Former Patriot Long finds ‘lucky’ situation
Free agency lands back-to-back title appearances for defensive end
PHILADELPHIA — Chris Long didn’t want to waste the Patriots’ time.
Free agency was rolling around last March, and he knew that even though being in New England gave him the first — and best — taste of success he’d had in his career, he wanted a role that maximized his skill set.
So, before the signing period opened, he called Patriots coach Bill Belichick.
Long said, “I don’t know if I have a spot or not, but I need to — at 32 years old — if I’m going to play at a high level, a level I’m going to be proud of, I need to play more in position. And I understand y’all’s scheme is y’all’s scheme.”
Belichick understood completely. In the one year Long spent in New England, he earned the respect of everyone in Foxborough for always being willing to do the dirty work and accepting whatever role was asked of him.
Fans, on the other hand, saw it differently.
“I had a bunch of people that were like, ‘You’re crazy. You’re leaving the Patriots and you (stink),’ ” said Long. There was more. “You’re old, you’re washed up,” he recalled hearing.
Finding the right fit
He knew he was going out on a limb walking away from a team that had been to seven Super Bowls this millennium.
“So I’m like, ‘Man, I need to get on a team,’ ” he said.
He didn’t imagine that the leap of faith would land him back in the Super Bowl a year later with the Philadelphia Eagles, but he had a good feeling about it as he was making the decision.
One of his close friends, Connor Barwin, had spent four seasons in Philadelphia before leaving to sign with the Rams, the team with which Long spent the first eight years of his career. So they traded notes. “I called Connor and I was like, ‘What’s it like there?’ ” Long said. “He was like, ‘It’s awesome. You’re going to love it. You’re going to be a great fit.’ ”
The catch, of course, was getting someone in the Eagles’ front office to think the same thing.
“I had to get a hold of somebody,” Long said. “Tell them that I’m not dead, I want to keep playing and I’ve still got a lot in the tank. Of course, you tell somebody that, it’s one thing to tell them, you’ve got to go play it out.”
Luckily, when Long put in a phone call to Eagles
executive vice president of football operations Howie Roseman, it didn’t take much convincing.
“Howie could’ve easily been like, ‘Nah, dude, you’re too old,’ ” Long said. “Or like, ‘We looked at your tape last year.’ He was like, ‘Yeah, awesome. It’d be great.’ And from there, we kind of just made it work.”
In Philadelphia, Long has been able to rediscover the player he was for so many years in St. Louis while reaping the benefits of being on a team that overcame injuries to return to the Super Bowl for the first time since it lost to the Patriots 13 years ago.
He’s been on the field far less in an Eagles jersey than he was in a Patriots jersey — 48 percent of the snaps in Philadelphia and 65 percent in New England — but when he’s on the field, he makes an impact.
“Everyone wants to do their job well at the end of the day,” Long said. “I got a great thrill out of being there last year, and I was certainly a part of it. Had to do some things that weren’t natural to me. But I was happy doing it because it was a blessing to be there. They’re a great team with great coaches and all that stuff.
“This year, my role’s different. I’ve actually taken less snaps here than I did there. But the snaps I’m taking here, I’m doing what I do, and I can be a lot more proud of my individual contribution as far as the quality of football I’m playing. So, it’s been a blessing to be here.”
He chalked up being in the Super Bowl backto-back years after never sniffing the playoffs his first eight years in the league to serendipity more than his own skill.
“Me being on two Super Bowl teams in a row is just that I’ve been on two Super Bowl teams in a row,” Long said. “It had nothing to do with me — obviously. I’m just a lucky dude that made good decisions in free agency.”
Putting it together
Belichick also sees Long as a good fit in the Eagles’ system.
“I think his defensive role is similar to what it was when he was with the Rams,” Belichick said. “Chris has a lot of good skills, but his overall skill set and experience is probably more in — it definitely is more in — the system that he’s in than it was in our system.
“He did a great job for us. Look, there was no better teammate or guy that tried to embrace the program than Chris, but, in the end, he probably has a better fit there for his skills and for this point in his career than maybe we had for him. I understand that.
“It certainly has worked out well for him there, just like it worked out well for him here last year.”
A decision that seemed easy to mock at the time worked out, but Long knows it could’ve gone either way.
“When I left, I knew certainly that New England could be in the situation (in the Super Bowl), and I’d have to live with that if I wasn’t,” he said. “I also knew that the team I was coming to had a lot of tools, a lot of potential to make a deep run.
“But, no team is guaranteed to be here, whether it’s New England or Philly or any team. It’s a lot of work, it’s a lot of execution, it’s a lot of luck, and you put all those things together and here we are. So I’m just very lucky.”