The Rush: Chris & Kyle Long on chugging beers, and life in the NFL
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Chris and Kyle Long stopped by to chat with Jared about who would win in a beer chugging contest between them and the best parts of playing in the NFL.
Video Transcript
KYLE LONG: We were watching the Chiefs game the other day. Honey Badger, first game back. Two picks, you got a Pick 6 there. It’s nice to play with a guy like the Honey Badger. He’s a great dude. And any time you become a fan of somebody on your team, it’s pretty cool.
JARED QUAY: I know, man. Anytime you can use GIFs of people you know, it’s just the most amazing.
CHRIS LONG: That is a– it’s power move. That’s a power move. If you use your own gifts, like Scott Van Pelt, he’ll just use his own GIFs. I’m like all right, dude, like, you’re really famous. You have a plethora to choose from.
JARED QUAY: Recently, we caught up with the Long brothers. We’re right in the middle of the NFL playoffs, so there’s no better time to talk football with Chris and Kyle Long.
- Carpe diem.
JARED QUAY: I caught up with the long brothers to chat about beer drinking, and what makes the NFL such a special family to be a part of. Check it out.
See we got both brothers on here, and both you guys look like you can pound some beers. Who wins the drinking title? Who can drink the other one under the table?
CHRIS LONG: I think Kyle wins the physical combat. I think I can drink more beers than Kyle, but that’s just me. I don’t know, Kyle. Kyle lives a little– Kyle’s a clean living dude, man. He really– he’s a clean living, behaving guy, and I’m a washed up athlete. So I got plenty of time to drink Miller Lite, and I got to feel like I can David and Goliath this thing.
KYLE LONG: OK, Chris. I stay well hydrated. Chris stays hydrated well. If you know what I’m saying.
JARED QUAY: So are we giving him– we’re giving him the moral victory? Obviously it doesn’t happen in real life.
CHRIS LONG: Maybe, maybe. It would be ugly. It would be ugly. We used to go to Vegas together, I used to take him to Vegas with my D-line, with our D line in St. Louis. He became, like, an honorary member, and we had some great times in Vegas, at the pool clubs there. It got relatively ugly. But that was eons ago, we’re very different now.
Story continues
KYLE LONG: Water under the bridge.
CHRIS LONG: Water under the bridge. Miller Lite under the bridge.
JARED QUAY: So if Kyle retires again, Chris–
CHRIS LONG: Yeah.
JARED QUAY: [INAUDIBLE] right? That’s how you got to switch off.
CHRIS LONG: Oh man, I don’t know, you know? I think about the things that hurt me now, walking around and doing certain things like jumping down from the bed of my pickup truck, that’s like a good barometer for how good your joints are feeling. I don’t think I’m coming back, you know? Yeah, I think Kyle is going to be the last Long, unless maybe one of our kids decides to be stubborn and do this, too.
JARED QUAY: Do you miss it, though? I mean, obviously you see the game and the competitiveness, you’re still there.
CHRIS LONG: No, I do. I do, yeah. I miss it sometimes. I mean, I think we all miss it sometimes. It’s really hard to turn that [INAUDIBLE]. You’re never not going to miss it, so I think that’s the key. It’s like, turn off the expectation that you’re not going to miss the game. Like, on a Sunday, on a third down, you’re going to watch a defensive end, you’re going to be like, I could do that better than him right now.
Like, that’s just a competitor in you. But I don’t want to do the six days before Sunday. And that’s why you walk away from the game.
KYLE LONG: I think a great part of me last year, when I was away from the game. The thing that I missed the most was the quality of human beings that you get to play with, practice with on a daily basis. I know that we make a lot of jokes here and all that kind of stuff, but it’s hard to find the elite-level individuals like your brother Calais.
If I’m in the Baltimore locker room, I’m lucky to be around Calais. And when I– if I leave that locker room, I don’t know if I’m going to meet other guys like him, that are going to have that profound effect on a daily basis, like a Travis Kelce or Pat Mahomes in our locker room. And just guys that bring in the work every day.
That’s what I missed when I was away from it. And now that I’m back in, I feel at home.
CHRIS LONG: They push you, you know? Your buddies push you. And then you walk away from the game, and you know, people push you in different ways. And you got to figure out, like, what you want to do, what you’re passionate about. You’ve got to be good at other things, which is like, it’s hard.
But I think the one thing that is missing is that kind of iron sharpens iron thing. And you don’t know it for a while. Like, the first year I was out I was like, I missed something. And Kyle, you’re right. It’s like, it is, like, that accountability every day that you get tired of. But it can be a balance where a little bit of that is good, and being around guys like you every day is a blessing.
JARED QUAY: That’s amazing. Well, look here. Kyle, when you’re done, and Chris whenever you want to, the Yahoo Sports locker room is always open, and we can iron sharpens iron with the media stuff, man.
CHRIS LONG: Awesome.
NFL #ProDucks: Divisional Round
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#ProDucks Guide: Week of Jan. 24
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Who is Howie Long’s wife Diane Addonizio?
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FORMER professional football player, Howie Long, is often recognized for his sports career.
The famed NFL star stepped into the spotlight decades ago and fans are curious to know more about his marriage to his wife, Diane Addonizio.
1 Sportscaster Howie Long and Diane Addonizio are a prolific couple in the world of sports
Who is Howie Long’s wife Diane Addonizio?
Diane Addonizio is from Red Bank, New Jersey.
