame, we're in the pre game, we're doing or we're in the postgame. Really we're at halftime. Let's say we're at halftime in another game in another market, and you know, Michael would put on Kyle's game and I'd

Lane, he needs me a little more here, Yes, Kyle's going against this guy.

Right And and that was the way it went. So it was Sunday's are as. You know, It's like it's kind of like digging it. I'd be less tired on Sunday night digging a ditch than I am doing you know, five am to five pm on TV.

It's mentally exhausted.

Go go, go go, because you're you know, you're thinking, you're and the night before you never sleep good because you're always going through in your head. It's kind of like playing, but there's nobody's hitting you, without a doubt. But it's the same kind of feeling. And you know, that's the one thing you get, you know when I say when when you're done with football, the one the one benefit of being in a studio and doing this.

You know what. I always say this, It's been so great to get to work with you guys and Fox because it gives you the taste of football. It gives you a team to work with.

My friend, you have no idea of Fox is yeah, Foxes and this is just me. I haven't been anywhere else, but I know a lot of people and other places. Fox is here and everybody else is here in terms of talent, how you're treated, you know, the day to day kind of function, the respects you know, and.

Even the people behind the camera, like everyone's it's it seems it reminds me of a lot of how our organization was. Like we always had relationships with the equipment staff, the lunch ladies. Everyone had their job and it's all for us to go out and perform our best on Sunday for one hour to get the best content. And that's what I like about it. It reminds me of football because you work with the group and you're all doing something to try to get an output top to bottom, you know.

And I think it starts at the top, and it started with David Hill and you know now it's Eric Shanks and you know Brad and you know that whole group. They set the tone. And I've been there thirty one years. Yeah at the beginning, yeah, beginning, and when it was a blank sheet of paper and an idea, you know, and here we are making it up on the go, you know, and you know, trying to figure each other out,

Just book a twenty twenty show. Deal with the We talk about that. It's hilarious, and you know, it's really fun because at work when we go Sunday, you can see what guy what everyone was in the locker room, and you forget like that we are not part of the same generations, and you feel like it's the locker room. Like I can see how how he was in the locker room. I can see how Michael was in the locker room. You can see how Mike Vick was in the locker room. You can see how you know how

Yeah, and that's and that's a thing that you know. And I say, look, it's like I said to Kyle all the time. You know, Look, if you stay in shape and you present younger than you are, and you know your stuff and you work hard at this, you can do it for a long time. If you're you know, comfortable. I don't even know we're on camera. I mean, I'm at the point in life where you know, I'm so comfortable it doesn't really bother me. I wish I could

That's it.

And you know I don't plan on being anywhere else. And ride off into the sunset and head up to Montana.

Now, we were all talking before you came here, and I had you by the way. I'll just let you know in Prime with the Fox crew King of the Hill, who's winning and everyone's in their prime? What does King of the Hill mean? Last man standing? Last man standing to death? You got to kill Michael and Mike that that was the one that was scary because.

You got to kill Michael. You know, if I can get you know, Mike Michaels. We always talk about this, calling me a defensive ends like putting a ribbon on a pig. You know, I'm I mean, the closer I got to the ball, the better I was. If if if it's a fight, what's the smallest ring you can get in? Whatever the smallest ring is I want you in that because if I can get you in a phone booth, you know, I got a shot and Michael, you know length and you know he's hees kind of

During this what.

Terry is though interest he taps up, you know. But it's funny because I watch boxing reels a lot.

Uh and you know.

Hearns Hagler Geez's greatest round. If if you haven't seen it, watch it and you know any of those fights in those days.

Uh, we had Haggler come to us and we watched that or was it hearns who's the Brockton guy? That's that's Hagler. We had Haggler come and he lives in Italy, right, he lassay, but he lived in Italy. Came back, he talked to us and we watched that first round with them.

Best jaw in boxing, I mean talk about fighting Tommy Hearns and Hagler through more impact punches in a short period of time than I've ever seen in.

A boxing ring.

You see it in a you know, one oh five, one ten, Yeah, but not in the middleweight you know, from the middleweight up in the middleweight class. You know, it was it was a great class. But I watched those and I you know, it's it's like anything else. It's like I I like, I said, how you play the lead Joe grow the counter the first ten twelve times is inconsequential to me? It's eleventh, the fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth time.

Do you blink? You know?

Are you are you still bringing it? How you play at the end of game when they're running out the clock and you're down fourteen? You know, I want to That's when I want to see you on film.

When when she's hitting the fan, that's who you, the real person comes out.

It's inconsequential. You're not going to win, and you know, but what I'm doing. Is someone's looking at this film, you know, the next three opponents are looking at this film, and you just want to you know, I don't want to get hooked. I don't want to give ground. You know, every blade of grasp, every inch of end of a play, push, it's it's inconsequential, but it's it's something. It's like, you know, I always watch this Kingdom of Heaven. It's one of my favorite movies.

Oh my god, what Heaven.

It's all about Jerusalem and Salahideen is is the Syrian you know there there he's the general. Yeah, you know, famous, famous leader, and this this kind of English group or from Britain or you know whatever it was at that point as Jerusalem shifted hands multiple times, you know it was Syrian and it was you know, Britain, you know, the Kingdom of England, you know whatever. And there's this one improbable leader of and he holds the army off there,

At the end of a play.

Yeah, you know, if you're giving up three inches four inches, it's something, is that not?

That's the most raider answer. That's just like raider commitment to excellence. Well, it's ear late, you know what it is.

It's and Michael would say the same thing, you know, because if you talk to Michael, you'll hear the same things probably that you hear from me. We were brought up the same way. If I got hooked, if I gave ground, you know, if we lost, and you know, we didn't look good. I didn't look good, you know. I I couldn't live with it. I didn't go to a seven eleven, the jersey thing at the end of games, handshaking,

That's how it wasn't they and to Tom's very vocal with that nowadays on how he was with his career. That's just that's kind of a newer thing that's been happening.

Yeah, And it's fine, you know, It's it's like anything else. Times change and times change.

You know, I'm not judging them. It's just things were different. Yeah, how was working with John Madden being a raider. He's a raider. He was great.

John's he was brilliant. When you think about John, I think John when he finished with the Raiders, you know, he's got he probably interviewed for with Networks with a stained shirt from a hot dog, you know, and how you kind.

Of authentically him.

How do you see that translating to broadcasting that's been done in a really tight window of performance. You know, there's a stereotypical broadcaster. And that's what I thought when I came from from my you know, rehearsal or my audition, and I thought you had to be you know what I saw on TV because I never watched pregame shows.

And the show was an hour.

Long, which at that time had never been done, and people were saying, what are you going to do in an hour? An hour flies by like that.

It's only forty five really with the commercial and you know you can do We're doing five hours or six hours for the pregame and the super Bowl. This will be my first one. It's it's it's a lot. It's an all day sucker. Oh yeah, it really is.

And you know, by the time you get to the post game, you know you're you're near mentally.

It's probably gonna be the same feeling as after you play it. Yeah, just because of all the hype that we you know, it's a big thing for our network, for Fox. And when you host the super Bowl.

There's one hundred at some point in the pregame and the halftime, one hundred twenty, one hundred and thirty million people are watching.

It depend on Mayah.

And you know, if you equate the light on top of the camera as one hundred and twenty million people, you might start to kind of think about it, but you know the key is just not doing that.

Yeah, that's hard to do. What's your hack? Green light? Yeah?

Nice, you know the podcast nice shout out Chris Hey gotta.

Do it for having got on near sighted even with the glass. He caught that quick though.

Yeah, long knows what up.

I didn't size you up. You weren't a threat.

You could throw me at somebody, a projectile or something. No, all right, I'm here for the team though.

What was something that people don't know about Fox?

How great you're treated as as someone that works there, and you talked about it. You know, it's the interaction with Listen, we've been there thirty one years. I look out on the set and I see the same makeup person, I see the same wardrobe person. I see four or five of the same cameramen. Uh, stage managers. You know there. Bill Richards was you know, you know listen. Eric Shanks started out as a BA and I think manscript and worked his way up. Bill Richards worked his way up.

No I do. I said to him, he's a little he's a he's a little guy.

He he was a little guy and you know, just out of you can imagine he looks so young, out of school, and I said, were you a crack dealer?

He just looked at me like, I what what year is that? Uh? Probably first year, first seven year.

So I think the thing about Fox that's special is it's the people in front of the camera treat the people behind the camera with respect, and I think that's that's all you can ask for, you know, And and the retention of people behind the camera, both from a camera standpoint, floor managers, audio people, you know, you just you develop a special relationship and they're part of the team.

No. I mean, you're only strong as I hit.

I always told my kids, said, you hit people for a living. You're not going across the country saving small children. Get over yourself, you know, I mean really at the end of the day, I mean, how you treat to me. And it's a really important point is what tells me a lot about who you are is how you treat the bellman, how you treat the waiter, you know, how you treat the gal that's invisible, who's changing the trash bags in the studio, you know how you doing?

Yeah, without a doubt, just a hello. You know, you never know what somebody's going through. Now, now you had kind of you. You're raised by your uncle. I was raised by a lot of pain.

Yeah, it's classic Irish Catholic kind of you know, and raised by first mom and dad and you know then mom, you know, and dad split up, and uh, you know, my dad, you know, was an interesting guy. He's six seven, two fifty five and you know, a mount of a man. Worked at Hoods Milk and worked in the projects, worked at D Street projects, and you know, in South Boston and worked in you know, a number of spots, and

Part of who you are as a person, you.

Know, be kind. We took in my wife and I talk about it. We took in more players. You know, it's just kind of like a rotating door of Chester mcglock and you know, Sean Jones, Bill Pakel, you know, you know, I went back to the reunion for the first time last year. I had never been to a reunion. Yeah, and I'm just not big on crowds. And you know it's also we work on Sunday usually Sunday, Yes, yes, yeah, And this was this was a preseason game and decide.

