#38

 

ERIC DICKERSON

There are great athletes who combine talent, hard work and team play and find a way into the hearts of the American sports fan. Then there are athletes who have talent and ability, care little about team play, and still find a way to dominate.

The latter description sums up Eric Dickerson in a nutshell. Dickerson broke the NFL record for rushing yards in a season in his second year and appeared to be an unstoppable force. However, despite posting 11,226 rushing yards over his first seven NFL seasons, holdouts, perceived slights, and frequent moves kept him from becoming the player he might have been.

Nobody was more impressed with Dickerson’s talent than the late Walter Payton, who held the NFL rushing record until Emmitt Smith passed him. Payton loved watching Dickerson’s ultra-smooth running style and thought that when Dickerson was with the Rams, he had a chance to take the all-time rushing record, stuff it in his back pocket and take it out past the 20,000-yard mark.

Dickerson was a dominant running back but the underlying theme when one looks at his career is that he could have done so much more. However, what he did do was quite impressive and made him a worthy Hall of Fame enshrinee in 1999.

Go back to his rookie season in 1983. That was the year of the great quarterback draft class that included John Elway and Dan Marino, but Dickerson was the class’s top running back. The record-setting back out of Southern Methodist University was selected with the second overall pick by the Los Angeles Rams.

Dickerson was as nervous as he could be at the start of his rookie campaign, fumbling six times in the first few weeks of the season. However, he turned the corner with an 85-yard TD run against the Jets and the yards and touchdowns started piling up after that. Dickerson finished his rookie season with 1,808 yards (a record for rookies) on 390 carries. He posted 18 rushing touchdowns (also a record for rookies) and added 51 receptions out of the backfield.

Considering how shaky Dickerson was at the start of the season it was an amazing performance. “I was so nervous in my first few games,” Dickerson said. “Especially that first game. When I put my helmet on I could not remember a thing about the play that was called, what I was supposed to do or anything. I could barely remember to breathe.”

Even if he was nervous, Dickerson still gained 255 yards in his first three games. However, his breakout performance against the Jets served notice regarding what kind of back he would be in the NFL. He rushed for 192 yards and two touchdowns in the game, including the aforementioned 85-yarder that showed his remarkable speed with the ball in his hands.

It also showed off Dickerson’s unique running style. Dickerson defied convention and NFL logic by running the ball with a straight-up stance. Instead of crouching and making himself low as he prepared to cut, Dickerson would run fully erect and seemingly leave himself as a target for marauding linebackers and defensive backs.

Head coach John Robinson was clearly worried about Dickerson, but the running back had no concerns at all about taking hellacious shots. “I run upright mostly when I see daylight, so if you watch film you’ll see I don’t get hit in the chest much,” Dickerson said. “They can’t hit what they can’t catch.”

Dickerson’s analysis was fairly accurate. He almost never got hit with the full-out shots that other backs absorbed. He had the ability to accelerate when he sensed contact was about to come. “I knew when I was about to get hit,” Dickerson said. “I would try to turn it up another notch or make a move. I did not want to get hit and I was pretty good at making them miss.”

After his brilliant rookie season, Dickerson went on to have the most prolific year any running back has ever had. His 2,105 yards in 1984 is a record that still stands 25 years later and included four games of 175 rushing yards or more and 12 games rushing for 100 yards. He bested O. J. Simpson’s single-season record by 102 yards and Dickerson appeared to be in a position to make his mark on all the NFL rushing records.

But after the glory, Dickerson looked to cash in and he engaged the Rams in a long holdout that lasted through the third game of the 1985 season. Two years later, he pushed the Rams into a trade that landed him in Indianapolis.

Dickerson had averaged 1,750 yards in his first four seasons with the Rams. He would hit the 1,659-yard mark in his first full season with the Colts, but that would be his last phenomenal season. Dickerson had complaints about the way he was used in Indianapolis and the coaching staff; after four seasons in Indianapolis he was traded to the Raiders in 1992. After a year with the silver and black, he was traded to the Atlanta Falcons, with whom he played just four lackluster games before calling it a career.

He ended his 11-year career with 13,259 rushing yards a 4.4 yards-per-carry mark, and 96 total touchdowns. He is clearly one of the most talented and most effective backs that ever played, but he also left the game with the feeling that Payton was right and that he could have been even more spectacular than he was.