There’s no shortage of tough guys in the NFL. Some are just tougher than others.

Take new Raiders starting right guard Mike Brisiel, for example. He took toughness to a new level last year with the Houston Texans in a Week 14 game against Cincinnati. He played the entire game despite breaking his leg in the second quarter.

Brisiel shrugged it off as if he continued playing that game with a hangnail.

“It was a fibula. It wasn’t like the main weight-bearing bone or anything,” Brisiel said. “It was a one-time thing. I wouldn’t have changed anything if I had to do it over again.”

No big deal? Well, soon after Houston’s 20-19 win, Brisiel had to undergo surgery.

“I had to get a plate put in it with six screws in my leg, but, you know, [for] linemen, the fibula’s a common bone to break, just because you’re getting rolled up on a lot,” Brisiel said.

Brisiel missed three games but returned to start two playoff games, first against the Bengals and then the Ravens.

The Raiders signed Brisiel to a five-year, $20 million free agent contract during the offseason. They targeted him in large part because of his experience in Houston’s zone blocking scheme, which new Raiders offensive coordinator Greg Knapp has installed. Knapp was Houston’s quarterbacks coach last season, and new Raiders line coach Frank Pollack was an assistant O-line coach for the Texans.

Yet when you ask Raiders coach Dennis Allen what he likes about Brisiel, he skips right over the Xs and Os.

“Tough. Tough. He’s the type of player that we want,” Allen said. “Whether he’s the best athlete or not out there, he’s got that mentality that we preach on a day in and day out basis. He is a very mentally and physically tough football player. The more guys you can get that fit that quality, it permeates the locker room, and that’s what we’re looking for.”

Starting right tackle Khalif Barnes described Brisiel as “a tough SOB.”

“Off the field he’s a great guy. He’s my roommate and an [easy-going] guy, but on the field it’s good for me because I know that whatever happens during the course of a game, unless he’s about to die or something, he’s not coming off that field,” Barnes said.

The 6-foot-5, 310-pound Brisiel seems almost embarrassed by the tough-guy talk and the attention. He’s not used to being in the spotlight. He came the NFL in 2006 as an undrafted rookie from Colorado State. He was released three times by Houston, including once from the practice squad, before finally playing four games late in the 2007 season.

“I don’t know if it’s so much toughness,” Brisiel said. “I don’t like to get beat and don’t like to embarrass myself out there. And I’m not the most athletic guy, so I try to find any way possible to get the job done. That’s my mentality.”

Brisiel, coincidentally, first hurt his leg during a 25-20 loss to the Raiders on Oct. 9.

“I got rolled up on,” Brisiel said. “I had a hot spot on the bone. It wasn’t quite a stress fracture, but the doctor described it like a paper clip. You keep bending a paper clip, it changes colors and gets weaker, but it’s not like it’s broken or anything. And then in the Cincy game it finally broke all the way through. It was one of those things. I knew it was going to break sooner or later. It was just, try to keep going as long as possible.

“In the second quarter, I had noticed my leg swelled up pretty big. I told the trainers, ‘Something’s possibly wrong with my leg.’ He was like, ‘How bad does it hurt?’ I was like, ‘It’s not too bad.’ But toward the fourth quarter it was bothering me a little bit.”

Follow Raiders reporter Eric Gilmore on Twitter: @CBSSportsNFLOAK.