Really Long wait worth it for DE
PATRIOTS NOTEBOOK
FOXBORO — This one time, in the NFC West, the Rams won seven games and almost made the playoffs.
That’s the extent of the band-camp folktales Chris Long could tell about the Rams’ success during his eight-year run of futility. Now with the Patriots, the 31-year-old defensive end has reached a Super Bowl stage that he must have once viewed as nothing more than a myth.
“For me, playing in an AFC Championship was on a scale of 1-10, a 12 for me, so I’m already into extra numbers,” Long said. “I don’t know that I could get a Super Bowl, AFC Championship, playoff game, it’s far beyond anything I’ve done before, so I feel like I’ll be all right.”
For the sake of comparison, the Patriots are riding a nine-game winning streak into Super Bowl LI. Long’s Rams never won more than seven games in a full season.
The Patriots have ridden a pair of playoff wins to Houston. Long’s Rams went 1-15 in 2009 and 2-14 in ’08 and ’11.
And the closest Long ever got to the playoffs was in 2010 when the Rams and Seahawks both finished 7-9, but Seattle won the tiebreaker and became the first team with a losing record in the 16-game era to reach the postseason.
Long, the second overall pick in the 2008 draft, went 39-88-1 during his time with the Rams, so they averaged fewer than five wins per season. The Patriots, of course, are 16-2 this season.
Long is understandably excited to make his Super Bowl debut, and he isn’t trying to make any assumptions over what to expect in the coming week.
“This is all new to me,” Long said. “I think people are excited. We have a group that comes to work every day no matter what the situation, so we’re always excited and pumped up to play. I think having this week, you can really feel like we’re getting as much as we can done. This extra time, they’re probably doing the same thing I’m sure, so there’s a lot of energy in this building.”
Obviously, this is what Long signed up for when he landed his one-year, $2.5 million pact with the Pats.
“It’s the whole reason. It’s the whole reason I came here,” Long said. “I don’t want to speak for anyone else, but everyone wants to win. That’s the bottom line, and when you’re making a decision as an older player on where you want to be, you want to be in situations like this with opportunities like this. We’ve earned the opportunity, and that’s what it is, an opportunity. Whatever we do with it is up to us.”
Head games
Special teamer Nate Ebner and kicker Stephen Gostkowski were listed as non-participants for yesterday’s walkthrough. They each missed both practices this week.
Ebner suffered a concussion against the Steelers, but he was present for the walkthrough so he at least watched the session. Ebner had a concussion in Week 13 and participated in positional drills at the start of two practices, but the Pats listed him as a non-participant then, too.
Gostkowski has been dealing with an illness. It’s presumed to be the same one that has circulated through the locker room this season and most recently cost running back LeGarrette Blount a pair of practices two weeks ago.
Getting Gronk’d
Tight end Rob Gronkowski made a rare appearance in the locker room during yesterday’s media access. Gronk, who is on injured reserve and ineligible to play in Super Bowl LI, emerged from the Gillette Stadium weight room after a workout.
Gronkowski had back surgery Dec. 2 and has since returned to Gillette for his rehab work. He declined to speak but was bouncing through the locker room like his jovial self before disappearing into the training room.