"Is he crazy? Is he psycho?" Harris said. "Is there something wrong with his wiring? I just had to figure it out."

And?

	“	When we won the Super Bowl my first two years I thought, 'This is easy.' But after three NFC Championship game losses -- and a couple of years in Philly -- I realized how special it is. I tell my teammates -- this is once in a lifetime. Don't gauge your thinking by me, because I'm very rare. ”
		— Bill Romanowski, Raiders linebacker

"He's soft, real soft," Harris said with a chuckle before coming to his senses this week. "No, no. Don't put that. You can't write that. He would kill me."

Funny thing is, he might. Bill Romanowski has made a career out of killing people. Quarterbacks, receivers, running backs. Anybody who either a) Wears the opposing team's jersey or b) Gets in his way.

He doesn't care if you don't like him. In fact, he probably prefers it. He spends five hours a day preparing and pampering his body to avoid injury come Sunday, and then he goes out and tries to lay the thickest, loudest hits on people as often as he can. It's almost as if he's trying to test his shock-absorbing pads to see how much they can handle.

On this laid-back, relatively dull Raiders team that is anything but the hard-hitting, Harley-riding psychos of the past, Romanowski reminds you just what it means to be a Raider.

"I play the way I play," Romanowski said. "Some people call me dirty, a lot of people don't like me. But I don't care. The way I see it -- if I wasn't good they wouldn't care."

It works. Romanowski has been to four Super Bowls. He has won four Super Bowls. Should the Raiders beat Tampa Bay on Sunday, he'll join Charles Haley as the only player to fill one entire hand with Super Bowl rings.

And to think, he shouldn't even be here. To think, if not for a disparaging but honest comment from Mike Shanahan, he'd probably still be a Denver Bronco.

It was last offseason when Shanahan pulled the 36-year-old in his office and, as Romanowski puts it, told him that he knew he was the best linebacker on the team, but he wanted to try and give Ian Gold a chance. If Gold fulfilled expectations, he would be the starter. If not, it was Romo's job.

Needless to say, that didn't sit well. It still doesn't.

"When your coach tells you that if you have normal reps, nobody can beat you out, but he's going to give somebody else the chance to do just that," Romanowski said, "that means he doesn't want the best players on the field. And I didn't want any part of that."

Walking out of Shanahan's office, Romo called his agent. "I told him, 'Tell them to release me right now.' " Five minutes later, he was a free agent. And he knew where he wanted to go -- Oakland.

Later that day, he called Al Davis and left a simple message. "I told his secretary to tell Mr. Davis that I want to help him win another Super Bowl." After relaying the message, Davis secretary replied later in the day, "Mr. Davis thinks you would look great in silver and black."

In 15 NFL seasons, Romanowski has never missed a game, playing in 240 straight. It's a testament to work. If Rich Gannon is the mental geek who slaves over game film and the playbook before each game, Romanowski is a body geek. A body freak. Everywhere he goes, he totes a suitcase-sized pillbox. In it, all the supplements and nutrients you could dream of.

At home, he has a portable hyperbolic chamber that pumps oxygen into his body at high pressure, allowing his body a quicker recovery time after games and workouts.

A typical in-season day? Up at 6:30 for an hour of massages, acupuncture and other alternative therapies. Then he stretches for an hour, practices, lifts weights for an hour after practice and then has three more hours of bodywork after that. He estimates he has spent $150,000 to $200,000 on such precautions in his career.

"I do so many things, I don't know exactly what each does," he said. "I just do them all and they work."

Said Harris: "He's the first one there and the last one to leave every single day. Nobody takes care of themselves better. And it's paid off."

It should be noted that following his 13th season, Romanowski was accused of obtaining phentermine, an appetite suppressant, that had been prescribed for his wife, Julie. He eventually pleaded guilty to a single misdemeanor charge.

Yet there's still that attitude. On the first day of training camp, he was disciplined for a hard hit on running back Madre Hill. He was later fined in an exhibition game for ripping off the helmet of Tennessee running back Eddie George.

But perhaps he's best known for his nationally televised 1997 spitting incident, in which a wired Romanowski shot saliva on the face of San Francisco receiver J.J. Stokes.

"I play very angry," he says. "It's an all-week process. I don't like who I'm playing against and they don't like me."

Still, the married man and father of a 9- and 6-year-old has a softer side. Or at least an introspective one. After surviving 15 years in the league, avoiding injury and playing in five Super Bowls, he has learned to be appreciative.

"When we won the Super Bowl my first two years I thought, 'This is easy.' But after three NFC Championship game losses -- and a couple of years in Philly -- I realized how special it is," Romanowski said. "I tell my teammates -- this is once in a lifetime. Don't gauge your thinking by me, because I'm very rare."

Wayne Drehs is a staff writer for ESPN.com