You know. I only asked because you since I of the day I met you. You you you shout family. You're like your family man. You know you love your kids, yep. But you didn't grow up, you know, in a crazy particularly family type atmosphere. Right to have that, you know, and it is it just amazes me because you know,

And you know it's funny because my grandmother had this little hole in the wall shack up in Babousic Lake.

New Hampshire.

Yeah, and it was the lake was maybe a mile and a half wide, two miles long or a mile and a half long.

It was a.

Pond and you know in some ways, my home in Montana on Flathead Lake, which is bigger than Lake Tahoe, is me replicating the happiest moments. Those are the happiest moments I had. Yeah, when I think of Babouosic Lake in the summertime and you know, the whole thing, Uh, trying to replicate that from my kids was important. And they grew up there and you know, love it. And Chris has a place up there now.

Now, how did you balance because I mean you did movies. I watched him Broken Arrow. You did movies for a while, You've done on TV for thirty five years. Yeah, you're also you know, you have two kids that were playing in the league at the time. How do you balance all that being the family guy that you are, because you still you put your family first, but you still do a lot of stuff. It's remarkable.

The name of our corporation is Long Odyssey, and I was always I was always fascinated as a kid who was one of the few books that I read as a young kid, The Odyssey Homer's Journey Home. And for me, it's always everything is about getting home. And you know, I'm working, but I'm the next thing on my mind as soon as the day's over is how do I get home quickly? The movie thing was fun to do. I was originally on Broken Arrow with John Travolta and

Are you? John Wayne?

You know?

And I'm like, okay. So I call home and there's three kids and they're building ramps, jumping their bikes into the pool, and you know, they kind of get the idea that at a certain point meets you in them out on the phone. They look for Vancouver is on the map and they say, well, he probably can't get home for you know, you.

Know, a day at least.

I mean, so the threats kind of start to and and Diane said to me, I did, Uh?

I did?

Then I did Firestorm, which you know, Fox had a preemption right because I signed the deal with Fox when I did Broken Arrow. And it was great. John Tirolta was great and it was fun to do, and it was a successful movie. And it's playing somewhere every night on satellite, you know, and I get residual checks sneaker money, I call it. And it's not a lot, but you know, you just sneaker money. And you know, so get your money.

Baby.

So when I when I I get an offer from I, I another and another studio gives me an offer to do a post apocalyptic movie, thirty million dollar budget, whatever it is. And Fox preempts me to do Firestorm a sixteen million dollar budget, and it's gonna shoot during football season. So now I'm I'm literally running to the airport Sunday night, getting on a plane to go to Vancouver, driving up by Whistler, and I'm working six thirty in the morning till you know, sunset, and going back on Friday to

No?

Is it ego? I said, you know, not really ego. I don't really associate with me. It was kind of like the natural progression of things, and things just kind of presented themselves and you want to check a box and say, you know, I did that, and I did that and it was fun. But here I am raising three kids, and I'll never regret coaching little league baseball for eight years. I'll never regret coaching high school football

How is how is manly? All all purpose? Mister man? Howie long On? Like? How how did you did you with like actors and stuff like? Were they all kind of intimidated by you? I?

You know, I really don't know. I think I was John was great, John, John Travolter was great.

Holater.

I had never he I didn't have any interet really any with him. John was I was with John all the time, because you know, whether I'm in the trailer and then we go do you know whatever shot John was in, I was generally in.

You know.

I remember we were driving a hummer and I'm driving the hummer and you know, We're supposed to slam on the brakes and I and you know, I'm listen. I'm a I'm easy to deal with, and you know, I'm certainly beyond football at that point, and I'm a team guy. I'm I'm used to that, you know. I mean, it's I have a role and John the guy. And John's

You know.

That was his payback for the slamming on the brakes and him kind of catching his head on the dash.

Are you not a little spooked? I would be scared with John Travolta flying a plane. I don't I don't know if I want, you know what I mean, Like, I think you can get scared with.

I think at that point, you know, I'm still kind of young. I'm still probably in my thirties, yeah, late thirties, and uh I think, uh there's a feeling of invincibility, you know, to a certain extent.

Uh.

I remember when when I started playing in the league, I used to drink a shout at Tequila to get on the plane because we didn't fly a lot at Villanova. Yeah, you know, we we bust to most of our games. You know, we bust to you mass. I mean, so getting on a plane and a plane that big saying how does that thing fly? You know, So flights weren't a big part of my life until I got to the to the Raiders.

Yeah, we'll be right back after this quick break. Let's go back to around January twenty second, nineteen eighty four, when we like to go over what was going around pop culture around the world. Yeah, yeah, number one movie Terms of endearment. Don't don't remember that, do you guys? Did you guys see that? Vaguely? Vaguely? Yeah, the number one song Owner of a Lonely Heart by Yes, I think I remember that a little bit. That was It's not on my playlist. Yeah, it's was that Wham or something?

I'm married in eighty two and a fight broke out at our our our wedding, and it was and you know, the thought was that it was going to be my family because you know, we're from Boston and you know she's she's from Jersey time. You know her dad's names Francesco at a Easio and your brother's name is Virgilio

That's cute. I love that name for girls.

Yeah, and she's as you can imagine Kyle's daughter.

Is adorable, probably adorable and a little bit of a freak show.

I mean, you know you could see it earlier, you know you I when I said to Diana, I said, you know, he's different. And he was like two three years old. She said, you're crazy. I said, no, I'm not. He's different.

See how he knows. He knows when he sees a specimen. He could see it at.

Over a fence and you go, it's like the tiger at the zoo. You see the tiger at the zoo and it's laying there and you go, wow, that's a beautiful animal, you know, color and big and looks strong, and all of a sudden, that tiger gets up and jumps over ten foot bentce. You go, oh, now, I.

Guess yeah, that's why he's a predator. Yeah, one of those lead ones. Yeah. Now have you ever used that card? What card with the wife? Oh? God, yah, I told that story. Are you kidding me? We've been married forty golly eighty two to forty two years? You get what you get? One one card? Usee a year? One not at least at the very least. The Sports World nineteen eighty three eighty four Super Bowl champions with the La Raiders, Dan Marino was the NFL MVP. How good was Dan Marino?

In this best drower of the football I ever saw, and the quickest when I tell you the quick and you probably watched some.

Of his stuff.

The quickest release you could ever have in today's game. I don't it'd be it'd be astronomical. Yeah, but he was a He was a guy that didn't want pre stab motion. He didn't want to change the snap kind of a lot. He had the best center I've ever seen, Dwight Stevenson. And you know that offense was hammon.

What kind of do was he when you sacked him?

He was You rarely got to sack him because you could literally run by your guy and ball out, Ball's gone. So he was really Uh to me, he was the best thrower of the football I ever saw.

You've seen a lot of football is being thrown. That's saying some Celtics peak the Lakers in seven games? Of course? Baby? That that was You ever meet Larry No, My uncle John was who is his agent? Uh? I forget who his agent was.

My uncle John was kind of an off duty cop bodyguard kind of guy for him. Uh so he met, you know, he interfaced with Larry and Larry. I've got a I've got a jersey from from Larry. Uh that hangs up him right next to my Bobby or goal versus Saint Louis in the Stanley Cup to win the game. He's airborne, he's horizontal to the grant.

So I they have that statue.

I've got my autographed Bobby or who I wanted to be, you know growing up?

Wow, you see, did you play hockey? I did.

We played a lot of We did everything in the street. I never played organized sports until I went up to live with my uncle Billy, and high school coach sees me walking through the hallway and says, hey, who are you? And I might think thirteen, I'm fourteen years old?

How tall are you at thirteen six three? You know, seventeen years old? Sixty three?

And you know I didn't even have to put the equipment on. You know, I was terrible and ended up getting two scholarships, one to Boston College and one to Villanova. And my grandmother wanted me to get out of the neighborhood. And you know it turned out to be, uh, you know, prophetic on her part. And met my wife there and she was a classics major and I wasn't.

Fucking Odova. Yeah, man, you had to get out of Charlestown. You had to get out of the town. John Elway's rookie season, I remember that now, he almost became a Raider, right, Brozel blocked it.

Right, that's the I don't know if he blocked it. I think what ended up killing the deal was they wanted me included in it. It was I think a three team deal. And you know Chicago, the Colts and the Raiders and you know, and I and I when I heard about this, It's funny because I was, I was in Canton. I just landed. I was in Canton and I and they did this kind of it's a great docu kind of ESPN thirty for thirty or whatever. And Marvin Demoff ended up representing you know, Chris and

And you know, I.

Said, Ron, you son of a bitch, you were going to trade me to Chicago. And he said, Howie, that was never happening. He said, you know that was you know, it was kind of like they sent a proposal with I think a corner first round pick, this, this and this, and their comeback was Howie Long uh and and a draft pick and uh. I think that's where now I would have traded myself for John away from from the Raiders. But you know, al uh Al was, you know, a

Cole Gate, there's another player came out of Colgate. Where do you play Ark? He was, uh, he was Coldgate.

So you know, here I am at Villanova and nobody even knows me, and I get in a I'm in a kind of a little bit of a thing, let's call it, in the middle of the season where someone got beat up and robbed, and you know, they come to my room of course and asked the company, you know, can you go back? One kid transferred from Florida State and he got robbed of his bowl watch from Florida State. And we go down there to get all the stuff back, and you know, not thinking about how it's going to end.

What's the endgame here?

Not probably good and I'm not really thinking about it and two three cops pull up and you know, I get detained, and ironically enough, they kind of use that as a straw that broke the camel's back to drop the program at Villanova. Wow after I left, So they dropped the program for a period of time. And yeah, so I but I think being in that.

Situation maybe helped me became a raider. This guy fights, get him in, get him in.

