As Dumb As a Fox : Chargers’ Richards Serious About Not Being a Fool

SAN DIEGO —  The guy’s honest, so he says something like, “Howie Long is over the hill, a dead man, couldn’t get past his grandmother if she were sitting in a wheelchair with the brakes on, and so what’s the big deal about playing against Howie Long?”

David Richards said that before his first NFL game, and yeah, yeah, yeah, there were qualifiers: Something about Howie Long being hurt and blah, blah, blah. . . . But the reporters printed that juicy stuff. And Long can read.

“He kicks my ass,” Richards said. “Howie’s a very intense individual. I went to shake his hand and he wouldn’t even acknowledge my existence. We’re walking up the tunnel at the same time, and I say, ‘Good game, Howie,’ and he snarls.”

Five years later, the man who said too much is still standing, but maybe not saying as much. He has started 75 consecutive games--more than any other current Charger--and Sunday he renews old acquaintances with Long and the Raiders.

“He’s smart, he’s good, he’s got the best leverage of anybody I’ve ever played against,” Richards said. He might be honest, but he won’t be stupid again.

Richards has come a long way, all right, and he has tried to learn to say the right things. He has tried to be the stereotypical offensive lineman, tried to blend in.

“I don’t like the politics of this game,” he said. “That’s the main reason I got involved in the antitrust lawsuit against the NFL. I didn’t like the way I saw some people being treated. Some people are treated like a couch, a leg gets broken, and oh well, the Salvation Army will take it. That’s wrong.

“We’re talking about people here, and somebody needed to stand up and do something about it.”

So he hasn’t learned how to blend in--not when there is principle involved.

“I’ve done some of the stupidest things in the name of principle,” he said.

He won’t play his wife, Laurene, in backgammon because she always wins. He won’t take on running back Rod Bernstine in golf any longer because Richards can’t beat him.

“It’s a matter of principle,” he says. “I can’t beat ‘em, so I won’t play ‘em.”

Friends and teammates also told him he had no chance to win his antitrust suit against the NFL, but at the time he became party to the suit, he was having no fun and he could have cared less if he ever played again.

“I felt I was at end of my career after my second year. (Offensive line coach) Larry Beightol just wore me out. I figured I was going back to school, get a degree, and find myself another job,” Richards said.

“So they cut me. So they don’t like the lawsuit. Larry Beightol was the coach and I hated the bastard. I didn’t want to be here, and would have been happy to be sent somewhere else.”

The Chargers kept Richards, but did not retain Beightol. They hired Alex Gibbs, who became a Richards’ supporter. The Chargers’ running game improved, and Richards contributed.

“Alex Gibbs circled us all up, protected us, took all the heat, and told us, ‘Just play,’ ” Richards said. “He taught me how to play guard, and somebody was actually saying I was a good football player. I hadn’t thought so, and it renewed my love for the game.”

When the suit went to trial in Minneapolis, Richards became an important witness for the players. He claimed the Chargers had not dealt fairly with him in contract negotiations after his second season, and ultimately the jury agreed. They awarded Richards the largest settlement--$240,000--of the eight players involved. Under antitrust law, that sum will be tripled, and Richards will receive $720,000.

“With that lawsuit he put his career on the line,” says Laurene Richards. “But that’s David; he’s very much into doing the right thing.”

Richards immersed himself in the trial proceedings. He spent 10 days in Minneapolis, and after spending six tense hours on the witness stand, he returned to watch Jets’ running back Freeman McNeil testify.

Said Richards: “I was getting so mad. They were beating him up on the stand. I was near tears, and Gill Byrd was there and he told me to go home. He said I had done my part. I changed my plane reservations and went home.”

Despite the pressure of being one of the main characters in the battle of players versus management, Richards remained focused on the football field. A matter of principle.

“You have to admire that. He’s there all the time,” General Manager Bobby Beathard said. “He’s a fighter. He’s been a big part of us doing well.”

He has been there, practice after practice, game after game. The offensive line coaches have come and gone. There have been three head coaches, two general managers, and Richards ever faithful at right guard.

