Chris Long, just retired from football, expounds on Patriots

Recently-retired defensive end Chris Long, who played one season in New England, opened up about his time playing with the Patriots.

Though Chris Long wasn’t a New England Patriot for very long (get it?), he still spent enough time with the organization to grasp it on a very deep level. That much is readily clear just from listening to everything he had to say in an interview with Peter King that was published earlier this week.

In the article, King asked Long what he thought of playing under Bill Belichick. Belichick, of course, is considered almost universally to be the greatest head coach in NFL history, but he’s also famous for being a bit of a curmudgeon who can make life difficult on players through his grating no-nonsense approach and commitment to hard work and discipline 24/7.

Long had nothing but praise for Belichick though:

"“In my career playing football, nobody asked me to do as much as Bill Belichick did. I might be 3-technique, or a linebacker, or a linebacker dropping into coverage more than ever, or playing inside more than ever. I’ll always remember how much I learned watching Bill in practice. He can coach any position as good as any position coach in league. He can walk around the field and stop drills and coach each position—at the highest level.”"

Asked about his teammates in Foxborough, Long also had plenty of nice stuff to say… particularly about one Tom Brady:

“Solid men,” he said about his companions on the Patriots. “The right kind of people. Tom Brady blew me away. Who’s the most famous athlete of our generation: Tom Brady? LeBron? Messi? Ronaldo? Serena Williams? Maybe I haven’t been around enough to know how the biggest stars really act. But Brady is a normal guy.”

Long then proceeded to tell a story that observant New England fans have heard time and time again from players who meet Brady for the first time. A common theme is that most of these players are expecting an understandable level of haughtiness or even an air of superiority from TB12 – but that’s just not the way he carries himself. And they always seem surprised.

Long explained:

"“When I got there, here comes Tom. ‘Hey Chris, I’m Tom, nice to meet you.’ Well, yeah, I know you’re Tom. A lot of people want to hate him for all the success, and I understand how you can dislike the Patriots, but I cannot understand how you can dislike Tom.”"

Long spent 11 seasons in the NFL: eight with the Rams (then of St. Louis), one with the Patriots, and two with the Eagles. He won Super Bowl rings in back-to-back seasons between 2016 and 2017, first with New England against Atlanta, and then with Philadelphia against New England.