Hey, listen, you're in that locker room at Villanova, and you're in the dorm of Villanova. There's a priest on every floor. And you go to the Oka Raider locker room. The guys are smoking sale and lights and they're grown men. And here I am. I'm I'm in pit drill day one. Pit drills like you know, one on ones between two bags of running back the offensive lineman and you and

Yeah, Tilly, he's my boy too, because I used to have to run routes with him. They wanted to see if he's in shape after we had to do one on ones after practice. Yeah, so Bill would make me run one on ones against him, and then we got revis and we used to go like competitive periods one on ones all the time. And my game got so much better because I was playing against those guys.

Well we played, we we were. We were a physical team. Inside run was inside run. You know, past rush was past rush, goal line was goal line. Team period was team period, and it was and it's hard to kind of duplicate that because you know, and and I've gone to New England as a broadcaster and Burge would come

Bill used to whenever we played the Raiders, he'd give a he'd always give like a history lesson on the team and the foundation and you know how the owner got the team and Al Davis, being a coach, sue the league give us a whole presentation on it. He loved Al Davis and a lot of people. The whole do your job thing was Al Davis that said it to Parcells, like after something Parcells was complaining or something about what was going on, and I guess Al Davis

Just win, just win baby, do your job. You could put those on T shirts, you know, uh, just win babies, win baby. Yeah, he said, oh fuck, Howie Howard, you call me Howard? Oh fuck you think it tough. I'm like this guy, think my hands. He was really I call him mister Davis. I mean, part of it's my upbringing.

You know.

I mean I never had that. I only got called up there maybe once or twice.

You know.

One was a contract and we did that over the phone, but the other was a fight. I got in and it got bad, and you know he just told me not to beat him body also.

Now did he ran shit? He ran everything? Because I remember when I was a quarter where when I was coming out, Charlie Ferry was training me and he was with the Raiders at the time. Remember Charlie Frye a the quarterback, I know the name. He was there for a cup of coffee, but he was close with Al at the time. It was before Al died, and he the one thing everyone you know knows about the Raiders.

Of the gate at size speed. Same thing with you know, you could say Bill Parcells with quarterbacks, you know it's got to play three years, got to be six four two twenty. You know, it has to fit the prototype. And you know that was in many ways what Sean was about, Yeah, Sean, Sean was about that before he went to Denver, coming from New Orleans. H And that's why I honestly think the Russell thing never really worked because.

It wasn't the make was Yeah, but Drew was one.

It was a system. Two was you know, supply and demand. Uh, and don't forget he was going to go to Miami. And then the shoulder thing, and and and where Sean changed things was at that point guards and centers weren't as important, and one ended up being the case with you know, three five step drops, get the ball out gun,

Of Drew Brees pressure in the middle.

But I think, you know, from from a personality standpoint, from a size standpoint, you know, and Sean didn't sign you know, to sign.

Him up in Denver. Russ.

Russ wasn't ever going to fit with Seawan, and I thought I was unfortunate because you know, and I'm a big Sean fan. I didn't like the whole thing on the sideline. It was uncomfortable for me, a little uncomfortable, you know, you know, do that, you know, let's do that in the building.

You know.

It wasn't like, you know, I don't know what the situation was. And I haven't talked to Sean about it, and at some point on I will. But big Sean fan, he's watching games with him. Gave me another perspective because my whole perspective's been I've got the guy who you know, you want to talk about, a guy who can build it, coach it, you know, knows how to you know, hire coaches, players, contracts, trades, everything.

Wow, Jackie, let's jump into the game real quick.

Let's go over these these Washington eighty three defending Super Bowl champions on a run. The Leady coming into this Super Bowl, they'd won thirty at thirty four games, MVP Joe the Heisman led the league in scoring, incredible defense led the League in Takeaways.

Joe Gibbs Coach.

Of the Year. I mean they were just firing on all cylinders.

They were hitting everything they had, the coach, they had, the team. How do you sum up this nineteen eighty three Redskins team.

Well, the they were. There wasn't really a weak spot you could look at, you know, and everything revolved around physicality. The perception was I think at that time the NFC is a little more physical than the AFC, that kind of thing. But we were, you know, unless Greg town'sen up there in the picture. Greg was a great player, and he was a flip end, you know, he was a guy who'd flipped to the weak side. And they were a physical team that forced you to match their

Eight.

These are big men. He's a big man. And the talk about the game getting so much bigger, that's a big man.

Well, Joe was an exceptionally big guy. And we knew where the ball was going. They knew where the ball was going, and I'm inside eye on Joe on Joe, and you know, everyone around me was like, you know, you know, this is it. This is kind of a huge moment, and you know, we stuff it on fourth down or on third and third and short or fourth and dry. I'm not sure exactly what it was, but it ended up being one of the bigger players in

It was like, well, was he a smart did he study a bunch? Because usually what I always saw off with the best corners that I played with, they could cheat because they knew situationally what concepts you would run that, Yeah, they would run the route for you because they were so dialed into formation, you know, Like that's what I saw with like the best. I don't know, but there's some guys I don't know that just you just say him Lester.

In my mind, who should be in the Hall of Fame. Was a weekend in Vegas. You know, it was he was up and on you and it was all or you know, I'm hit me on a sixteen?

You know what I mean? Mike was.

It was like he was just looking in a mirror and just cover the shit out of him and could do it all day long. And that was a big key for us in both in the game earlier in the year and and and this game. And in this game in particular, was I hit Riggins one time on a slant and I don't know if it was this game or the early game in the year, and golly, the entire the sky just went whoosh. He was just a load, big load, big fal He was Derrick Henry

Let's get into the Raiders team and we move on to the Raiders. I'd love to hear why the Hogs are so tough to play against.

Their physicality, their commitment to They ran four plays, and they ran them and and and as I mentioned before, they challenged you to not just play it ten times, you had to play it twenty times, twenty five times. And you know, invariably everyone wants to rush the quarterback. And can you be committed enough to say, we're gonna do this. Yeah, let's do it. I don't care if we die here, but we're gonna do it.

Because they had so many counters, they every play had a play to counter it. So if they played it a certain way, all right, they probably had someone watching, all right, let's run this play. It's the old wishbone, these old, these old offenses where they just hit you like this way, this way, this way. Then they come with here. Then they got the boot here, and then they got the you know, it's it's old school football.

I'm looking at this roster and I go Jim Plunkett, guy who goes to New England, number one pick, Heisman Trophy winner Stanford, gets malled. I think they might have been the Boston Patriots at that point. Yeah, gets malled and just gets churned out there. You know, an organization that mismanaged and didn't put the people around him and got beat up. And you know, one of the great deep ball throwers of the time and goes to San Francisco,

Was so fun watching him and Darryl Green play in this fucking matchup because Darryl Green was like the fastest guy in the NFL as well. Yeah, like that was a fun matchup.

And Cliff was thirty. I think I don't know what he was at the super Bowl. He might have been thirty three.

Man young.

I think as he's thirty five at sixty he could run a four to fourth we I mean seriously, I lived with a guy named Cedric Hartman who was a great pass rusher from San Francisco on they called it, I forget what they called that, Jimmy Page, you know.

Cleveland Elam. You know, these guys were really good, and Cedric and I lived together my rookie year, and some people kind of questioned the wisdom of that, but you know, Cedric really was a had a great impact on my early part of my career and Cliff would sleep on our sofa. You know, it was a different time.

I mean not really. I mean we I shared a house with five guys my first three years in my career because you didn't know if you were going to make the team every year.

Yeah, and I'm making my check was one thousand and seven dollars.

Now we were making decent money. League minimum was like sixty. But I had to used Coop Deville, powder, gray.

Spoke wheels, v Laura interior and a truly an eight cassette deck where the cassettes were, you know, that.

Big a track.

Yeah, and uh, you know Cedric had a red el Dorado and convertible with white interior.

And we were we were rolling in Oakland.

Law, best two gab noseguard you could ever play with, great townshend. I think Greg is, you know, is to me a Hall of Famer Lila al Zato, you know, I mean listen, Uh, he can change the attitude of a room really quickly. How he was such a violent you know, the the needle went into the red and he was unpredictable from that standpoint, you know, you base the rest of your day on Hey, good morning, Lyle, you know, and the rest of the day was kind of based on that.

One of the best nicknames I feel like in NFL history Three Mile Asle was pretty good.

Three Mile Ale because it was like three Mile Island was a nuclear plant that blew up, and you know, you just never knew when he was gonna blow.

So was he the team asshole? The team asshole?

That was kind of quiet. I'm trying to think, I'm looking down the Kenny King was, you know, a great back from Oklahoma, uh situational guy, Frank Hawkins, really good full back. Cleo Montgomery, tough, tough, tough. He he dropped the guy on the plane one time on a guy was sitting he didn't he didn't get up and he and he was one of the quietest guys you could ever be around. And this guy just set got in his seat when he went to the bathroom and you

That's a real deal. You can't.

You can't sit in someone's playing Henry Lawrence Killer Lawrence Shelby Jordan. Another cast off, Charlie Hannah, you know, John Hannah's brother, another kind of castAR. Bruce Davis, huge man, you know. Probably I'm not sure if he Mickey Marvin one of my favorite guys of all time. Out of ten I think he went to Tennessee. He was as he was as country and southern as you could get.

How he thirty two build joker? Oh just by formation situation. He's just smart, Savannah.

And I'm saying to myself, I go in these meetings on Monday as a young player, and I'd say, what does he know that? Why does he know it? And I don't know it? And I kind of modeled my preparation after him. I wanted to know everything I could possibly know. Todd Christensen, you know, not a guy go to dinner with God, rest his soul, but you know,

Was Al Davis always was He always around? Was he in the building every day, on the field every day. He had a cologne that you could smell him before you could see him when we were on the far end of the field. And I knew when he was out there because you could what kind of colone. It was his own personal cologne. It was.

It was the Al Davis colone. I don't know what it was, but I've never strong.

Yeah, well, did it smell masculine he walked out of the building.

