Former Raiders guard Steve Wisniewski is, for the third time, a semifinalist for consideration on the Pro Football Hall of Fame's Modern-Era ballot, after being a semifinalist last year and in 2014.

Wisniewski is an eight-time Pro Bowler, a seven-time first- or second-team All-Pro and a member of the Hall's all-decade team for the 1990s. A few years ago, he was featured in "If These Walls Could Talk: Stories from the Raiders' Sideline, Locker Room and Press Box" with Lincoln Kennedy and Paul Gutierrez.

For a deeper dive into who Wisniewski is and what made him tick, following is his chapter:

STEVE WISNIEWSKI: TENACIOUS, NOT DIRTY

Steve Wisniewski was a fixture at guard for the Raiders from 1989 through 2001, only missing two games in his 13-year career, none in his final 10 seasons. After playing at right guard as a rookie he moved to the left and was an eight-time Pro Bowler, a two-time first-team All-Pro selection and was on the Pro Football Hall of Fame's all-1990s second team. A previous semifinalist for Hall consideration, Wisniewski has also worked as an offensive line assistant coach at Stanford and with the Raiders, in 2011. Wisniewski joined Lincoln Kennedy and Paul Gutierrez for a conversation on Zoom in March 2021.

You've been a bridge for the Raiders for many years, playing in Los Angeles and Oakland, and for coaches from Mike Shanahan to Art Shell to Mike White to Joe Bugel to Jon Gruden. So what does it mean to you to be a Raider?

Being a Raider is something that you are. It's someone that you are in your core, not something that you do. Never once in my professional career did I say I was employed by the Raiders and to this day I say I am a Raider. It's about being part of a legacy, a family. As a player, every time I stepped on the field I felt like I represent those that come before me and that's very different from other teams around the league. I was going to play for 60 minutes. And to break that down further, it meant that I was going to play until the whistle blew. And maybe to the echo of the whistle. Further, it meant to me, I am going to embody what it means to be a Raider, I won't back down from anyone. I have in my ethos, the spirit to play anyone, anywhere at any time, and I will expend myself fully in that effort. And I didn't care about your color, your race, your political affiliation, your religion. Honestly, if you would do the same, I would love you and defend you like a brother.

And the guys I modeled myself after were Matt Millen, through my Penn State connection, and my older brother, Leo, has been best friends with Matt since the late '70s, and Howie Long, who I had a chance to play with for five years, and Don Mosebar. We got guys who came to the team and Lincoln, right away, I knew I was going to love Lincoln because every single Sunday he brought it. Everything he had.

There always seems to be confusion over how you got to the Raiders in 1989, so how, exactly, did it happen?

Draft Day, I came home from a quiet morning at church, I wanted to be alone with my fiancé and see what played out. There were no cell phones and we were just watching it on one television. Well, my Penn State teammates came over and we had 150 people in this one-bedroom apartment, everyone spilling out into the quad. I couldn't really see or hear much because it was so loud in the apartment and the first round came and went. Nothing. A commercial ends and then we see on the ticker at the bottom of the screen – second round, first pick, Penn State guard Steve Wisniewski, by the Dallas Cowboys. We all cheered and yelled and hollered. Because I'm from Houston and I'd be going back to Texas I thought it was great. I could play in front of some family members.

So, we're still cheering and celebrating and the phone rings. I pick it up. I could not hear much because it was so loud in this place and someone on the other end is mumbling about the Los Angeles Raiders. It sounded like Roger Duffy, my center at Penn State who would go on to play with the Jets. So I just say, "Hey, Roger, someone might call. Hang up and get up here and grab a beer." Thirty seconds later the phone rings again and I pick it up. The guy on the other end says, "Steve, this is Mike Shanahan, head coach of the Los Angeles Raiders, don't hang up. We just traded for your rights." I put the phone to my chest and yell out, "Hey, I've been traded. I'm a Raider."

And we all cheered again. And because of my connection to Matt Millen, I had a Real Men Wear Black T-shirt and I put it on. I was thrilled. I was traded from Dallas along with a sixth-round pick, which turned out to be Jeff Francis, for the Raiders' second round pick, third-round pick and a fifth-rounder. Those guys ended up being Moose Johnston, Rhondy Weston and Willis Crocket. I guess the Cowboys won that deal, huh?

