[Times photo: Toni Sandys] Randall McDaniel has broken or sprained every finger in his 13-year career.

Twisted story

Battles between offensive and defensive linemen are brutal in the NFL. Bucs guard Randall McDaniel has the scars from more than a decade of hand-to-hand combat to prove it.

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By RICK STROUD

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 30, 2000

ORLANDO -- His Hall of Fame career is not over after 12 seasons, he is with a bona fide championship contender and nobody is more deserving. But Randall McDaniel already knows that he will walk away from the National Football League without ever having slipped a Super Bowl ring over his finger.

No siree. Not a chance. McDaniel says his ring will have to be a clip-on.

Take a close look at McDaniel's hands. They are large mitts, with knuckles swollen the size of golf balls and thick fingers that are each bent in opposite directions.

Every digit on McDaniel's hands has been dislocated, broken or sprained -- some more than once -- during his pro career.

"My hands are my livelihood. If I can't get my hands on somebody, then that makes me work a little bit harder," McDaniel said. "But I won't be a hand model when I'm through playing, I'll tell you that. That is not going to happen. I won't play the piano."

But because McDaniel's fingers are so mangled, a lot of quarterbacks are not.

Despite the finger lickings, the 11-time Pro Bowl guard has started 170 straight games. But while he has no problem playing every quarter, don't ask him to pick one off the ground.

When McDaniel tries to straighten his fingers, they still have more twists than a good mystery novel.

"The last one to go was my ring finger," said McDaniel, flashing a gold wedding band. "I've got the ring on it, but it's a clip-on ring. I sized it up to an 18 to get it over the knuckle. But now it's just sized for under the knuckle because I just clip it on."

At least McDaniel was warned. As a rookie with the Minnesota Vikings, he used to tease tackle Gary Zimmerman, whose hands were twisted like pretzels.

"I used to make fun of his hands because he had surgery on them and had pins put in them to keep his fingers straight," McDaniel said. "And he said, "Wait until your fifth year and it happens to you.' I just kept laughing, saying, "It's never going to happen.'

"The first one to go was my pinkie finger on my left hand. I stuck it in there on a pad, I can't remember the guy, and I didn't want to let him get to the quarterback so I held on with only my pinkie. I go back to the huddle and the pinkie is pointing the wrong way. So that was the first dislocation. Like I said, they're important so you end up taping them together."

When McDaniel dislocated the index finger of his left hand later that season, his hands were wrapped into a Vulcan greeting.

"Are you a Star Trek fan? I started taping my fingers like Spock," McDaniel said. "Live long and prosper."

Being an offensive lineman, McDaniel learned that no matter how severe the pain, he could not go off the field every time one of his fingers bent at a right angle in the wrong direction.

It's a credo he passed on to younger linemates.

"We were playing Washington, I think in '95, and we had a kid on our team named Bernard Dafney. He dislocated his ring finger, and he ran off the field crying," McDaniel said. "And I was yelling at him, "You can't leave. Suck it up. You're a lineman. You've got to come back.' But he runs off the field because he can't take it. And I'm standing there thinking, "Man I can't believe it. Kids nowadays.' Because I had Zimmerman teach me to stay in no matter what. You pull it back into place yourself.

"He comes back two plays later and I ask him, "Man, are you all right now?' But he doesn't even notice, that the play he came back in, I dislocated the ring finger. It turns to the right now, but it was pointed over and down the backside of my pinkie. I went back to the huddle and was looking at him and I wanted to run off the field. But I told him "You can't leave the field,' so I turned my back and put it back into place. So then the trainer came out during the break and went from the Spock taping, then I tape three fingers together on my left hand and all four fingers now move as one. So I'm like a penguin out there."

Of course, it wouldn't be right for all of McDaniel's dislocations to be on his left.

"I made it through a year where I re-did the same ones over again. Then I went over to the right hand," McDaniel said. "I dislocated the pinkie. I dislocated the one next to it and now that one points to the right instead of going straight ahead. Then the rest of them on my right hand were just the ends of them, sprained or dislocated, and they're aching, because you used them to hold on all the time."

McDaniel refuses knuckle under to the pain during the season, but admits the off-season is different.

"It's funny, during the season, you can beat them up and I'll keep going," McDaniel said. "But if I'm walking down the street in the off-season, and if I happened to bump it or catch it on a door or something, I scream and yell bloody murder. But during the season, I just know it's part of it. In the off-season, I'm crying. From this point on, you won't hear me crying or complaining about them. We're into the season and it's expected."

"They're going to get beat up early this season. But they should be fine. When the season is over, I've got time to let them heal. I've been around so long that I've got my own therma bath thing at home. When I get up in the morning, I dip them in there, loosen them up."

McDaniel used to see a hand specialist at the end of every season. Then he figured, what's the use?

"The last two seasons, I said, "(Forget) that. When I quit playing, if they want to straighten them back up straight, then I'll do it," McDaniel said. "For now, if I want to point over to my right, I've got to point to my left first."

As for the Super Bowl ring? Well, McDaniel is keeping his fingers crossed.

© St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved.

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