Last year was a year of firsts for our company and the fantasy sports industry. It was the first year our 10-year-old online publication entered the world of print magazines, and it was also the first time in their near 20-year history that a fantasy football magazine included an interview with an NFL player. Because the player was the NFL’s reigning Rookie of the Year, then Denver Bronco RB Clinton Portis, such an excellent player, the bar was placed pretty high from day one.

Consider it raised.

When the 2003 season ended, I began thinking about which player I’d like to see interviewed this year and on the cover of our magazine. After about 11 seconds of deliberation, I came up with my guy: LaDainian Tomlinson. There are a lot of great backs in the NFL, but only one can be the best – and Tomlinson is it.

Before I go any further, though, I have to be honest and say that I doubted LaDainian Tomlinson coming out of college. Because he played in an option-style offense in college and went to a small school, I felt he was a very difficult player to evaluate moving on to the next level, and I wasn’t alone:

"…he has bust written all over him."
Sporting News, Pro Football Draft 2001 Guide
 

Then came September 9^th, 2001 – Tomlinson’s first pro game. I was really curious to see what this rookie could do. They said he was unproven as an inside runner, but by about 3pm PT on that day, that notion disappeared forever, at least in my eyes. Tomlinson carried the ball 36 times for 113 yards and 2 TDs against Washington, and a prolific pro career was born. Quite frankly, I needed to see him carry the football only a few times in the pros before I was sold; he was shockingly good. And from that point on, he’s gotten nothing but better.

If statistical production does it for you, and I think it does, check out these feats:

• His 2,429 total yards in 2003 was the second-most in NFL history, only 59 yards shy of Marshall Faulk’s record (one, by the way, which is shattered if LT has a semblance of a supporting cast).
• LT become the first player to ever rush for 1000+ yards and catch 100 or more passes in 2003.
• Last year he became just the 5^th player in NFL history to score 10 or more TDs in each of his first three seasons. The other four you might have heard of – Emmitt Smith, Barry Sanders, Eric Dickerson, and Earl Campbell.
• Tomlinson already has four 200+ yard rushing performances in his career, tied for second-most in NFL history with Jim Brown, Earl Campbell, and Barry Sanders. Two more and he catches O.J. Simpson for the all-time lead.
• In just three seasons, he is already the Chargers’ all-time leader with seventeen 100-yard games.
• He had three 70-yard plays in 2003.

Need your favorite NFL player to offer more than impressive exploits on the field? Pay attention.

Okay, you get the idea. And this guy’s only 25 years old.

By now you probably understand why I wanted to interview Tomlinson and put him on the cover of my magazine. I contacted Scott Yoffe, a PR man with the Chargers, to try to hook up with the star runner and Yoffe quickly set up the interview; Tomlinson had graciously agreed to give me a few minutes of his life. But then some time passed, and with my deadline approaching, I started to get worried.

Again, I doubted LaDainian Tomlinson.

And then the phone rang.

"Hello, may I speak to John?"

"This is he."

"Hey, John. It’s LT."

My man!

LaDainian Tomlinson: No, I didn’t and it was kind of surprising. Coming from college, you really didn’t think about fantasy football much because you really didn’t know about it. But over the last 2-3 years, fantasy football has really grown tremendously. Pretty much everywhere I go, I hear people say ‘Hey man, I had you on my fantasy football team, you was great, man, thanks, we won the deal.’ So it’s great to hear fans get excited about fantasy football.

LT: I’ve always thought it was about out-working everybody, you know, and being well prepared for the game, to really be able to study your opponents and try to understand what they’re doing to try to stop you. Also trying to out-work your opponent, you know, just being in the best physical shape possible to help you succeed.

LT: Yeah, I was disappointed because I felt like I had a good year – a better year that the year before…probably the best year I’ve had since I’ve been in the NFL. But I understand that’s how the ball rolls sometimes. You have a lot of other great backs in the game today and somebody has to get left off. I understand that there’s always next year, and it is motivation for me. I look forward to doing bigger and better things and possibly an MVP award.

LT: I’m always trying to put up the big numbers every time I touch the ball; that’s just something that goes along with being a competitor. But at the same time, you know, you want to win first and foremost. But it’s easy to get caught up in the fact that you want to have big games, so it can be crazy.

LT: Well, I am concerned about the supporting cast, but I’m not concerned about it limiting my production. I think we’ll have a good enough supporting cast where we can still get things done. I think it’s going to definitely hurt us not having Boston because he did draw some attention, and that made it a little easier on me. But I think you still have to go out and perform and I think a lot of guys in the NFL in the past have not had a lot of support. You think about Barry Sanders; a lot of Walter’s (Peyton) years he didn’t have a lot of support. So I think it depends on the player and if he can handle it.

LT: I don’t think there’s any doubt. If our team gets better and some of the attention gets drawn away from me, it will make me even better and make my job a lot easier. So I think, definitely, that’s a possibility.

LT: Absolutely. You know, I was disappointed because as a player, you know, for one because I’ve got the old school mentality, and I believe that whatever team drafts you, that’s who you should play for. That’s how the rules were made, and that’s how you make the teams that are struggling become better. And it did upset me, so that’s even more motivation to want to get San Diego back to where it should be, back to being a playoff team, year-in and year-out contending for the Super Bowl. That’s the way it should be.

LT: Yeah, you couldn’t have said it any better. I mean, some guys have it and some guys don’t, and that’s just the brutal honesty of it. If you have the talent to be special and to be able to run the football, it’s really a blessing.