I mean it smelled like it's Pavlov's dog. I mean not just for me, but for the coaches and everyone involved. You know, they knew and they were all puckered up when you know, Al came out and.

He knew football. He was coach.

He coached the Raiders to the single greatest turnaround early on in the organization. The organization was formed the same year I was born, nineteen sixty.

Yeah, and he.

Ended up being the coach early on there and turned the team around and ended up becoming the owner and you know, one of the great historic owners of without a doubt.

Yeah, yeah, I've heard stories like Al Davis calling in the sideline saying, hey, let's throw a deep ball.

I don't know about that. But if I came out of the game. I never came out of the game. Yeah, we didn't. We didn't rotate in those days, and I in particular didn't rotate. If I came out for one play. There was a red phone by the gatorade thing, and that was Al's phone. Yeah, that phone rang. What the fuck is he doing out of the game? You know, well, we're shooting him up. We needed a play.

Well, what's the wildest like Al Davis funny Like he seems like he just has all these sayings. What was like one of his one like a time where you're like, man, he's that's Al Davis right there.

You know he wasn't He didn't say a lot. And you know there were I think we were in we were in constant you know, there was a constant war between the league and Yeah and the Raiders and al and you know the we we were a team that moved to Los Angeles but practiced in Oakland.

So every game was a road game. Think about that.

It's crazy.

Every game was a road game. I'm living in the Oakland Airport Hilton with Lyle Alzado in a in a single room with two queen beds. I'm living with him and Marcus was across the hall with trying to think of the linebacker's name. Golly, I forget it now. But I'd get a roll away some nights because Lyle would shut the TV and the lights off at nine ten o'clock after he had chocolate cake and a glass of milk.

So she had to.

Take a year off. So that was a challenge. And and Marcus and I caught a lot of air col flights. It was it's a now defunct airline.

You know.

We'd catch the last flight out and you know, on on myday morning and try to get up there for the meeting and all that. And somehow we did, did.

You guys same day travel or a day before?

We traveled to games on Saturday Saturday, but if you know, we'd play on Saturday, but we'd stay down there, Yeah, and I'd stay down there with you know, Diane, because she started school. Yeah, and we end up going back Monday morning.

Yeah, yeah, Jackie, let's jump into the game in the lead up, with a little lead up here to this game.

This was a rematch. We talked about it a little bit earlier. Correction the score thirty seven thirty five back at RFK Stadium. The Skins got him in that one. How he had six five SATs jesus seven total tackles.

Both feels good when you have a good game statistically and you lose, doesn't He'd like, it's like it we're not worth it didn't happen. I hated that.

These were the top teams in each NFC and AFC, and Washington beat the Rams fifty one to seven, rolled them, beat the Niners twenty four to twenty one, beat Terry in the Steelers thirty eight ten the division round, and then got some revenge on Seattle in the NFC Championship.

Seattle had beaten US twice. Playing a kind of it. I think we were just we were a funny team. We were kind of we could get bored.

And like the Ravens. Yeah, you know the Ravens. I feel like the Ravens get bored with it. It's unexplainable.

And Chuck Knox had this whole you know, we're gonna run it and it's not a it's not an at you you don't feel like, you know what it is like Hagler versus I'm trying to figure Sugar Ray Leonard. Yeah, where wait a second, I've been through twelve rounds and I don't feel like I've been hit.

Yeah.

You know, they had a running style. It was like a zone kind of style that negated our physicality because you know, you just had to kind of get away, get in the way and float sideways versus b vertical. And uh, we were one hundred plus thousand people at the coliseum that game. Wow, the Seattle game, and they've beaten us twice during the season, and we mauled them. We just mauled them. And I knew then, you know, And the week of the game, we go down there,

Did you guys go down? When did you guys go down to the super Bowl. How big was the super Bowl in nineteen eighty three at this point, was it still fucking like massive? To put it in perspective.

Lyle and I, Lyle and I every game we ever played together. Right after team meal, which was eight am, you go to team meal, you know, before the meal, you go to chapel and you know, you do all that and uh, you they go through special teams and you know R one or two, you know, you the personnel kind of thing and uh and then Lyle and I would get in the cabin. We go to the stadium every game. No bus, we never won the bus. We like to get there. I like to get there early. Yeah,

He is.

So it's it's one of the two in the stadium parking lot. And to see his face as the clock was ticking down, he's here's this card carrying bad man. You know you got to kill him kind of guy, and tears are just running down his face. I mean, the journey he had going from Denver to Cleveland over thirteen years. I think it was twelve years, thirteen years before he got to us, and UH for him to finally,

The ball off one ninety two yards, the big boy. Yeah.

You could see the wide receivers all kind of they're gearing it down, but.

It's like a it's like a ah, a group of escorts.

Yeah, and that's what Cliff was on Marcus's run. Now he ends up winning the m v P.

Lyle boxed, Uh he did. Ah, what was supposed to be a charity. It was kind of a not a real exhibition exhibition, but lot to Lyle, it was a little more than that. Did he train? Oh, I'm sure he did. How did you How did he look? Oh?

Do this was before me so I didn't really I've seen footage of it. But knowing Lyle, you know, he wanted to he wanted to land something.

It was at Milehett Stadium is.

At stadiumle a mile. Yeah. Now you you said when you guys were coming over there was a fight. You knew the team was ready. Yeah, you guys start off with the block punt touchdown? Yeah, is that when you kind of was that right there? When you kind of knew it was gonna be one of those days, or no, I didn't.

I I I. I kind of took it as.

Fine.

But I compartmentalized things and my job was my job, and I'm doing my job. And you know they weren't going to you know, five sacks wasn't going to happen. You know they're there, They made their adjustments and ran the plays they wanted to run, and you know, you're you take care of that. Got some pressures, but you you don't. You're not going to put up big numbers versus this team where they don't want you to. And they say, you stuck up on us earlier in the year.

No surprise now. Yeah.

So it's Marcus the one hundred and ninety one yards two tds Cliff Branch, like I said, Jim Plunkett, one of the great deep ball throwers. Just a beauty, full, tight spiral, great great deep ball thrower. And Cliff was the recipient of that on that day too.

So you're a compartmentalizer, you guys. You guys go into halftime twenty one to three, there was the big play, So you already had a block punt for a touchdown. Then they tried to do that screen thing. Squire, Jack Squire, We substitute Matt Millen for a Nick Squier.

O ye, and Jack Squier's got one job ghost whatever you want to call it, Joe Washington.

And you guys pick it off and it's we ran a jet ripped blue slash, yeah, one of two maybe.

Blitz as we ran icelant Ted goes inside. We bring this off strong safety off the corner. Joe Thaisman's pressured, he's drifting back and has to throw the ball on a kind of a more of a lob. And Jack Squier does his job and he's got a touchdown and it's a kind of a career defining play. He ended up get cracked by a wide receiver from Miami and at that point, whatever it was in their offense, had this big wide receiver came in and when I say cracked,

Oh oh yeah, So how was halftime?

Were you guys up or half times? Are like even at a Super Bowl?

Were they still long then? Too?

They was along, but not as long as No it's a major production, you know now. To me, half time was nothing more than Okay, let's get.

This over with. Let's let's get back out.

You know, I'm in the middle of a thing here. Why do I need to come in here? You know, I'd rather just go play.

Without a doubt. We used to use halftime for the adjustments. That was like a big thing.

We were simple. We were the simplest defense you could run. Yeah, I mean we we were who we were, and we were big and physical, and we had two corners that were going to lock you down, going to lock you down. And they and that's a big story in the game is their ability to lock down the lock down their receivers.

That was everything.

Yeah, because in safeties could get down hill On Riggins linebacker like didn't have to just one on one lock up monk in Charlie Brown.

It's a numbers game. You know, when you're running cover one, you can you could do some things with the safety you can.

If you can run cover one, if you got guys that can cover, it makes the game.

I mean, that's that makes you would say. I told him, I said, you know, Lester had a he stuttered a bit. You know, so when you're when you got a wide receiver coming in a crack or a receiver coming from the outside the crack, you want you want them to yell crack. Yeah, and see was a hard letter I think to start with. And he said, and I you know, he apologized eight three seven five. Sorry, So was it in this game? No, no, but it was just funny stutter.

That's that's sad. Yeah, but you know, I don't know the politics all that stuff.

Yeah, it's listen, it's subjective like anything else. You know, when did you know this was in the bag.

This game? Because I mean, you guys were blowing them out. I mean, I'm not sure I allowed myself to. I was the same way. I was the same exactly way.

I don't know that I lobed myself necessarily to do that when we're kind of running a clock out, you know, yeah, I mean you know you see Lyle on sidelines crying, you know, it's kind of yeah, it's it's there. Tom Floores was, you know, the perfect coach for a team like this. He was a man of few words, and you know when he did speak, it was, you know, it was, you know, something of significance. And you know,

Yeah, but you guys had cornerstone players like yourself and like, yeah, you guys had the Raiders shit going, but there was still yeah, a group of guys that I mean, you guys won a few Super Bowls.

Well, Marcus comes out of college and you know, he's just the dominant, you know player. He can he could run, he could throw the ball. He played quarterback in high school. Yeah, and a lot of people don't realize that he made some you know, some good throws. And the one thing he was really good at and it's something that people don't factor in. Two things. One is as a chip blocker.

One.

You didn't get a lot of clean hits on Marcus. And he was so physically tough. He's a tough, tough player.

You never see him got caught from behind either. Though, Like when you watch his old highlights, right He's kind of like Jerry Rice in that sense where he didn't run a four to three. That's a good analogy. He ran fourth, you know whatever he ran. But those guys on the field to just have field speed.

There's a guy in the neighborhood who's running from somebody, you know, in my neighborhood. Yeah, they you know, some guys were fast and some guys weren't.

You gotta be a fast guy. Yeah. The Raiders win thirty eight to nine. What did that moment feel like? As soon as the clock zero? Winning your first Super Bowl? Like I said, you know, I thought this was easy. Yeah. You know, young players early in your career.

