MIAMI BEACH, Fla. — Kyle Long loves to craft analogies, and he visualizes the end of his football career chugging toward him as an oncoming train.
He heard it rumbling down the tracks when he suffered a season-ending ankle injury in 2016 and knew he’d never again be the same player. He tried to ignore it, but he sees now that it was obviously the beginning of the end. The next two seasons ended on Injured Reserve as well, and the train’s whistle got louder.
Long thought he could hold it off after arriving in Bourbonnais feeling rejuvenated, but that was fleeting. He injured his hip two weeks into the season, and the locomotive’s lights were in his eyes. It was inevitable now, no matter how hard he had fought it, he couldn’t bend the tracks.
“It’s the easiest decision I’ve ever made,” Long told the Sun-Times in between musings about the many absurdities on South Beach early Wednesday. “The film doesn’t look right. My body doesn’t feel right. And there comes a certain point where what you love becomes work.
“And I would say 85 percent of the work wasn’t even football. It was in the doctor’s office or rehabbing. I’m trying to plug holes in a dam with my fingers, and there’s not enough fingers on my body to put into this wall. And that’s OK. That’s the natural curve of the life of a football player. If I’m OK with that and I can move forward — I have — and find new hobbies, watch out, world.”
Long, 31, is all but retired after seven seasons as an offensive guard and tackle. All that’s left is the paperwork. He wants only to play for the Bears, but they don’t have a spot for him. He reserves the right to change his mind, but sounds fully content to call it a career. This was a thoroughly thought-out choice made after consulting with his Hall of Fame father Howie and recently retired brother Chris.
Long was the Bears’ first-round draft pick in 2013 and made three consecutive Pro Bowls before that 2016 season knocked him off course. He survived the coaching changes from Marc Trestman to John Fox to Matt Nagy, as well as turnover at general manager with Ryan Pace’s hiring.
The Bears didn’t win much during Long’s run, but he got what he wanted out of his career.
“I have no regrets,” he said. “I’ve done things on the football field that not a lot of people can say they’ve done. I’ve made some incredible friendships, met some very cool people. I’ve been privy to some amazing situations and just cool things. You’ve been in the locker room. There’s things you get to be a part of that most people don’t get. I appreciated when I was there because I knew how quick it was.”
Difficult but necessary exit
In typical Long style, he laced a lengthy conversation with unbridled emotion, unfiltered honesty and unrelenting humor.
He said he is down to 280 pounds after a playing at a listed weight of 330 and recently told Matt Nagy he wanted a tryout at tight end. He described his post-football peace by saying, “Oh, dude, my chi is centered as [expletive].” He likened his separation from the Bears to “a really smart girlfriend” breaking up the relationship when he couldn’t.
That last part is particularly compelling. From the outside, it looked like the Bears were headed toward an ugly split with someone who had been a face of the franchise. They forced him to IR despite him playing every snap of every game and appeared to exile him.
“Look, it was clear to me that they didn’t want me in the building,” Long said. “So I got my ass out of the building and I never came back.”
He seemed unsure why, and his best guess was “maybe personality stuff,” but Long had a good reputation in the locker room. He supposed they might view him as a distraction for a position group that was already struggling.
They very might have worried that Long would be a malcontent and it would’ve been hard to predict what he might say. He insists he wouldn’t have caused any issues, but “I can take a hint.”
He also believes the Bears tried to trade him.
“When they found out they couldn’t trade me because I had no value, they put me on IR,” Long said. “That’s probably what happened.”
But for all that, he apparently holds no grudge. He expressed no bitterness whatsoever toward Pace, Nagy or anyone else in the organization and said he didn’t take any of it personally. He spent much of last season traveling, but made sure to catch the games on TV.
For the totality of the relationship, each side made good on its end of the deal. Long did everything in his power to be an asset on the field, and the Bears paid him an estimated $37 million in salary. Loyalty matters deeply to him, and he doesn’t blame the team for moving on. And after reacting angrily at first, he realized the Bears were right to shelf him.
“They’ve done me right, and I’ve done them right,” Long said. “I’m a three-time Pro Bowler. Never threw my teammates under the bus. Always took blame. Played hurt. It’s the stuff you’re expected to do. I’m no superhero. I did what I was supposed to [expletive] do. And they did right by me.
“When I told my older brother about this, I said, ‘You know, it’s so [messed] up. I played every snap and they put me on IR.’ He’s like, ‘Kyle, are you healthy?’ And I was like, ‘No.’
“But it gives you an appreciation. Chris had injuries at the end of his St. Louis tenure, and they cut his ass. Then he went and won two Super Bowls. The Bears did me right, so I’ll never play in another jersey again. Bear for life. Couldn’t be happier about that. If I felt they [wronged] me, I’d go to Germany and get some stem cells and come back ready to kick somebody’s ass.”
Even in that closing digression, Long wouldn’t cross the ultimate line in his imaginary vengeance.
“I don’t know if I could play for Green Bay,” he said.
Stepping into the unknown
Long is enthusiastic about what’s next, but doesn’t know what it’ll be.
Here’s what he does know: His body feels great, his mind is clear and he is free from everything that bothered him about the all-consuming nature of his former job. That’s especially true when it comes to physical sacrifice of enduring almost anything to stay on the field.
“As a man, I have to say that doesn’t vibe right with me anymore,” Long said. “I don’t need to just throw my body in front of a train every week. There’s so much more to life than football.”
He looks forward to exploring interests that he’s pushed aside for years. He is drawn to the idea of doing “normal-guy stuff” like knocking down beers with Chris without worrying about how it’ll affect him on the practice field the next day.
As he tries to piece together his future, some of the answers come easily. Long would be a natural on TV or radio. He wants to use his creativity and find a field that rewards his over-the-top competitiveness.
He also wants to stay in Chicago. Long grew up in Virginia and has affinity for beaches and woods and mountains, but he can’t envision leaving.
It’s that loyalty again. It’s a romantic notion, but it means something to Long that the city embraced him as one of its own. The fans did right by him, and he intends to do right by them in return.
“Chicago has been home, and I will always have a place there,” he said. “I’m as much a part of Chicago as hot beef, bro.
“I love it. It’s a tough town. They liked my antics from Day 1, and I never had to pretend to be anything other than what I was. They accepted me. They were like, ‘This is our crazy little brother Kyle, and we love the [expletive] out of him.’”