LT: No, you know…Marty and the coaching staff do a good job of monitoring my work and protecting me and keeping me fresh. They don’t try to work me too hard and kill me. Marty is a very experienced coach, and he’s been through a lot, so he’s very smart in that area.

LT: Absolutely. I always want to improve on just being smarter and working on recognition as far as the defense is concerned. That’s a thing that’s overlooked. The faster you’re able to recognize the defense, the better off and the better runner you’ll be. Being able to determine what’s going to happen on the other side of the ball will make you that much better, so I think I can get a lot better in that area, and also in being able to dominate as a blocker and make the guys I’m blocking not want to come back.

LT: Confidence it probably the most important thing you can have in sports. If you don’t have the confidence that you’re better than the next guy, you’re going to always be lacking, and you’re not going to be able to give your best or even try your best. All the great players – Michael Jordan, Joe Montana – they all have some form of confidence that tells them they’re the best at what they do. And great players also incorporate that confidence into their workouts so in the off-season when they’re working out they’re still thinking they’re the best at what they do.

LT: I think it has more to do with age. Of course, as time goes on you get older and your reflexes are just not as good or as quick, and you just start to slow down a little bit and it’s time to try something else. That’s just a part of the business.

LT: That’s something that I’ve always looked forward to and I’ve always wanted that kind of role to be placed upon me. I kind of prepared myself for it and expected it to happen, and for it to come to a time when I would be able to provide for my family and be a role model for the young kids, it’s truly a blessing. And remembering where I came from, as a kid, from Waco, Texas, when you really didn’t think about making it to the NFL. You felt like high school was your NFL. And now I want more; I want to continue to do more and really leave my mark on the game.

LT: I think it definitely does because all people are paying attention to are the numbers, really, and not as much the game. They see, for example, Priest Holmes have a lot of TDs, but they don’t see a player like myself behind a makeshift line and still being able to do a lot with the line or whatever. A lot of that stuff is overlooked. I think the true football fan and the people within the game, they understand. I do think the fans get a little caught up in the numbers but that’s just a part of being a part of fantasy football.

LT: There’s no doubt because it was one of those things people weren’t paying a lot of attention to me because I was at a small school and people were like, where did this guy come from? Yeah, he rushed for a lot of yards but the small school, the competition, etc. But I really don’t buy into that. If you can play football, then you can play football. Some guys are just overlooked in high school and they don’t get the opportunity to blossom until college. So definitely going to the Senior Bowl and playing in a pro-style offense showed everyone how good I could be.

LT: Actually, I didn’t. I never thought about catching all these passes. This was something Drew (Brees) and I talked about a couple of times I remember my second year Drew was like ‘I’m going to get you 100 passes,’ and I was like ‘yeah, alright, cool.’ But I really didn’t think about it and I ended up with like 79. And then this past year, Drew was like, ‘this year, I guarantee you get 100’ and I was like, ‘Okay.’ But you know at the same time I’m just thinking it’s just talk, but sure enough I came up with 100. A lot of that had to do with the production of our receivers, you know. We had guys in and out of the lineup, people were hurt, you know, so Drew never really had a guy he could depend on because of the injuries, so I guess I was kind of that guy who was there every game that he could depend on.

LT: Take care of your body. That’s the biggest thing that I can tell them. Don’t tear down your body by staying up late; get your rest.

LT: I don’t know; anything’s possible. I can see myself doing all kinds of things, maybe doing a little coaching maybe even some front office stuff. Who knows? We’ll see.

• Favorite all-time NFL player?

LT: Wow. Walter Peyton.

• If you weren’t a RB, what position would you like to play?

LT: Probably safety because I’d like to come up and hit people like Rodney Harrison does.

• You’re a big video game guy. Favorite video game?

LT: Right now it’s either NBA 2003 or…right now I’m playing the MVP baseball…man, that’s an awesome game.

• Did you play baseball in high school?

LT: Yeah, actually I did my freshman year, but I was playing four sports, varsity in all of them, and I had to stop one of them. I just couldn’t run from baseball practice to track practice, so I thought about which sport would help me more with football, and that was track.

• Favorite food?

LT: Mexican

• Favorite TV show?

LT: Martin (Martin Lawrence) is my favorite of all time. But right now I love The Sopranos. I don’t miss an episode.

• Favorite musical act?

LT: Man that’s tough.

• It’s not Vanilla Ice, is it?

LT: (laughing) No, not him. I like a lot of stuff. I like the old school stuff like the Temptations, Al Green.

• Favorite movie?

LT: Man I have so many. Probably, you know what, I like a lot of older films like The Godfather, Scarface. But I also like the football films, especially Remember the Titans. I have so many; it’s hard to pick. I loved Pulp Fiction and The Usual Suspects and any psychological thriller.

I got the feeling that LT was a huge movie buff, just like me, so we spoke about movies for a few minutes. I probably should have used the time to ask him a few more questions, but I was firing the questions pretty rapidly and really wanted to turn him on to Quentin Tarantino, the LaDainian Tomlinson of the film industry (i.e.: the best), so you’ll have to let me slide. LT loved Pulp Fiction, but didn’t realize Tarantino was behind great movies such as Reservoir Dogs, Jackie Brown, and, of course the two Kill Bill volumes. I’d venture to say LT picked up a copy of Kill Bill Volume I shortly after our conversion.

There’s something refreshing – even inspiring – about a player who is so impressive on the field but who is also such a genuinely nice person off it. I spent only 20 minutes with him, but I can tell you this with utmost conviction: LaDainian Tomlinson is the best running back in the NFL second – and a great guy first.

As I write this, I just finished drafting my team in the FantasyGuru.com Magazine Expert league. My first pick was LaDainian Tomlinson.