Do this again three four times, and you know, you come to realize later on that you know, unlike basketball or baseball or hockey, where it's best of three, best of five, it's one game. It's single elimination, which, isaak is why you know the game and the playoffs are so fascinating, and and you know, it's a salary cap league and players, you know, the same players who are

There's no same team ever, No players and coaches leave every single time. Nobody cares about yesterday. No one cares about yesterday.

No, no, And that's why I was always it was kind of like what was that movie with Ben a Fleckwerk and Morgan Freeman about the nuclear bomb and Russia. You know, the fascination that Morgan Freeman had as a government agent, some of all fears he had, there was that kind of fascination with their nuclear building. I was always fascinated by the patriots. Then building was kind of

Did Ben Affleck ever asked you to be in the town? No? No, I know that.

You know what they they nailed it. That's it's based on a book. I think, Uh Canlanergen book? Let me double check Prince of Thieves or something, or maybe I'm wrong on that.

My grandma's from Charlestown and that movie starts with like Charlestown has the highest rate of per capita bank robbers, and.

The robbers in the country more unsolved murders.

He's like, that's not true, that's not true.

You know, And and really what you're doing is you're in that movie, and and and they they captured maybe the the a small element.

You know.

We did have a lot of bank robbers, there were a lot of stolen cars, There were a lot of unsolved murders. But there are a lot of good people there, you know, very Irish Catholic neighborhood.

What was the book, Prince of Thieves four? I was wrong. It's a chuck open book.

It took place in an earlier time, but it was set in present day, So in present day, that's not what Charlestown was really like.

At that time.

It was like that when I was growing up, you know, I wasn't a particularly tough kid, you know, so I didn't figure it out.

It's kind of like Kyle.

I didn't figure it out until I was like fifteen or sixteen.

That wait a second, I don't have to take this shit. Yeah, you know, And.

Going coming from there, you know, is a I think it is a good foundation, without a doubt.

There's some tough, strong people there.

And you know, you you look back on it, you go, you know, could what I've made things different? I don't know that I would, you know, And and did anyone think when I left there that I was gonna. I had never played organized sports. We played in the street, you know, we play played football on Rutherford Avenue in the the whatever. That building was next to Hood's Milk and the field was ten feet wide and you were

Could get hit, could get hit, could get hit.

Yeah, so you know, everything was done on blacktop and played baseball. No coaches, no parents, nothing, So you really the kind of foundational, kind of structure of sports to me was learned there. Now later on I ended up, you know, playing football in high school and college and you know, box a little bit and you know, did that and.

Just grew.

And when I got drafted, my wife and I can't remember where we were because I you know, people work out when you're in college and you're you know you're a prospect, particularly if you're a first round, second round prospect, you know you'll have a pro day. We didn't have a pro day. I worked out thirty four.

Times in the snow, in the rain.

I ran a forty on the front lawn of my dorm for a guy that was just checking a box because you know, most teams were not gonna draft me. Al Davis, did you know saw something in me that you know that I didn't see in myself? Really tell you the truth, Na.

I didn't. You know. It was like Billanova was perfect for me. But that's what made you you that insecurity? Yeah, you know, and that's why you prepare. And I see it in your eye.

You never take anything for granted. And people make fun of me work because I write, I'm always writing, I'm always I'm I'm a I try to do things. I try to. There's nothing, there's nothing I leave for chance. I control as much much as you can control, the rest of it will take care of itself. Yeah, you know, give yourself the best possible chance to be successful in anything you do.

You know, and you did. I mean, you've not only had an unbelievable football career, you're you've been in my house since I was before I can remember on my TV watching football thirty one years, a long time. It's it's outrageous. I mean, that's that's the crazy thing is people probably recognize you now more, way more for what you've done off the field. Which is that is the coolest thing ever.

You go into seven eleven and you know, and the guy looks at you like you look a lot, like HOWI long? I say, yeah, I am get out? What are you doing in here? I said, getting some gum? You think I got somebody who goes in to get the GUMMB.

Guy them guys, I love seven elevens. You know, it's it's most people are really nice. No, people are very.

Nice, Jackie. What's aftermath of this game? Marcus Allen goes on to win Super Bowl MVP. In this one, twenty carries one hundred and ninety one yards two TVs. The Raiders become the first team to score in all three phases. Pretty crazy. Block punt pick six duchouns on offense and this in a Super Bowl pretty crazy.

Uh.

They become the second team in NFL history with three Super Bowls, right there with the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Uh.

They would go eleven and five the next season, finishing third in the AFC West. Redskins would go eleven and five the next season, women in FC East and fall to Chicago in the divisional round, but Joe Gibbs would going to win two more super Bowls after this, uh and this would be the last Super Bowl.

Good Manders Terry and I just did his last year of the year before. We did his huge charity event up there, and he's he's he walks that, he talks and he's you know, he's the real deal.

You never heard anyone say anything bad about Joe Gibbs was a good.

Man, you know what I found out. And the last time I was there was Doug Williams was they had a kind of a verbal agreement. It was it wasn't finalized, but Doug Williams was traded to Al Davis and the Raiders while I was there, and we end up we end up getting h Jay Schrader. Uh So Williams, who is the prototypical Raider quarterback throws the nine route, the you know, the deep, the deep, strong seam route, big strong, athletic cannon for an arm Terry would have been great

You know, the stories about him are crazy, Yeah.

Stories about a lot of people were crazy, and you know a lot of them were probably true.

We'd be we'd be crazy not to ask how we long? What does it mean to be a Raider? It's hard to kind of sum it up, but it's it's the same thing that you probably get from people always asking me the Patriot way. Everyone asks you what does it mean to be a Raiate?

It's it's toughness, it's you know, it's when when I first got there, it was really interesting because you know that guy on the left, Al Davis's is he's an iconic, you know, in the history of the NFL, between being the commissioner of the AFL and you know, then going over to the Raiders and coaching the Raiders and then you know, building three championship teams and drafting guys like I said, I think our shell's.

Out of.

Eastern Maryland Shores. You know, Willie Brown brings in Willie Brown and Maryland what is.

It Maryland State which is now University of Maryland Eastern short correct?

Right? Where did he? How did he? You know?

There there was a scouting element and nobody in the building had a title, So ron Wolf was a GM. But you get there and you look around and you say, what does greatness look like?

It's everywhere.

It's Al Davis, it's Ron Wolf, it's Tom Floory's, it's Archell, It's Gene Upshaw, Freddie Blittnakoff is on the staff, Willie Brown's on the staff, Cliff branch Ted, Hendrix, Lyle Alzado. You know, everywhere you look, you know, there's and guys that Jim Otto, you know, it's it's it's the ghosts of Christmas Past. You know, it's you walked through the Hall of Fame, and you know it's littered with the

That was the Bears.

I watched the Bears play in their forty six defense, I'd say, what would it be like to play in that defense? You know, I'm playing in a two gap sit, squat and catch and hope you get the third down. But there's no place I'd rather be.

I feel the same way as a Patriot, though. Sure, Sure, that's the cool thing about you know where we're at, a lot of the guys played all of them one one team. There's not many of those at Fox.

You know, I've been with two teams for forty four years, you know, Fox and the Raiders. And I'm not I. And that's me. I'm not you know, I don't change outfits. Well, I mean, I'm I I. And then it's funny because yesterday I was in al Segundo and our practice facility used to be in a middle school in al Gondo. Yeah, And I remember driving to work the same route every day because if I didn't drive the same route every day, something might happen.

And I don't know whether I'm.

I'm not superstitious per se, but I was about football.

I was about football that superstitious You drove the same route every day. Yeah, that's what I'm saying back. That's pretty sick. That's superstitious totally.

And you don't realize it at the time. But I got dressed a certain way. I got you know, my routine, my dinner on Saturday, my everything had to be the exact same, you know. And I stood in the same place for the national anthem. I you know, there were things that I did. I always did my forties, you know, before anybody got there.

And you know, if we cut your if we cut your legs off from like your femur, I think that would be me because I'm like the same way with all that stuff. Yeah, I was the same way with routine, routine, routine, And I would always say I wasn't superstitious, but I was super issues as fuck. I laid out my my my I would lay up my my uniform the same way. I would eat the same thing every night because that's I did it good once with that, so I thought I would always be like that.

Driving through El Segundo yesterday, uh, you know, doing a sketcher spot, it reminded me of that whole thing. And I'm not really a I'm not really an LA guy. So you know, it wasn't for us, and I wanted to raise the boys somewhere else. Virginia was a good choice and doing that. But uh, and the the funny thing is you winning here is different than winning in New England. Oh yeah, because winning here. We were a team that came from Oakland. We went to LA. We

Yeah, LA really transplant It's tough. It's you're competing with so many different things.

It's the Yellows Island of There are people from Chicago, there are people from Detroit, there are people from There's more bars here that have that people go to from another city to watch a football game on Sunday.

Sonny Mcleans, Sonny McLean's Boston Bar, Baby Monica.

That doesn't happen in Cleveland, That doesn't happen in Pittsburgh, that doesn't happen in Chicago, that doesn't happen in New England.

Are you kidding me?

That is crazy to think.

Yeah, but yeah. The Raiders, I feel, are different. They're not an LA team like you said, They're a South pirateship. That's the best way for them to do it, to go leave Oakland, win it in here and then go back like that.

And we got to win in Vegas. That's The stadium is amazing. It's it's beautiful. It's probably as emblematic of any franchise from a stadium standpoint, visual rates, state, visually great. It's like it's like the death star Land did in Vegas.

No, it really is.

And the practice facility beautiful, amazing, Our practice facility. There was always like a hammer and a two by four in every meeting room, and they were like those those shutters that you know in cheap buildings, where you know you can between the linebacker meeting and the defensive line meeting. If there was an argument in our room or there was a fight breaking out, Matt Miller will be peeking around.

