Falcons' Gonzalez refuses to act his age

As constant as “Meet the Press.”

Surviving a cannibalistic profession does not come without great effort. Gonzalez works out while you recline. He carefully fuels up while you snack. As the author of a diet book and founder of a nutritional supplement company, Gonzalez doesn’t just eat his food, he vets it. Each morsel must earn its way to his digestive tract.

The Falcons never-ending tight end also has heredity on his side. Look at mom. “She’s 65 years old, and she looks about 45. She’s Tina Turner-like, ripped up, muscled,” brags Judy Gonzalez’s boy.

Still, as a 15th year of professional football opens for Gonzalez today in Chicago, a 15th year of linebackers and safeties lining up to take aim at his connective tissue, the extraordinary breadth of his career defies easy explanation. The usual reasons wear thin after so long, leaving one to wonder what potion, or charm or Faustian bargain is at work here?

And then you find that he has outlasted even the supernatural explanations.

When Gonzalez entered the NFL in 1997, his mother presented him with a pendant that was inscribed on one side with a Chinese character representing “longevity,” and on the other with one meaning “protection.” He wore that like a talisman, and it worked, year after uninterrupted year in Kansas City. Then, five years ago while surfing in Costa Rica, a big wave snatched it off his neck. The superstitious part of him freaked. But still, Gonzalez played on without incident (just to be safe, his mother bought a replacement in San Francisco’s Chinatown).

“I guess it’s about what’s inside, more than wearing a charm,” Gonzalez said.

This is how long Gonzalez has persevered: As a senior in California, he was named a co-winner of the Orange County high school athlete of the year, sharing the title with Tiger Woods. Consider how time has nibbled away even at the body of golfer, and how the trials of Woods’ own making have weighed him down and aged him before his time. Meanwhile, the 35-year-old tight end has scarcely broken stride.

Seeing Gonzalez limping around with a damaged ankle at the close of last season’s playoff loss to Green Bay was as close as anyone has come at glimpsing his professional mortality. He had caught only one pass in that game and was devastated by yet another early postseason exit.

“I was really [angry] about the loss,” he said. “I felt we had underachieved.” And underachievement is at least a venal sin in Gonzalez World.

So, for about a millisecond, Gonzalez thought about retiring.

“It didn’t take me that long to say ‘I feel good, I’m going to come back.’ I thought about the pros and cons. The cons didn’t even come close,” he said.

Which brings us to this, the beginning of a Falcons season of great expectation, one in which Sports Illustrated’s Peter King preordained them Super Bowl champions.

With his contract and its $5.75 million base salary expiring this year, Gonzalez is set up for one last run at a meaningful season. (There is no guarantee, however, he will not seek a new contract somewhere next year. He keeps taking his veggie protein and his fish oil and feels fit enough right now to play a couple more years, he says.)

Included on the Falcons 2011 to-do list is this: Excise the one great asterisk from Gonzalez’s career.

Re-signed this year by the team that drafted him in 1999, Reggie Kelly backs up Gonzalez.

He has played nearly as long as Gonzalez without amassing anywhere near his gaudy numbers — just 875 fewer catches, 10,703 fewer yards, 83 fewer touchdowns, that’s all. But Kelly has something Gonzalez doesn’t: a single playoff victory (with the Falcons in 2002, over Green Bay).

He certainly would like to help rectify that grievous inequity. “You definitely want to play for a guy like that,” Kelly said. “You want to sacrifice so that, when he does retire, he can look back on all the hard work and know that it has equaled being successful.”

Three times, twice with Kansas City and last year with the Falcons, Gonzalez’s team has entered the postseason 13-3, only to be dismissed in the first round. Overall, his playoff record is 0-4.

The victories of Tony Gonzalez are measured in stats, the ones that will lead his parade from here to Canton (Ohio, not Georgia). Among tight ends, he is the NFL’s career leader in receptions, touchdowns and 1,000-yard seasons. Among all species of receivers, he is sixth all time in catches and could climb to No. 2 with an average season. “Being behind Jerry Rice is not a bad thing,” he said.

Last season, he had his fewest number of receptions (70) since 2002 and fewest receiving yards (656) since 1998, and still was second on the Falcons in both categories.

Entering his third Falcons season, Gonzalez has not had a tangible impact on the January bottom line. Beyond providing Matt Ryan a when-all-else-fails target, he acts as the conscience of a team learning to win.

He has proven to be the practice field example, an All Pro with the work habits of a desperate rookie. The drudgery of the football routine likely will drive him into retirement before his body breaks down, but still he commits.

“It’s tedious, monotonous work. Going over the same thing over and over, but that’s what football takes and that’s what makes football players great,” he said. “After 15 years, do I really need to go out there and run another corner route? Yeah, I do. But I get tired of it.”

When the Falcons signed Gonzalez, they also gained an unofficial team nutritionist.

Tuesday, the team’s off day, tackle Sam Baker called Gonzalez to ask about cutting beef from his dinner menu.

On the tight end’s prodding, receiver Roddy White is now eating oatmeal for breakfast. In the lunch line at camp, linebacker Curtis Lofton will bring his filled plate to Gonzalez for approval. Tight ends coach Chris Scelfo has lost around 30 pounds on Gonzalez’s diet, and another coach told him he has been inspired to kick his addiction to bacon.

“I still haven’t gotten through to Terry, though,” Gonzalez said from his locker Wednesday, just loudly enough to be heard by receivers coach Terry Robiskie as he passed.

All Gonzalez asks in return for his good work is one significant postseason run.

At the close of the first workout of training camp, defensive end John Abraham broke the team huddle with an exhortation to make this a special season for aging pros like himself and Gonzalez.

“We’ve got a special team; we have a great opportunity here,” Gonzalez said. “If we can just build on what we did last year, we have a legitimate shot.”

So, when the team is up against it and all the other rallying cries have been spent, would he resort to playing the win-one-for-Tony card?

“If it works, yeah. I’ll stand up in front of the whole stadium and say win one for me, please,” Gonzalez laughed.

Numbers from a long, proud career

12,463 - Career receiving yards, making Gonzalez the 17th player in NFL history to surpass the 12,000 mark.

1,069 - Career receptions, sixth all-time.

118.7 - Gonzalez’s career passer rating. In 2001, he completed his only pass attempt for a 40-yard gain. Matt Ryan’s career rating is 86.9.

88 - Career receiving touchdowns, tied with Don Maynard for 10th all-time. He needs three more to catch No. 9 Isaac Bruce.

70 - Consecutive games started, since missing his last one in 2006. He missed two games with injury since taking over the starting job in Kansas City in 1998.

6 - Career fumbles in 222 games played, none as a Falcon.

0 - Playoff games won.