Diane attended Villanova University in Pennsylvania and majored in classical studies, where she met future husband, Howie Long.
She later attended University of Southern California to study law.
Following her college stint, Diane practiced law in Los Angeles for some time.
When did Howie Long marry Diane Addonizio?
Howie Long and Diane Addonizio were college sweethearts, they started dating while attending Villanova University.
The couple tied the knot on June 27, 1982.
Diane described their college dating life in an interview with Sports Illustrated in 1985.
Diane told the publication: “I’d never met anyone that big who was that good-looking. He was always like a volcano about to erupt, always driven.”
She continued: “Everywhere we went, he thought people were staring at him.”
How many children do Howie and Diane have?
Howie and Diane have three children together.
They welcomed their first son, NFL player Chris Long, on March 28, 1985.
Chris is a retired athlete who played for the St. Louis Rams, New England Patriots, and Philadelphia Eagles.
Howie and Diane’s second son, Kyle Long, was born on December 5, 1988.
Another NFL player, Kyle plays for the Chicago Bears.
The couple’s third son, Howie Long Jr, is also an NFL professional.
Howie Jr is an operative for the Oakland Raiders.
Sackwatch by the numbers: Over a decade of Bears pass protection data in one place!
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When the idea for Sackwatch was pitched to me after the 2010 season (thanks Kev), the reason I found it so fascinating was that I’d be able to put what I long suspected — the offensive line isn’t always to blame — and have some data to back it up. I quickly had that notion validated after looking at the film from week one of the 2011 season when sack number 4 was the fault of the quarterback, and sack number 5 wasn’t anyone’s fault.
After my first year breaking down each sack the Chicago Bears allowed on a weekly basis, someone suggested to me that I keep a running tally of where the specific blame lies on every sack. So with the 2012 season I started doing just that, and if you want to see how each Sackwatch ended up from that season through this season you can check out this spreadsheet I did in Google.
The reason I finally decided to get all that data in one place is because I asked Jeff Berckes, the architect of our our Visualize this series here on WCG, to take all my data and work up something fun.
JB gave us a few graphics and I wanted to share them all here…
First the pie chart, because I love pie.
In 10 years of data the five offensive linemen have been responsible for less than 50% of the total sacks allowed, with the quarterbacks making up nearly a quarter of the blame.
Those in-the-know say that a sack is a QB stat, and considering they have final say to set the pass protection if they see something up front they don’t like, and are responsible for the free rusher, I agree.
JB called this next graph a donut, and who doesn’t love a good donut?
The Sacks Happen category has been my catch-all for anything that isn’t the fault of a specific offensive player. Defensive coaches are paid handsomely too, so sometimes they scheme up a blitz that an offense isn’t ready for or the secondary locks everyone down.
Other times the offensive play call is just so god-awfully bad that it’s doomed for failure (thanks Matt Nagy).
And then we can’t fault a QB for making the smart play of taking a dive to keep the clock moving in a close game, so those go in Sacks Happen too.
This seasonal bar graph showing the position groups responsible each season was interesting.
For those wondering, that 2013 o-line that only allowed 9.75 sacks was from left to right; Jermon Bushrod, Matt Slauson, Roberto Garza, and rookies Kyle Long and Jordan Mills, and all 5 of them started every single game that season.
Jeff color coded this last one by showing which players were good, average, or bad in a given season by position.
From an individual standpoint, Sacks Happen has been responsible for the most sacks in the 10 years of tracking data with 74 sacks allowed (7.4 per year), which makes sense as that’s the only “individual” that showed up each season.
Here’s the top 10 players most responsible for the sacks from 2012 through 2021.
Player - Sacks - Average per season
Mitchell Trubisky - 28 - 7.0 Jay Cutler - 27 - 5.4 Charles Leno Jr. - 25.83 - 4.3* Bobby Massie - 14.83 - 3.0 Cody Whitehair - 14 - 2.3 Kyle Long - 13.59 - 1.9** Matt Forte - 13.5 - 3.4 Jordan Mills - 9.25 - 4.6 Justin Fields - 9 - 9.0 Jermon Bushrod - 9 - 3.0***
- I only counted Leno’s average for the 6 seasons he started.
** Long only played in 30 total games from 2016 to 2019.
*** Bushrod only had 4 starts his final year in Chicago (2015).
Here are the top 5 worst player seasons in Sackwatch.
Player - Sacks - Year
Mitch Trubisky - 15 - 2019 Jay Cutler - 11 - 2012 Justin Fields - 9 - 2021 Cabe Carimi - 7 - 2012 Kyle Long - 6.84 - 2015
There were a few offensive linemen that didn’t give up a single sack in a season that I tracked and I wanted to point those out.
Kyle Long had no sacks allowed in 2014 (15 starts) or 2016 (8 starts).
James Daniels gave up no sacks as a rookie in 2018 (10 starts).
Josh Sitton had no sacks allowed his first year in Chicago (2016) in 12 starts.
Center Roberto Garza allowed just a quarter of a sack in 2013 while starting all 16 games.
Any of the numbers in the Sackwatch stand out to you guys?
I know my individual total is off by a half a sack, and I can only imagine at some point there was either a half sack that befuddled me to the point I didn’t assign it, or I refused to place blame for some other strange arbitrary reason that made sense to me at the time.
I also have it on my to-do list this offseason to go back and individually chart all of the 2011 season, which is bad news for J’Marcus Webb.