The divide the room, divide the room.

So you know, Mark has done a They've gone from thirty second, thirty first in revenue to top five, and you know, it's great. We just got to get some stability and you know, and the quarterback, and that's what you need. You know, listen, that's what everyone needs. It's it's the hardest position to forecast, going from middle school, high school, high school to college, college to pros and if you don't go to the right place. And I thought Williams is going to a great place in Chicago.

Yeah, I got a couple takes on that. I think there's about fourteen million because I like the kid. I think the kid's good. I think he's doing good, and he's progressed and he's improved, and he's shown probably.

Drive that drive from the one yard line, a couple of them in Detroit. No, the one in Detroit at the end of the game, the one yard line and you're in you're in position at the very least, we're going overtime. How does that not happen? Well, well, you see the the autopsy on that is you know there. It was multiple causes.

It was multiple Yeah, man, we got to score the game now real quick. We were taken so much time from from Howie. We appreciate you. We got to name the game out of any of these names, the Silver and Black beat Down, the Slaughter of the Hogs, the black Hole one. This one's for al the Marcus Allen games. Easy, which one is it? It's one of the final two. Just win, baby, or just one baby.

That might be a new T shirt. You and I should do that. Don't put that out there publicly. You and I will do it.

Just one Mark, cut the check. Let's go just one baby, baby? Score the game? Is this the greatest game of all time? Let's score it? Stakes zero to ten? Decimal z okay, the stakes of this Super Bowl game? The first? Is this the first? No? Is this the first of the Raiders?

Third?

Third? Third?

We'd won an eighty one one? The first wildcard team is the wildcard inception to win that game? And that team you want to talk about, you know, bag of bonds and cast off. They It was amazing. It was amazing that they were and then they won to beat the Eagles.

And stake zero to ten. That you got to store this game, I would say at that time, because it was such a lopsided they were favored I think by nine.

Yeah, Raiders were big underdogs.

Yeah, huge underdogs. It was an afterthought that we were. We were just you know, we were kind of the you know, the guy that gets killed in seene one. Yeah, you know, uh and uh and turns out we you know, end up being the leading man.

Yeah. Uh you know. And it's a huge win. It's a one.

It's number three for the team, you know, and three super Bowls look a lot better than one super Bowl or even two.

Uh. Star power, Marcus Allen, you had to score it though, the stakes of the game, the stakes of the game, I'd say probably at that point, probably a nine nine I believe nine two. Yeah, I think because of the Jack Washington's. Washington was a runaway truck. They set every record to this point in the NFL for offense. Yeah, I mean, this was this was a big win. Jack nine. I had a nine to one.

Yeah, I mean I'd have gone nine to five, but I mean I don't want to be too much of that. Hey, I'm glazing. I'm glazing.

Star Power zero to ten decimals, Okay, a lot of stars on this lot of Hall of famers.

Yeah, Ed Hendrix, Yeah, Al Davis, you know, Gibbs, Gibbs, thives men, you know, uh yeah, Riggins, the Hogs, uh, you know, our our defense, Ted Hendricks, Lyle Alzado.

Uh, you know, great great players.

Markerry, Barry Manielou was saying the national anthem, Barry Manilo stand, we take we take that into account as well.

Yeah, I'm gonna go eight nine.

Then I'm sorry.

I'm sorry, mister, but I'm not a Barry guy.

I mean either, We'll go nine. A lot of Hall of famers here, man, there's a lot of this is a lot of legacy people.

I went eight nine on the same ballpark here.

The gameplay of the game, a little bit of a blowout, a little bit of a blow but three scores on all.

Phases, the best defensive performances in Super Bowl history, best defensive in one of them. I think we held what it was it eight nine points thirty eight to nine.

Yeah, Allen almost too hundre yards two touchdowns, I'd say at that point it was it was probably a nine. I'll go eight seven six seven. What I'm I think the blowout. You gotta have gameplays back and.

Forth, but you know, you have to think about one is you know what a complete whipping it was, how much we were underdogs by and that we had lost to them earlier in the season, and they were a dominant team, A dominant team, it's like.

How we will will you to change your score?

No, it's like to be fair. It's it's a lot like New York, New England, you know. I mean I thought they gave you their best game, you know, at the end of the season.

There. I wasn't there for the yeah, the big Boy one. I was there for the eleven one. They got us twice.

There's a lot of parallels between the Broncos and Seahawks Super Bowl with the like high flying Peyton Manning Broncos team. There was that fumble snap right from the beginning, and they just set the stage.

And it was a blowout.

Yeah, and they were a heavy defensive team. Yeah.

Now we got to score the name of the game. How we just one? Baby? I think that's a ten. That's a that's a ten. Yeah, I mean I haven't heard just one baby. That's that's good.

I scored this before we came up with it. It's awesome name. Like, can I change my score? Oh, I'm going ten?

I had no I never even thought of that. I moved I moved mine up. I did eight point one. What does it go? What is our total or average? Eight? Six? One where does it score? And all of our games eighth.

Overall, just behind the two thousand and four ALCS game four Yankees versus Red Sox, and just ahead of the twenty fourteen NFC Championship Packers versus Seahawks.

Ten's whoa whoa?

Is it? It also factors in series or the Red Sox. That was great, That was awesome. That was just that game. That was but we talked a lot about the series. We talked it was that big pop what what about? What about the Miracle on ice? It's fourth overall.

We had Jim Craigan here.

Top for Jack Charlestown boy in that game, Jersey guy was fighting everybody.

Did you know him?

Yes, he's a little older than me. Jack probably didn't know I was around. Yeah, I mean but I was a younger guy.

You know what people don't realize, Like, I don't think a lot of people know you're a Boston guy. Yeah. People think I'm from like Pasadena. Yeah, you know, you think a guy that looks like this is from Pasadena. H.

When we had Jim Craig on to do that game, I put jewels on a Jack o'callahany just a shadow Charlestown.

Jack O'Callahan, you know listen, star of the movie. I think you know he he was, you know, just he really emblematic of Charlestown. It was kind of a Charlestown guy, Charlestown Boston players versus Minnesota players.

It was it was, it was real. It was a big thing. Could you eat so you got up on the ice and stuff? Oh yeah, yeah, it's crazy.

I shot a Pizza Hut commercial on skates, did you.

Yeah. I can't even I don't even know whether you can find it.

It's to look that up hockey tournament in the Charlestown rink after they closed that.

Every sounds beautiful. Now, yeah, it's changed, is gentrified. If I work another four years, I can maybe afford to move. Maybe maybe my grandma sold a triple decker on Elm Street for how much like seven hundred probably twenty years ago. Well that's now the bottom floor is worth a mill. We'll be right back after this quick break. Howey, do we miss anything in this game?

Uh?

Yeah, I think the green Light podcast. I think Kyle on CBS. He's doing great.

H he is a.

You know, Chris, I talked about you when we came in here and said, you know, this is your deal. You're you're kind of running. You're you're the CEO here trying well. It's tough to do it is but I ask these guys are you know? And it's great. But Chris has to do that, you know, and there's a lot weighing on his shoulders. And you know he's doing inside the NFL with Bill, which is a totally weird kind of thing, but Bill's great.

I think it's I think it's fun. I like the I like the the history thing. I like when he puts them all in breaks down film. Yeah, that's what we did for fifteen years, you know what I mean. I like when he gets in there, does his little history lesson and then test the fellows right there. And young Howie.

Anybody needs a suite at the Raiders, just call Howie Long and tickets. He's uh, he works out there selling suitees and he's uh, he's the hard He's the only one in the family with a real job, you know. God bless you, Howie.

And fun fact for a little games with names history, we had Chris and Kyle Long come on the show.

They did the double point game and.

Their moment where they tell the story that that was tipped is our best viewed video all time for a whole show, nineteen million views on YouTube, them telling the real story behind the double.

Doing nineteen million.

People don't realize how hard it is as a dad and a mom to watch the those games, particularly when they played against each other, because it's not like the Mannings where they're both playing quarters.

They're going against each other.

They're going against each other. As a matter of fact, when Kyle came up with the Bears to practice up there, and it was interesting, two things. Two things stuck out to me in that thing was Chris. Chris was a looper on a t stunt and Kyle has to pass off the tackle and he comes back and he's probably half a step behind, but punches Chris in the ribs and fractures his rips, breaks his rips.

And then joint practice and remember that.

Yeah, And I see Bill after the game, and I'm very respectful of Bill, you know. Uh, I don't I think I call him Bill. I don't call him coach. I might have called him coach.

Uh.

It's kind of a hard kind of transition for me, you know. And I said to me, said, he said, hey, you're you know, we talked about Chris for a second. He said, hey, your boy your other boys said, yeah, he doesn't he's figuring things out, he said, and he kind of did you know, Bill ponder something for about four three four seconds and he said he might be. He's the best garden football And you know, coming from Bill who doesn't throw roses, you know, he's not giving the flowers out, you know a lot.

It was. That's a big deal. That's a huge deal. I mean, that's how good Kyle Kyle was.

I was healthy, he was, you know, one thing after another was like the nex fusion, shoulder, elbow, his ankle, you know, tendon popped out. He you know, so there were things that piled up on him. But if he could have stayed healthy, we're having a different conversation.

He did. I mean, he did damn well.

He made great you know, but you know, I'm saying he was on the trajectory to be without a doubt. Yeah, he was like the logan Mankins, you know that kind of yeah, stout just small people logan.

That dude. He was. He was the coolest teammate I.

Saw him in Boise at a bowl game when he played left tackle in college, and I'm saying, who in God's name is that guy from Boise playing left tackle? I'm watching the game, and you know, your eyes, your eyes go to players, you know, you walk on the field and I know who the two three guys are, you know, I mean, you just whether it's Pop Warner or high school or college or pro, you just your eyes are drawn. And my eyes went right to Logo Mangans.