You blocked for the likes of Marcus Allen and Bo Jackson, so what was it like to do your job and look up and see those guys break a long run and how strange was it when Bo went down in that playoff game against the Bengals in January of 1991?

I had the opportunity to block for so many great running backs. Marcus Allen. Bo Jackson. Eric Dickerson. Roger Craig. Napoleon Kaufman. Tyrone Wheatley. Charlie Garner. I'm sure I'm missing somebody. My feeling was they're the best in the world at what they do, so I want to give them every opportunity to make a play. You never knew where they were going to go so you had to play through the whistle. Every time. It could be a sweep to the right and then Marcus could reverse field, as we saw him do many times, right? And Bo, we knew he had a chance to break off a run on any given down. Bo Jackson was the best athlete I've ever been around in my life. He was an all-star in baseball and named to the Pro Bowl, when it really meant something because your peers voted you in then.

When Bo went down, we just thought, We'll keep playing, he'll be fine. He was such a powerful, strong, physical guy. His physique looked like it should have been a statue somewhere. He'll walk it off, shrug it off. I never thought it was a significant injury, when you compared it to major collisions you would see. So sad. I can't believe he got hurt on such an average play.

Tell us about that game in Chicago against Alonzo Spellman in 1996.

I didn't pre-meditate that I was going to hunt down Alonzo Spellman, but he was a trash-talker and he just started trash-talking my left tackle, Robert Jenkins, a vet, saying everything he was going to do in the game and he was going to make Robert quit and I just said, "I am going to hunt him down, today. I am going to hunt him this whole game, Robert."

He primarily had to block Spellman so if I was blocking to the right, and I was done, I'd turn and find Spellman and I'd go hit him. Face to face, now. I wasn't chop-blocking him, but it didn't matter who I was blocking. When I was done, until the whistle blew, I was going to go up and hit him.

Yeah, he literally started crying. He had meltdowns on the sideline, I think they took him out after the third quarter. There was no flag thrown for any kind of penalty on my part because I always fronted him up, the whistle hadn't blown, but funny enough, that week I got fined $15,000 from the National Football League. They said I used "Excessive Use of Force." That's a thing? That's like a law enforcement term, isn't it? We went through the hearing and they said I was blocking away from the course of the play and that was excessive use of force. We were like, But there was no penalty, no flag thrown. So they changed the rules, where you can't block away from the course of the play. Ballcarrier's 15 yards to the right, you can't block on the backside, or it's a penalty.

David Goggins, former Navy SEAL, he's the author of the book "Can't Hurt Me," he talks about it as stealing men's souls. To me, it was getting in their head, and just knowing for 60 minutes, I will hunt you down and, just like a barking dog, I am going to be on your heels.

You were labeled as one of the dirtiest players in the game, which I always had a problem with because you were just tenacious, in my book. Does it bother you to have had to carry that label?

It doesn't bother me at all. It's probably the best PR I could have got as a Raider. I never swore, I never used foul language, I never disrespected anyone I played against. Never spit on anyone. No one I ever played against had to be carted off on a stretcher because I injured them with a cheap hit. And, I'd shake anybody's hand after a game if they wanted to shake mine. But for 60 minutes, I was going try to kill you, and I'd expect you to try to do the same to me. And I had some friendships off the field with guys I played against. Cortez Kennedy was one of them. I was supposed to go up to Alaska with him before he passed away.

What was an "attitude adjustment" in the locker room, and what was a "pin move" on the field?

An attitude adjustment? Man, we could all use an attitude adjustment from time to time, right? Let's differentiate. This was not hazing, this was not a fraternity prank. This is a beat-down in love. Sometimes a guy gets squirrely, he doesn't have that attitude like he wants to perform or practice or he's doing something stupid, we would joke and say we were going to give him an attitude adjustment. It could be putting a guy in a dumpster. It could be messing with his jock. It could be pinning him down and tickling him. Slapping him on the back of the neck. But these were not life-threatening things. These were just things to say, Hey, man, we're all in this together. Get your mind right. Honestly, we all could use an attitude adjustment from time to time. That was the team policing itself and the team coaching itself. And believe me, the coaches appreciated it.

