NFL on CBS’ Kyle Long Talks Lane Johnson, Bears, Broncos & More with Rich

Kyle Long was booked weeks ago to talk about mental health. Then Lane Johnson announced his retirement and talked openly about his own, and the timing turned a scheduled appearance into one of the more important conversations of the week.

Long is part of a Johnson and Johnson campaign called Generation Fine. Rich opened with the numbers behind it: one in 10 men in the United States, 6 million, experience depression or anxiety, and fewer than half receive treatment. Long explained the name. "So often we get stuck as men in the rut of saying I'm fine, all good. But fine isn't the finish line, right? We want to be great."

He framed it the way a player would. Pull a hamstring and you go to the training room. Sprain a high ankle and you do everything you are supposed to do. Want better cardio, you get on the StairMaster five days a week. "Well, mental health has been something where we don't have that immediate itch that you can scratch, or at least the know-how to," Long said. The campaign's site, generation-fine.com, is meant to give people a place to go for stories, information and connections to "get you out of your rut."

Rich had made a related point on the Wednesday show. There is no crutch, no brace, no bandage, just a person playing in the NFL for a living, a dream for so many that it is hard to comprehend how someone "generationally enriched and generationally talented like Lane Johnson" could wake up with a gray day and decide he cannot or should not keep doing it. He asked Long to help explain.

Long started with the position. "It's the most selfless position in the most selfless sport on the planet," he said, and Johnson has been at the very top of it for 14 years. The whole league is a pressure cooker, from punters to safeties, but offensive linemen carry a particular weight. "We don't have stats, right? The only stat we have is holding and false starts. The only time you really get circled is when your quarterback's on the ground." He described how hard it is to fall asleep the night before a game or picture good things happening, and then go home as a human being with a family. He commended Johnson for being "selfish in this instance in a good way." His verdict on the career: Johnson "will go down as the greatest Eagle of all time. And if anybody has anything to say about that, just go watch the tape."

Rich added a memory. Years ago at the Hall of Fame, he interviewed Long's father around a game where Kyle and his brother Chris were set to face each other. Rich assumed it would be a great day for the family. Not so much. Every snap between the lines was a car crash, and Rich recalled the elder Long saying that he and Diane would have their hearts in their throats on every one.

"It's a very real thing," Long said. The NFL presents its product "as shiny and clean, but you and I both know, having been around it, how nasty and raw this thing is." Along with the size and physicality, "there's a lot of fear in there. There's a lot of anxiety that can come up," and not just for Johnson. He pointed to Joe Thomas, who seemed invincible in Cleveland during a very tough stretch for that franchise and has since spoken about navigating the difficult times.

Then Rich asked how Long is liking the Sunday morning TV game on CBS. "Dude, it is my dream," he said. He knows how lucky he is to have grown up in the business, and he always knew he wanted to get into media rather than treat football as the finish line. Like the 32 starting quarterback jobs, there are not many pregame seats, "and I've got one." He ran through the desk: Russell Wilson, a rookie on the desk who "is going to win rookie of the year. No doubt"; Nate Burleson, who can seemingly do anything; Coach Cowher, who reminds Long of his dad; and James Brown, "triple OG certified," who worked at Fox with his father for years.

Rich asked if the alternative was Firestorm 2. Long said his hair follicles were not up to par for casting, which is why he is rooting for the follically challenged Titans coaching staff, which "either needs to win a game or go to Turkey." But 0-4 is not all the same, he said. The Texans have to figure things out too, "because this was a championship defense on paper and in conversation," and now DeMeco Ryans is taking over play calling.

That led to Denver, where Davis Webb and Sean Payton are moving to what Payton called a collaborative approach. The joke on the show was what collaborative means with Payton: "that's my PlayStation controller, buddy. You're going to have a say in it. I'll be pressing the buttons." Rich allowed that Payton might be taking stock of the pressure of calling plays, the way the show had been discussing mental health, but compared it to his own 40-yard dash: "I only know one speed."

Long agreed. "Don't let your job get in the way of your superpower," he said of Payton. "What, do you want to shake hands and kiss more babies?" Denver leans on its defense, but most of its wins have come on Bo Nix performances late in the fourth quarter "and Sean Payton dialing up some smart stuff."

On the Patriots, Rich asked whether they saved their season last week. Long said they have to feel pretty good, but that game was a stress test for Drake Maye. This week is the stress test for the offensive line, because the Raiders defense, Maxx Crosby, Malcolm Koonce, Nakobe Dean and the rest, are "not licking their wounds. I think they're licking their chops." Their thinking, in Long's words: "If we couldn't kill Patrick Mahomes, let's go after the other guy." What has really impressed him is the Patriots defense, Gabe Jacas on the outside among others, with Christian Gonzalez's health a question going forward. "It's the Patriot way, right? You get a guy that can do like six things, line him up everywhere, make him do everything."

Rich picked up on the Raiders. Everyone is focused on Kubiak bringing his offense, with Kirk Cousins keeping Fernando Mendoza in mentor mode and Ashton Jeanty and Brock Bowers looking the way they look, but Rich argued it is the defense making the Raiders "for real." Long agreed and called Cousins a Toyota: "You don't even have to think about it. You know it's going to start. You know it's going to run." Reminded that "this is a Hyundai show," he pivoted to the Elantra, a car that "gets you from A to B as quickly and safely as possible," and then "you can throw some rims on that bad boy, too. And that's what they've done." The Raiders, he said, "isn't just a gritty bunch punching up anymore. They're in the same weight class now as these bigger teams and they're out to prove it. They got to do it against the Patriots."

Asked for the best team in the NFL through four weeks, Long called the 49ers "a pretty damn complete football team," then turned to Chicago. He had real concerns about the Bears defense, but called it "above and beyond, in my opinion, the best third down defense in the National Football League," and getting Kyler Gordon back helps the secondary and the blitz package. Then there is Tyson Bagent, who did not complain when Case Keenum went out there, and who now gets a shot to beat up on the Packers at Lambeau. Long called the quarterback shuffle "so Ben Johnson psychopath move behavior. I love it." This team, he said, "feels like destiny."

Rich asked whether Caleb Williams's hamstring injury could help in the long run. Long thinks it can, if Williams watches how "efficient and on time the trains are running" with the backups. Everyone knows Williams can improvise once the pocket breaks down. The doubt has been whether he can hit the top of his drop and "deliver the strike on time in rhythm." If he learns that, "look out everybody because the Bears are going to be scoring 65 points every week."

Before signing off, Rich asked Long to put a question to Russell Wilson and Nate Burleson about who was with them for some of their first TV work, and Long admitted, "I got to pinch myself sometimes." Long noted Johnson lasted 14 years and asked how long Rich has been running his 40. Rich answered 20, which Long compared to Bruce Matthews. Long also confirmed his father once locked him and Chris in a room to watch Firestorm, and then left to take his daughter to tennis. The real message was the earlier one. Fine, as Long put it, is "not the finish line."