He was the nastiest man. I'm just talking pure like punch you in the face kind of boy. He's like a cowboy. He's a cowboys but like off the field quiet, where's car hard back?

Once I met him once, he you know, he walked up and said he loo and said it was good to finally meet you. Because I would talk about him a lot on TV because I liked him. You know, he's a guy that I had great respect for.

He bought a bunch of land and you know, right outside of Foxborough and he just farms it. That's all. He like, wakes up at four in the morning and he farms this land.

You know, Uh, everyone's got their own thing. That's that's log I just want to be able to say if I if I own a house, I have to be able to sit on the porch and my box of shorts and not be seen. Yeah, you know, so all my houses are I can do that.

Well, maybe one day I'll get to sit. I got to come check you guys out.

I got to come up to Montana. He's God's country. I know it is God's country.

Before we wrap up real quick, you mentioned players of your eyes just gravitate towards you played with Bo Jackson.

What's it like being on the field with him?

You know, God spent a little bit more time than just putting his hand on somebody's shoulders there and saying you're gifted. He came out of a different a different kind of conveyor.

Jeez, Bo was listen.

I remember sitting behind the offense first week he was there, in a team period on offense. I'd sit there on my helmet behind the offense and I'd watch. I'd watch, you know, I always like formations, and yeah, you know, it was of no consequence to me because we're not playing against ourselves. But they pitch him the ball and it was just asynthighs this high off the ground and he's running faster than everyone. He ran like a four to one nine.

I think he's ran faster than everyone.

He ran faster than everyone. He was two thirty and could eat a cheeseburger and never go in the weight room. And there are a few guys you could lock in a room for three months and they could come out and be great. Barry Sanders, Dion Sanders, Bo and maybe a couple other guys. You know, uh Bo was. He was truly of a shooting star. It was like playing with Elvis. You know, you had to go in the back of the hotel. They had to you know, there were there were things that you had to do as

I love bo. Bo knows bo I wrote the Ford in his book. Man, that's dope, Howie. I appreciate you so much for coming and taking the time.

Thanks for having me. This is been a nice spot up here. You've got good people working with you. There's nobody I want to slap on the way out.

You know, a successful day for us, then thank you, Ali Man legend, legend. I feel like I have my dad in I feel like ad like my dad's around on how we I had so many more like jokey questions to ask him. Didn't want to ask him. I didn't want to let how He down in the least I did clam up on one of them. I didn't want to ask him. I don't want to disappoint him.

I was wishing somebody would pull up so we could have.

Fucked them up. If someone pulled I felt the safest I've seen I felt in this.

House with a threat certified not a threat, not clear.

We're gonna make a T shirt for a jack not a threat, a threat not a threat. The arrow.

Man, Hey, I would take a bullet for Howie though, I'll I'll do whatever it takes. You jump in front of Bush for sure for how we are all day, mister Lung, Mister Lung, I didn't see. I don't don't think I slipped up inside of Howie in there.

I started thinking of about it. No, I think you can you guys, teammates I know, but it's what's crazy. You know the guy that gets some dip, Now that's me. I get him.

What are you a crack dealer?

Are you a crack dealer? It's crazy that I didn't even notice that.

But like pretty much everyone on the Fox team has been on the same team, like their same football team.

Like Howie went the Raiders Terry with. The only one is is Rob. He went to Tampa and both Jimmy, but Rob's kind of that. Rob doesn't seem Rob still yeah different, he's a Patriots different and he's a Patriot, but he's also transcendence. He went with Tom. Yeah, transcends.

I was just gonna say, mister Long came and fitted. He was fitted.

He was fitted.

He could wear the heck out of his cargo pants.

Cargo pants and a cool jean jacket. Nice like cut of it. He looks great. I've never seen sketchers be swaggy before. Dude, Sketchers. I see those sketchers. He wears Sketchers all the time at work. I'm like, are those vans. It's like, no, he's in new Sketchers.

I've never seen that model. I figured they must be sketches given his deal, but I've never seen them sketch Mike, get in there, bro, like.

I might get the indy. By the way, this he loves nuclear war movies.

Yeah he did.

He reference three. He could have been Jack. He's one hundred percent Jack Reacher should be Howie Long.

He's like he likes his movies like he likes himself a weapon of mass destruction.

Dude. He see he checking to see if he's still I'm checking to see which.

I love his his his broad spectrum of knowledge of you're referencing the firm and then you're referencing Mike Jones in the same episode what was Credible?

And then also I can see Chris and Kyle just saying.

He won three three oh eight zero zero five.

Oh my god, those two must have been a handful, Like how he had to be like that with those two boys, Kyle, Chris. Chris is such a smart ass and Kyle is just crazy. He's just crazy. Yeah, I would have loved to get some more. And they're both like they're like both really smart guys, so they can scheme the fuck out of their parents.

Probably probably the same way. Oh my god, legendary shout out Chris.

And green Light. We love those guys out over there.

Green Light shout out Charlottesville, Virginia, all those guys. I wonder what how he landed in Virginia. I know he said they picked Blake it's beautiful, a cool place, but I wasn't asking that.

I think it was it was just under the Macy Dixie close to an airport. Probably he's probably got all everything's mapped out to a tea with him. You know, he's got like well just that like or time schematics. Yeah, he probably has a rule where he has to live like forty five minutes from an airport.

Yeah, he travels a you know what I mean when when you think of football, you think of like how long like.

He is didn't get to ask about the neck roll, didn't get a neck roll, and didn't get a flat top question.

He didn't get a flat top question, but everyone asked him a flat top question. I think P M. T did that well. I mean we did get what Al Michael smells like or Al Davis smells like his own clones, his own Do you think he makes it like he had it like he.

He's like an alchemist. Yeah, he's in there, dude, Savage by Al Davis. We should cut like a like an Al Davis commercials Wolves in the Desert.

You know who would be in it? For our hunk? How long? How long? Just wait? Just just one baby.

He liked that we got a trademark that we should hit up Tom Radio over.

There, but we got to give him half the trademark.

Yeah, we'll get about.

How Tom is. You know the Raiders.

Tom peached the whole thing. What we don't be talking about, like the Tom was the Raiders now and d culture, and.

We didn't talk about anything. I just got I got intimidated probably that come on the show. We have audience.

You know, we have probably fifty questions that don't get asked because there's so much information we'd want to hear from them, the amount of stories, the amount of experience they've had, Like.

We always I didn't want to ask him a question that to make him like, all right, I'm the.

Cutting room floors, questions up to our ankles.

Yeah, which he would never do that. No, No, he would never do that, but I would never put him in a position to do it. We played that, well, that was great. I like that. It's a it's an elevator guest, a Hall of Famer in the Nuthhouse. I love it.

No Ritchie incognito, Richie Max, first Legacy Raider, first leg first old School Raider, first old School super Bowl Champion Raider, first Super Bowl Champion raider, first smoking cigarettes, and the locker room raider.

I don't think he did it.

He did not, No, no, no, man, man, that was I mean, I'm gonna be doing an Ala.

Davis all day today, for the rest of the day. Could you imagine those guys at twenty six years old, twenty seven, twenty eight, how big and like just fucking bro cool they were. Oh my gosh, we were bro cool. I bet we were. We were sitting sleet late. I bet you in the weight room, their fucking attire was so sick, like fucking just crop top gen or crop top shirts. Fucking like just straight program shit, rusty old weights.

Somehow the seventy five pounds weighs more than the seventy five pounds today, like just rusty and heavier and grittier.

Probably some shitty ass coffee in there, some thick coffee, some instant joint.

Yeah, for sick by the airport, he said, practice coming over to the whole hot drinks it.

Rig guys smoking cigarettes. So we're in the fucking training room.

What a team and preparing for this episode watching the NFL films, Like you need NFL films and the Raiders.

You gotta they go hand in hand. It was just fill film football. That was that's some real cool footage. NFL films. They've they've been around table a long time. Yes they do. They So that's a different company or the NFL owns it.

NFL Films, from my understanding, was its own adjacent company. I do believe it's under the NFL purview now as well as potentially.

But it's still like a Jordan thing, you know, like Jordan and Nike, where it's like carved out for sure, like Jordan's.

I mean, our cold open is literally inspired by an autumn wind is a raider that that little sequence the music.

And that.

The autumn wind is a raider pillage and you look at the big one.

Seventy five, all right, what is this? Uh So we're gonna try a little something new, something a segment.

Watching I've been I've been I've been watching my my Andy Cohen been hearkening back to the old Jay Leno days of you got to brand these segments a headline for you. J Jay walks, but we do Jack asks. Jack's asks kind of like Jackass, but Jack asks, Yeah, what do we think of that?

Just tell us about jackasses a little bit.

I don't don't don't let juwel see these questions. This is we get a lot of call. We love hearing from the fans. We love hitting the hotline, and we we like those off the wall questions. We like those out of left fielders.

We like the would you rathers?

Something kind of makes you think since with you all day puts you on the spot, so to speak, not quite the hot seat, but a little warm like WHOA didn't think of that?

Feel like when you press the heat seater on just one dot instead of three against three dots.

Yes, we're one dot, we're one dot, one dot in it. Well, maybe work our way up to three, but we're not there yet. It's only December. We don't need it all right.

Let's get let's actually do this segment. You can do the segment.

These are questions that they it's a little bit telling. You can tell a lot about someone through these jewels without further Ado. Are you ready?

I'm ready? All right.

First on our list, we're in the last latter part of the NFL season. What's next on your vacation destination list? My my vacation off season vaka.

I want to go to Japan.

I had a feeling that was going to be in there.

I want to go to Japan so bad. I want to go to Tokyo, Kyota, Kobe, Soca Socca. My dad went there when he was when he was young and with the commands, man, I like that. I want to check that out. I think I'm gonna go to where. Am I going to Whistler? That's right?

You and Rob right, we're gonna go to Whistler Ski That's gonna be awesome, or else snowboard your border.

