His Weight Down, Stock Up : Raiders: Once Shanahan was sacked, Townsend got back to some sacking of his own.

Yo ho ho, and another order of those potato skins, waitress.

It was early in the season and among those famous buccaneers, the Raiders, mutiny hung in the air.

That feared scalawag, Greg Townsend, was up to here with rules, reminders about his love handles, you name it.

Who else but Townsend would admit it all?

It’s a vicious struggle on those high seas. The free spirit who was once suspended for that famous “foot slap” at Kansas City and noted, “They can take the boy out of Watts, but they can’t take Watts out of the boy”, who was switched to linebacker and reported at 272 pounds, was off to a slow start: two games, no sacks and few tackles of any kind.

The coaches muttered at him continuously. On his way out of town, Matt Millen advised the defensive assistants that they better get off Townsend’s back or they would lose him.

Today, Townsend is back among the AFC sack leaders, with 9 1/2, six in the last three games.

His back is unencumbered once more, but it was nip-and-tuck for a while.

“I was probably being rebellious, I don’t know,” Townsend says. “I was just so frustrated, I didn’t care about performing for them. Not even for myself.

“I think mainly what it was was a new position, being told to do things that I’d never been told to do--and I’ve been here for a while. They start telling you to do things you don’t think are necessary, you tend to get frustrated.

“Of course, you’re always hearing about that weight problem--when you go into practice, when you come out of practice, and maybe a little bit during practice. You never heard, ‘Hey, you lost two pounds, that’s good.’ You always heard, ‘Keep losing weight.’

“And I was really trying at that point. I’m not getting commended for it, so I thought, ‘The hell with y’all.’ ”

He came to life in the third game of the season with a sack of his old rival, John Elway.

He got two more the next week.

Mike Shanahan got his the next week.

Scott Davis returned to the lineup at that point.

Howie Long started for the first time this season two weeks after that.

A week later, Townsend recorded three sacks against the Washington Redskins; then two against the Cincinnati Bengals; then one at San Diego.

What turned him around?

“The coaching change,” Townsend says. “Because I was playing for a guy who played the game. It was just like you have more respect for a person like that.

“When did I notice the difference? Tuesday afternoon. (Shanahan was fired on a Tuesday afternoon.) I read the papers. I was in my house and I felt the change right there on the spot. I was elated. I was just that much more eager to come to practice.

“Me’n the wife went out to dinner to celebrate. Not that it was good to see Mike go, but it was just good to see somebody come in that knew how to run a Raider organization the way it had always been run.”

Not that it comes up anymore, but Townsend is down to 257.

That’s 10 above his old 247 but who cares about the occasional potato skin now?

“I still do that,” Townsend says, laughing. “Monday night, I had one.

“I still binge. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not going to have lunch today. I only eat once on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Friday (weigh-in day), of course, I come in with my breakfast, I get on the scale, I jump off and I start eating.”

Maybe he could get potato skins in Honolulu?

The defending AFC sack champ, he’s got his heart set on his first Pro Bowl appearance.

“My wife talks about it all the time,” he says. “We’re talking about saving the Hawaii trip for Pro Bowl. We don’t want to go to Hawaii unless it’s a Pro Bowl trip. We talk about it but I just tell her, ‘Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched. I thought last year was going to be my big year for the Pro Bowl.’ ”

Of course, you voters should remember that no matter what it says, he’s really a defensive end, not a linebacker. No AFC end has more sacks than Townsend.

“Every chance I get--and I guess this is a good chance--I tell all the reporters I’m not a linebacker,” he says.

“I haven’t dropped off in coverage or covered anybody man to man, so you can call me a defensive end.”

Why not? Bob Golic has been in coverage more often than Townsend and he’s a nose tackle.

“He did that in the Philadelphia game,” Townsend says. “He did it last week. I got in the film room and I saw that.

“There’s a certain defense where I’m supposed to cover the open-side back. They called that defense. I was in the huddle and I thought, ‘Oh-oh, this may be my chance.’

“Soon as I said that, Emanuel King runs on the field telling me I’m out. (Laughing,) I went to the coaches and said, ‘That’s unfair. Bob Golic can cover tight ends and I’m faster than he is. You don’t have any confidence in me covering a back. You were just teasing me, letting me stay in the huddle until it’s called.’ ”

Sacks are sufficient. Townsend’s $450,000 contract is about to run out.

Those quarterbacks come with a bounty on them now.

Is this a great country, or what?

Raider Notes

Quarterback Steve Beuerlein is being listed as questionable for Sunday’s game at Houston. He practiced Wednesday, looking improved over last week. . . . Linebacker Jerry Robinson, out for two weeks with a concussion, also returned to practice.