Before the FOX studio desk and a seat next to Terry Bradshaw, Howie Long was working with a broom, not a microphone. The analyst, now in his 33rd season beside Terry Bradshaw on FOX NFL Sunday, recently revisited that work, and the details sit about as far from a football field as it gets.
Watch What’s Trending Now!
“I swept up ciggrette buds during happy hours.” Long said. He also explained how that gig ended, and it came down to his age. “I was like 13. They found out I was young and they had to let me go.”
Long hung up his cleats after the 1993 season, and the move into television came almost immediately. In 1994, he joined FOX’s NFL coverage as a studio analyst, and over the years he has settled into the role of the level-headed one, the guy who stays composed while Terry Bradshaw goes for the laughs.
That wasn’t a career change he stumbled into. Back when he was still playing, he had already pictured it in an interview to Inside Sports magazine in March 1986.
“When I’m finished playing, I’d like to stay in touch with football through broadcasting. I’m qualified to give a certain perspective, and I’m articulate enough to handle it.”
He got his wish, and it came with a long-running partner. Long and Bradshaw have now worked side by side for more than 30 years, though the early days weren’t as easy as the on-air chemistry suggests. Bradshaw opened up about that on Julian Edelman’s Games with Names podcast.
“Howie and I built our relationship,” Bradshaw said.
“It was not smooth sailing; it was always a bit of a… I don’t want to say egos because we buried those egos.”
“But we had differences on how to do things.”
Experience played a big part. Both men were founding members of FOX NFL Sunday in 1994, along with Jimmy Johnson and James Brown. Long arrived straight out of the NFL, while Bradshaw had already spent years in television at CBS.
“I’d been in television for a long time before Howie came on board,” Bradshaw said.
The two sorted it out soon enough.
“Howie and I literally worked ours [relationship] out and became like brothers, and it happened quickly.” Three decades later, they still deliver a weekly dose of entertainment to NFL fans.
Long’s football resume explains how he got to that desk. The Raiders took him in the second round of the 1981 draft, and he spent all 13 seasons with the franchise, in Oakland and then Los Angeles.
He made eight Pro Bowls and earned first- or second-team All-Pro honors five times. In 1985, he recorded 10 sacks, with at least one in eight games, and his teammates named him their top defensive lineman.
A 2024 YouTube video posted by Adam Hornyak follows his road from odd jobs as a kid to the pros.
“I started work when I was 11 years old. I bagged groceries, unloaded trucks, I did everything. I swept floors during happy hour in a bar in the North End, and then went on to professional football. And professional football, if you make a career of it and you want to be one of the better people, the sacrifice is incredible. He made the sacrifice; now he’s reaping the rewards.”
“I didn’t ask to be in the movies. I didn’t ask to be in the NFL. I didn’t ask to go into broadcasting. Things just seem to pop up for me. My life has been just a ride, and I don’t necessarily know where it’s going, but I’m enjoying the ride.”
From sweeping bar floors as a kid to a decades-long run on the NFL’s most watched pregame show, Long’s path has been anything but planned, and he seems happy to keep riding it.