But I don't know. I need to get to Europe. I haven't been to Europe. I haven't I need I don't travel that all. I need to travel like it's internationally more. I haven't been out of the States other than like South America. I went to Brazil. Actually I have. I've traveled recent but I want to get back to Europe. There's so many places in Europe I've never been. I've never been to the Asias. I want to go to a bunch of Asian countries. I want to go to, like I would love to see like China, Like I

I also my boys trying to get me in March to do a japan but.

A golf trip. He's got it.

He's got his eye on these sort of they got these trips by like golf packages do like a Japanese golf trip.

Isn't it snowy still there? I don't know.

I haven't looked into it too much. I'm a little like it's still a little foreign to me everything about it. No, no pun intended. I would like to get back to uh. Every every three to four months, I get a New York hitch. I got to get back to New York. It's not very much nothing sexy there. Okay, yeah, that's a different story for a different day. I would like to get to Europe. I've only really ever been to uh,

I had to cancel because we launched Dudes on Dudes. I still eating shift from that for my wife.

Hey, you got Hawaii on the horizon. You're good. You're good, bro.

Yeah to Paris in the off season. I don't know. I want to go. Say all this, and you'll probably end upon going anywhere because I'll have to go do work ship or The only trouble I really do is for like, if I have to go to a city to do something, for work. Maybe Ireland next year.

Oh, I would love to go to Ireland, to the Homeland. Shoot, we'll just kind of we'll just cut of games with names in the g.

I was just mister Baseball.

Let you a mister Baseball episode, all right? Next on our list, Jules go to gas station snack pulling over. You're driving the stang, you pull off for a little snacks anymore.

I just get I'll get a coffee. I'll get a coffee either hot. I'll sometimes get half coffee if it's in the morning it's a little nippy out. But I'll take like a some kind of like cold brew of some sort like that. Get a get a tin, maybe a couple different bubble gums. Back in the day, I get like a corn nut.

Oh your really, cornuts are underrated. Great gas stations neck I would get like chips, chips, slushy slurpy slushy do all day, all day. I didn't realize.

So and then then I went to Ohio and I was introduced to sheets. It's like, what this is. This is a gas station experience. You get fucking hullo, paniol, poppers, beef jerky. It's a way of life. Yes, there's other ones like that around the country too. Yeah. I never be loves BUCkies. Yeah, those are some badass ship It's like it's an experience I remember, like I gotta go fill up my cart. It's a very Yeah, it's uniquely I'm pretty cheap yo. Yeah, they're great. Good. I got

I'm a seven seven nine, so I'm odds yeah, seven and nine or two of my yep.

And I love my uh I love my uh my fifty. I like my fifty like night, like my one one and one ten, and in using my fifty, I feel like I'm pretty decent with that.

I feel like we're doing for a more park outing years.

Who know, my driver just sucks right now?

Is all right?

We'll get there.

Yeah, just nice and easy. Let the club do the work.

You're good. It's more of like my slot. Fucking what's his name? Got in my goddamn head, Oh Ryan, Max Homer or what is oh h the video talk about my goddamn slot. So I go to my goddamn coach. I'm like, yeah, what's up my slot? What's up with my slot?

You in the slot not being hand in hand? Is teams wrong?

I thought I Slotty Pippin fucking bullshit, freaking homahma, come on, Homa on the show. Yeah, come on the show. Give me a goddamn golf list. Come on, baby, I'm a damn dimple head here bro abg always be golfing.

Next up on our list, Jules what's a show.

Or a movie you've been rocking with lately? Been watching land Man, Oh, Billy Bob, Billy Bob Taylor's Sharon, I gotta get on that. I like it. I like Billy Bob Thorton's and I don't know, I don't know Texas stuff like that, like the Gas. You know, it's fun to watch those kind of things and see, like the Hollywood version of what they think of it.

And Billy Bob's Taylor made for that kind.

Of Taylor that. I also like Lioness. That's really good, dude, I don't know what I dropped it. I don't know. I watched Landman, I don't know who told me about Lameman, and then I saw someone talking about Lioness. Like these are two pretty good shows. I like Paramount's content me too. I like the t s EU. What else is there out right now? What are you watching? I'm watching?

I'm watching Shrinking here and there a little bit getting in there, got good stuff. I need to get into land Man, catching up on my blow deck. I want to watch that new Salt Lake City selling salt Lake on Bravo. Southern Charms back, Baby, you know, I'm deep in.

That don't even know what that is.

It's great stuff, really good stuff. What else am I rocking with?

I like this.

I like Universal, Basic Guys, animation, domination, but we need the Great North and we need family guy back.

Come on now, I've been watching.

I watched some Christmas stuff recently. Actually, yeah, it has to come out movies.

The thing is, it takes me forever to watch a show because I'll start watching my show when I put my kid down, and by that time, after being in the car three hours the whole day going to soccer practice, fucking tutor this that it's like full time thing. I'm done. I can never pay attention and I have the tension span. So I'm like what, I throw all on my show after day and I throw it on a It takes me to watch a forty five minute show takes me like four nights.

I'm with you, bro, long days man. Yeah, this Nutcrackers. There's new Ben Stealer one.

I liked it.

It was really it's a Ben Stealer a Christmas movie. Oh yeah, I want to see it. You gotta watch it. It's really good watch with Lily Kid. It's in the middle, it's right in the middle.

He's eight now, so she's pretty much adult.

It's right in the middle. It was Danny McBride. Those guys are behind it too.

Oh my god, I don't know if she's ready. It's good. It's like, it's good. He's eight. You're gonna throw like there's likely dongs and stuff in this.

No, no, no, no a soft no, it is not there. It's this isn't This isn't Gemstones. This is family friendly ish ish. You gotta would frankly you watch what do you let you watch?

Like our stuff? When you're let me they let me watch anything. I older brother though, same, oh seven years older. It's watching Rambo like three fucking Rocky.

At one I was going to see like Borat when I was like eleven, Like, yeah, expose last one. This is a This is kind of crazy, bro, no football for a year or break a leg?

What do you mean? Would so? Would you rather? Would you rather have no football for a year if you.

Just can't watch you can't check scores, can't watch highlights.

Or have a broken leg. I might like that or like break even no not watching football? Oh, I might love it. I may take not watching football for one year because every time I watch the game, I just it's just constant flashbacks and like situational shit. You don't even enjoy it. I'm sitting there like, all right, I can talk about that. Oh that's fucking terrible. Oh sick play reminds me of this play back in this game. Like that's what's going through my mind when I'm watching

I like to imagine you just go off the grid, travel Asia all football season, come back chief to one another, and you don't care, and you're just a new man. You're like you've you've traveled all over Asia. I would love all football season, don't even think about ball. Yes, that's why I'm envisioning.

I'm envisioning. I think I need to go live with the criminals in China. You know you know how he did he not like not China being criminals, but like the bad people in China or not China. Where was he? Uh? Japan snowy and there's probably Samurai Samurai's Japan, but China still, God damn big. It could be China. China is a huge country, continent thing, both in population and in land masks both. That's why I bet you there's so like because they don't really show their ship off. There's like

Yeah, yeah, I'm doing some digging here on these something artifacts. Ancient tomb discovery sheds new light on shine origins of Chinese civilizations. Over three hundred and fifty artifacts on Earth from a five thousand year old tomb is in the global times.

Five thousand years man, Okay, that's before the pharaohs. That's no discovered in that Wang for a while. Maybe I was way off on that. Yeah, that's wild though there were some Egyptian pharaohs happening around that time, five thousand years ago. Yeah, but China's been there forever, did you know?

I think there's something crazy and you huha on this, But the Africa's first Well, what's you galley Pinjai Pinjai?

What is it the one where we were all one continent and then it broke up? Pane pinjea pine? Is that real? Yeah? Play tectonics? So I have earthquakes Andrea's fault? So how many years does that take? One hundred millions? Millions? Yeah, millions millions? Yeah? No humans? Is it real? Yeah? Of course?

You talk about Sandre's fault too, Like southern California or western California is not on the same plate as eastern California. So like within thousands of years, millions of years, they'll be separated.

That's probably a couple of hundred million years. I don't know the exact numbers, but well, we'll all be dead by the we'll all be dead. Well, that's another episode of games with things manology with.

Names lates, techtonics.

Yeah, that's gonna be a six on the Richter scale. What a game that was happening. Howie Long, Howie freaking a long. How I just never want to disappoint him.

Neither I was, and q's I don't think you did.

Yeah, but were we tight enough? Was our operation tight enough? I am pretty intuitive on guest vibes and he was down. Should you know I should got him, smoothie. I was hoping you'd give him I know. I didn't even get to tell him that story, but I didn't. I didn't know if he wanted that. I didn't want if he wanted that story out or to do it physically. Yeah, because I don't. Maybe he gave me a look where he breaked me with his eyes. I got a mid episode thankfully. He was just looking at my hat. I

Don't hang around piles around you get.

Hurt that way. It's true. Man, Thanks again to Howie. That was so fun, amazing legendary Raider and the Raiders. I mean without the Raiders, there's no NFL.

A man, he's a Raider, but he also belongs to football, kind of like Randy Moss. Everyone could be a fan of how Long.

Because he transcend, but that's because he's a Raider. Anywhere sketches, it's because he was a winning Raider.

We were talking about like the Raiders. I was gonna time in, but I didn't like you're talking about like the Raiders for like a Southwestern team. I don't think the Raiders are tied to g geography. I think the Raiders are tied to like an identity, the like, like the hard nose whatever. It doesn't matter if they're in Oakland or if they're in Vegas or they're in Los Angeles. Being a Raider something that's not tied to where you are, it's how you are.

It's a studio and that's been another episode of Games with Names. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcast, commented game you want us to do and remember rate in review. Remember to follow Games with Names on YouTube, x, Instagram, TikTok, snapchat, anywhere you can get it, and leave a message on the old hot line at four two four two nine one two two nine zero. We'll see you guys next week. Games and