The pin move, when I got in the league in 1989, I literally cried myself to sleep at night. I was on the scout team, going against Howie Long, playing right guard at that time. Talk about giving yourself a confidence problem. The guy was a Pro Bowler, he was a beast, people were afraid of him, he was a former Golden Gloves boxer and I prepared for practice like it was a war. I'm going to kick his butt. I'm going to get him. I did not back down from Howie Long. I earned his respect right away and he would go as hard as he could in practice. With whatever reps he took, it was going to be full speed. As a rookie, man, I go home after taking scout-team reps and first-team reps. I was exhausted. I always felt like, Man, he's getting the best of me. I suck. I just felt terrible. But it was a way of getting me better.

The pin move, Howie used to love to throw a rip, a heavy rip, because back in those days, guys used to be able to club you. Not in the head, but they would use a heavy club to hit your shoulder pads or a heavy rip to drive their arm up and in. And when Howie used to drive his arm up and in my shoulder pad, I found out real quick if I just jammed his hip, it only takes about 15 pounds of pressure on his hip, to torque him. Bend him backwards and drop him right in place. I got good at that. With the pin move, guys who would throw a heavy rip, you could drop them right in place. It worked real well against Howie and he's like, "Damn, what are you doing? How are you doing that?" Nowadays they kind of call holding on that. It really isn't holding. You're just collapsing a guy's hip. A different era, a different time. They let us get away with a little bit more then. But that was the pin move.

But to finish the Howie story, I honestly felt like I sucked. But after my second year in the NFL, I was voted to my first Pro Bowl. And that was by the grace of God, only because I had to go against Howie every single day. I mean, there was no one I was going to face in a game that was going to match what I had to practice against.

How unique is that brotherhood on the offensive line, and how did you know it was time to retire after Gruden convinced you to return for one more season?

Joe Bugel was one of the finest offensive line coaches in the NFL…but we honestly didn't need a coach, in the sense that we were going to push ourselves. We were going to work hard on a daily basis, and later in our career, sometimes our coach would get mad at us and storm off the field and we would carry on. We would push ourselves through practice. If I can say what the culture is missing nowadays in the NFL, it's the lack of leadership. The lack of buy-in. Very few teams have units that say, "Hey, coach, go on in, we've got this." No one was going to slack. I felt like I owed it to Lincoln to play every down and he did the same to me. I felt like I couldn't live with myself if I couldn't play for a game because I was somehow injured. I felt like I betrayed all my family members, my loved ones, if I wasn't going to step on that field, And I don't think you see that today.

There's very few teams that have that tight-knit culture. And the ones that do seem to be the best teams, right? Right now, the Kansas City Chiefs, they look like they're having fun. They have a tight-knit group and my nephew Stef (a Raiders draft pick in 2011) could attest to that. A few years back, when he was with Philadelphia, the Eagles were having fun and they had that buy-in and were effective. Back in our era, right or wrong, we killed each other in practice. Under Art Shell, it was a battle during the week, I used to joke we were the best team in the league on Wednesday or Thursday. We would expend ourselves live and then sometimes limp into the game on Sunday. I just remember a lot of Sunday mornings, getting ready to play a game thinking, Man, my body feels like crap. I just hurt all over. How am I going to do this? So I knew after 13 years it was probably time to retire.

I don't regret it, but I wish I could have been a part of that Super Bowl season but at least now I can touch my toes and I can still be active and do things I enjoy. Everyone asks, "What do you miss?" You miss the camaraderie. You miss the fun. You miss the shared life experience. Even guys I didn't play with, I'll give them a hug. But for my Raider brothers, I'll give them the shirt off my back. If it will fit.

This excerpt from If These Walls Could Talk: Raiders by Lincoln Kennedy with Paul Gutierrez is reprinted with the permission of Triumph Books. For more information and to order a copy, please visit www.TriumphBooks.com/WallsRaiders.