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Faine, Hovan Finally Will Fight As One

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By MARTIN FENNELLY | The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 31, 2008

LAKE BUENA VISTA - They were at it again, snarling before the snap, then the explosion - a punch here, a grab there, everything dripping in expletives, each man telling the other what he'd do next time.

It could have been any Bucs-Saints game the last two seasons. Jeff Faine played center for New Orleans, Chris Hovan was Bucs nose guard. They'd line up close enough to count nostril hairs, then hit each other as if shot from cannons, a combined 587 pounds of bad mood.

"I really wish the last time we played that they had me and Hovan miked," Jeff Faine said. "It got terrible. It was everything, anything you could think of. Once the fire started, it wasn't going to quit.

"I remember one play, me and Hovan were at the bottom of the pile fighting, I just happened to be on the top that time, and Derrick Brooks pulled me off and said, 'What are you guys doing?'"

They were doing what they do.

"It's football. Isn't it great?" Hovan said Wednesday.

They said the same thing as they parted last season.

"I'll see you next year."

Next year came early.

It's July. The blood has dried. They're teammates now, mutual admirers this Bucs training camp as they battle and make each other better every day.

Faine, a former Notre Dame star, went from the Saints to the Bucs in March, signing the richest NFL contract ever given to a center. Hovan, in his fourth Bucs season, again aims to be the disruptor on the defensive line.

First Guy He Saw

On Faine's first day at Bucs headquarters, Hovan was the first guy he saw.

It figured.

They stared at each other - and smiled.

"It was pretty cool how we both handled it," Faine said. "It was kind of ironic, after how we left it in New Orleans."

"It was like, OK, what the hell," Hovan said.

"I think we're kind of the same breed," Faine said.

The breed? You might want to get the kids out of the room at this point. Hovan has three children, all younger than 17 months old, including twin girls. They don't know what daddy does in the middle of the line, deep in his unadorned football world, away from the bright lights, but nevertheless where nearly every single football play begins.

None of us do.

"You have no idea," Faine said.

"It's kill or be killed," Hovan said.

"I've seen guys try to poke guys' eyes out," Faine said.

"You don't have much room to work, and you have guys on you, punching the hell out of you, clutching, grabbing," Hovan said. "I've seen guys grabbed in places you don't want to get grabbed. I got grabbed like that. I guess I beat the odds, because I still had three kids."

Meet two men born of the same football god, the god that says you're all-in all the time, and that includes practice.

Faine says there wasn't a set of two-a-days at Saints camp last year that he didn't get into a fight.

"I kind of take it over the limit," he said. "I like to take it a little far."

Bucs coach Jon Gruden apparently has talked to Faine about that. It's all quiet on the Bucs front - for now.

"Jeff has to be one of the top two or three centers in the league," Hovan said. "I'd rather have him than have to go against him. He's nasty. It's a mean streak. A lot of players are blessed with a mean streak, an attitude you have that you really can't coach."

Faine wishes NFL Films would have captured their battles.

Hovan says it wouldn't work.

"You'd have to bleep it all out. For every two words, there'd be eight expletives. That's just the way it is down in there."

They Loved Their Battles

Down in there, Jeff Faine will anchor a young, ever-improving Bucs offensive line. Chris Hovan will do the same on the other side.

"We're on the same side. We want the same thing," Hovan said.

Still, they loved their raw-meat battles ...

"That's one of the things I'm going to miss. It's not the same practicing against Chris," Faine said. "Playing against him, it was always fun, it kind of reminded me of Notre Dame-Purdue games, kind of a backyard brawl."

The highlight of Wednesday morning's practice was the famed Oklahoma drill - an offensive and defensive lineman placed between pylons, fighting it out as a runner comes through. Football doesn't get any more football than that.

On hand was Mr. Oklahoma himself, Sooners (and Bucs) Hall of Famer Lee Roy Selmon. Gruden called out the matchups.

Faine-Hovan never got called.

"I was hoping," Chris Hovan said. "I had my helmet strapped."

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