“I don’t know if anyone in San Diego knows me, but that’s good for an offensive lineman,” he said. “Everywhere I go, people say, ‘You’re a big guy, you should play football.’ ”

In the past few years the Chargers designed almost 85% of their running plays to go right--right over Richards and tackle Broderick Thompson. The pass protection was set up to slide in the direction of Richards and Thompson.

The blocking of Richards and Thompson propelled Marion Butts into the Pro Bowl.

“We communicate with each other by yelling at each other,” Thompson said. “When Coach (Bobby) Ross first got here and witnessed that he wanted it to stop because he thought we were arguing with each other. But that’s just us.

“I’ve watched David over the years, and you know this business, they’re always talking about finding someone better on the offensive line. But there’s no substitute for dependability and knowledge, and that’s what he has.

“He’s also a member of the bad body club, but that body never lets him down on Sunday.”

Richards does not look good in a football uniform, and as the game progresses, he invites all the surrounding dirt and grime to attach itself to his uniform.

“It’s not a beauty contest,” he said. “That’s not what the game is about. It’s getting the job done.”

The Chargers, however, have taken exception to his weight. Last year he absorbed $3,500 in fines for failing to make his assigned weight.

“People are frustrated by Dave because they see potentially a great lineman,” says John Dunn, the Chargers’ strength and conditioning coach. “When people see potential they over-project what a guy can do, so they don’t look at the positive things that he does do.

“Certain guys get hurt, and David Richards doesn’t. He may be big, may not be at the weight you want him, but he’s there.”

When Richards reported to training camp this year, Ross responded to Richards’ request for a higher assigned weight. After being tagged with $600 to $700 in fines in training camp for missing weight, he has checked in at 313 pounds each week as ordered.

“I just wish they would turn me loose, let it go, and if I get too heavy, cut me,” he said. “I don’t understand all the stuff. This year they loosened up and I can eat three meals a day.

“I used to starve the heck out of myself. Now I’m probably stronger than I have ever been in my NFL career. I’m not worn out and dragged down from starving myself all the time.”

Perspective. He knows what is good for himself, and sometimes no one else agrees. The NFL scouts said Richards lacked discipline when he came out of UCLA in 1988. They said he was difficult to coach. Twenty-eight teams let him slip to the fourth round. Mistakes are made.

“They didn’t like the way I acted at the scouting combine,” he said with a grin. “I had this psychologist with the Giants follow me around all day with a bag of fudge. He kept telling me to take a piece and I threatened to beat the hell out of him.”

Now he is different. When he went to UCLA after the NCAA closed down SMU’s football program, he slept with a loaded gun under his bed because Los Angeles scared him.

He watched the movie “Platoon” 20 times. He presently is reading a bizarre 400-pager, “The 12th Planet.” When he’s not reading, he’s rushing home from practice to watch The Discovery Channel and the history of the airplane in war.

He and his wife own a thoroughbred horse, which was unwanted by a racetrack in Mexico, two cats, which were abandoned by the roadside, and a dog.

The Richards also belong to the Harbor Island Yacht Club, and for those who thought they saw the pair buying tickets for the strange movie, “The Cook, the Thief, his Wife and her Lover,” well, “God, I hated that movie,” Richards said.

How weird is weird?

One of his favorite moments during a football game is when they play, “Tequila.” There’s more . . .

“I was driving around at three in the morning a couple of months ago looking for a store where I could buy a can of Copenhagen,” Richards said. “I drove for an hour and a half, and when I get home with the can I look at it and realize what an idiot I am. I threw it away and haven’t used it since.”

It’s principle and perspective. He believes in certain things, he’s sensitive, and his viewpoint invites debate.

“He’s a strong person,” Laurene said. “His mom and dad were divorced when he was about 11, and his mom had to go to work and he was a latch-key kid. He learned to rely on himself.

“He has had so many setbacks, and while he brings some of them on himself, he doesn’t like people telling him he can’t do something. He’ll prove them wrong.”

Yes, he will. He’s become the torch bearer for professional football players who want the freedom to choose where they play, and he’s been a rock at right guard for a team in search of continuity.

Bring on Long and all his friends. He’ll take them all on and prove them wrong, just as long as he doesn’t have to play the wife in backgammon or Bernstine in golf.