KALISPELL, Mont. – Throughout his life, Chris Long has taken the road less traveled.

The former Rams No. 2 pick spent eight seasons in St. Louis without a single playoff appearance.

But, the path eventually led him to some rarefied air. Long is one of six players in NFL history to win a Super Bowl with two different teams in back-to-back years. 

“It’s more about, if anything, just picking the right team in free agency,” Long laughed. “It came down to Atlanta and New England for me in free agency. The reason I didn’t go to Atlanta is the traffic and the fact that Dan Quinn told me I was going to be playing inside all of the time, which I ended up doing in anyways in New England.

“But, the funniest thing is I’m sitting there at the half and I’m down 28-3 to Atlanta. I’m like, ‘Bro, you are cursed.’

“It wasn’t like I was a key guy on that team, but I’ll never forget that whole experience because for me – as a human being and a football player – I was hanging on a thread. Didn’t know if I wanted to keep going. Had we not won that game, I don’t have the confidence to play with some house money and go play in Philly. Philly was the greatest experience I’ve ever had in my life as a football player. It’s like playing in Chicago or playing somewhere where football is religion. For us to be that team, being like the ’85 Bears or that first group – I’m just so lucky man.”

But Chris shares his good fortune.

The Walter Payton Man of the Year donated his entire 2017 salary to charity.

“I wrestle with this – do I do it quietly or do we announce it as part of an initiative? The reason we went with the initiative is because Philly fans and fans around the league matched our donation. If I was prideful enough to just be like, ‘I’m going to do it by myself, quietly because I don’t want to make this look like I’m just doing this for…’ then we would have left a million dollars on the table, which is not going to necessarily change the world in one fell swoop, but that’s what we’re doing.”

The Chris Long Foundation is taking its charitable efforts to new heights through The Waterboys – a team of players, coaches, and fans Long brought together to tackle one of the world’s biggest problems after a life-changing experience climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro.

“I came home. The Ice Bucket Challenge thing was going on. I remember watching people dumping water. I was like, ‘This is a great cause, but where I just was there’s no clean water for miles. Most people in Sub-Saharan Africa either deal with this problem or know people that deal with this problem on a really tough scale. We started doing solar-powered wells and we haven’t stopped.”

Long is halfway to his goal of bringing a million people clean water.

“It’s a responsibility, honestly. I’m proud that we’ve done it, but the goal initially was 32 wells for 32 teams. We surpassed that I think one of those Super Bowl weekends and it was like icing on the cake.

“‘Oh, by the way, you guys just hit your goal.’ So, we had to think of a new goal. The people serve model, although one million people is a drop in the bucket compared to the total amount of people around the world that don’t have access to clean water, it’s made a real difference. You know it when you go and bring people over to Tanzania. You show them, ‘Hey, this is a prospective well site. They meet the people. They see what it’s all about. Then, we take them to a place where we’ve actually drilled a solar-powered well that’s going to serve five to seven thousand people in a lot of situations. In one donation, somebody can really provide a generation of people in mass this gift that you just can’t go without.

“When you implement a clean water solution, the burden of going to gather this water is alleviated – that falls squarely on [women and girls] shoulders. In east Africa, its a dangerous trek to walk four miles and go gather water often from an unclean source anyway. Education is improved because kids are in school. Kids aren’t dying. Agriculture improves.

“We work with a lot of Maasai. We work with a lot of people in rural areas. People are really spread out. This is the way you know it’s actually working – when you put a well in the middle, people congregate. Communities form around the well. You know it is paramount to them and that is what is important to me.

“Are we doing the right thing? Are we hitting the right note? Are we providing a real solution? I think we are. It motivates me to do the other half million. We’ll keep the pedal to the medal.”