Los Angeles Rams

The Time is Now: Q&A with Chris Long

Published Jul. 23, 2015 6:50 p.m. ET

foxsports

In what will be his eighth NFL season, it is not lost on Chris Long that the time is now when it comes to winning and his professional window. Much attention has been paid to the Rams future in St. Louis (or Los Angeles), but the team has assembled an impressive roster and is poised to make a serious run in the NFC West.

Long and his teammates know it, and are licking their collective chops. After he only played in six games last season as a result of an ankle injury, Long welcomes the challenge of proving himself once again.

At first glance he's an intimidating presence, one that you expect to come in and wreck an offensive line. Still, Long has earned a reputation as one of the league's true workhorses. Dating back to college, where at the University of Virginia, Long worked his way from backup to team leader, on to a unanimous All-American and Hendricks award winner.

Appearing on behalf of the Capital One Cup, Long took a break from work to talk about the upcoming season, bouncing back from injury and UVA's big win.

Coming off the ankle injury that cut short last season, do you look at this year as a "bounce back" year?

I do. You're not yourself, and you go through a lot. Last year was a tough year for the team. It was tough for me. So, it's a bounce back year in a lot of ways.

At this point, how is the ankle?

I think I'm finally about 100%. I had a really good OTA's, health wise. I finally turned the corner this summer.

The Rams made a splash this offseason from a quarterback change (hello Nick Foles) to a great draft (getting Todd Gurley) and an addition to your D-line (i.e. Nick Fairley). How are you feeling about next season?

I've never been a part of a team with this much talent. I know it's not saying a lot, because early in my career, we had some trouble in St Louis.

Since the day coach (Jeff) Fisher got there and Les Snead, our GM, have been working tirelessly to bring in the right people in. And I think we're at that point.

When you look around the locker room, we're extremely fast and we're extremely physical. We've got to get to the point where people don't want to play us.

There's already a little bit of that thought in the back of people's heads, that's it going to be a fist fight. Now with the talent we have and that mindset our team has, it's going to be an all day thing.

Out of that fast and physical locker room you're talking about, who is the standout athlete?

Robert Quinn. He's ridiculous. He can do anything a DB can do...at three hundred pounds! We just stop the tape and laugh a lot, just because he's ridiculous.

You mentioned the work that Jeff Fisher has put in, how has brought about a culture change in St. Louis?

There are no remnants of anything before coach Fisher got there. That's not because he's the type of guy who's going to be hell bent making you forget who was there before. It's just because coach Fisher has such a strong message on what he wants our identity to be.

He just sets that tone and brings in the right people. I love our identity, what it's going to be, and I love the way we're headed. The window is open and we've got to take advantage of it closes.

Windows in this league are not that long and we're in it. We're in it and we've got do to the things we need to do to execute.

With the talent on the roster and the progression of the team on the field over the past few seasons, do you think the rest of the league is sleeping on you guys?

I don't know if we're slept on, because we haven't proved it yet. We haven't, I guess, taken the respect we feel like we deserve. We'll sort that out ourselves. I don't get pissed off at people, for the most part, because we haven't proven it. You know? But we will and I'm excited about it.

When we deserve the recognition, we'll get it. That's not why you play any way. We're playing to win. It's cliche but there's so many avenues to get people's opinions out about this team or this player these days, it's like, what are you going to listen to them all?

You're entering your 8th NFL season, how has your approach changed since you came into the league?

In preparation, I think it's working smarter. I'm thirty years old and I don't feel like I'm slowing down. I got hurt last year, but it wasn't an age thing. It was bad luck. You control being rolled up on, but I can control the things I can control, which are how work, how I prepare for the season and how I prepare for Sundays.

In my training in the summer, back in the day, I used just go, go, go! I wouldn't take any days off, I would do whatever I wanted, as much as I wanted of it. Now I have to be smarter and plan some rest days in there.

Work smarter, and not harder. It's kind of a cliche but I it to be extremely valuable for me. It's a bit of a challenge to throttle it down a bit at times and just trust that you're doing enough.

You and your dad are very close. When it comes to talking shop, how much comparison is there to the era he played in?

I think my dad's pretty realistic. He will acknowledge that the game's faster, more violent now. If I ask him, he'll tell me how brutal it was. It was a really long, grueling process. They practiced multiple times a day, consecutively, for months.

It was different in the sense that they went to training camp to get into shape. That doesn't make it any easier. I'd take our CBA over the old one and I'd take our schedule over those guys back in the 80's. That was brutal.

I think we're lucky in a sense because they tailor preparation to the speed and violence of the game in the age in which we play it.

Growing up around it and becoming a pro yourself, what is it that you love most about the game of football?

For me, it's given me a chance to try to achieve something that maybe is very unlikely. I've had to work and scratch and claw for every inch of what I've gotten as a football player.

Not financially, I don't think of it that way, but as far as where I am in the game. It's never been a sport that has come easy to me. I'm not somebody that's been a natural at anything. So, that's something I take a lot of pride in. It's been a long journey, it's tested me a lot, tested my fortitude and that's what I'm proud of. You know after a failure or a detour, you keep getting back up.

Eventually it's really going to pay off, and I'm just excited to be where I'm at on the Rams going into this season. I think it's all going to make sense why we've been going these tough years. That's what means something to me, is sticking it out through something like that, I can't wait for it to pay off.

For a player, is a possible move to LA a distraction?

No, I don't think so. I put it this way, there's two floors our building. The coaches and GM are upstairs, the players are downstairs. This is a decision that's made at the top. Things that are out of your control, if you worry about them too much, you're not going to be able to do your job.

For the players, we have a job to do, and the fans deserve a winning season in St. Louis, so we're just hell bent on delivering that to them.

Your alma mater, Virginia, had a big year across the board, winning the Capital One Cup Championship. What was that like to watch, as both an alumni and a fan?

I'm really excited to be here on behalf of Capital One, representing the University of Virginia. It's not only the school I went to, but in Charlottesville, I grew up in that town and grew up a Virginia fan. It's kind of a surreal moment for me, because it's their first Capital One Cup Championship for the men's program. Between Stanford and Virginia, Capital One's given $400,000 to those schools in scholarships.

I just think it's a great chance for a really awesome, deep athletic program to get recognized.

It's been a fun year for a Virginia fan to watch all their sports, not just basketball, but tennis (winning the title,) soccer and baseball. A team that had to win their play-in game in the ACC Tournament, ends up winning the College World Series with their backs against the wall.