Jake Roth-USA Today Sports
LaDainian Tomlinson played nine unforgettable seasons with the San Diego Chargers. If he wanted to, he could have played for a tenth… this year.
According to Michael Silver of Yahoo! Sports, Tomlinson was approached by Chargers General Manager Tom Telesco and head coach Mike McCoy at the NFL Combine and was asked if he was interested in coming out of retirement.
“At first I thought they weren’t really serious, but they kept talking about it, and I realized it was real,” Tomlinson said. “They said, ‘You can come back and carry it 10 or 12 times a game. We’d like to have you here.”
Executive vice president John Spanos tried to clear it up by saying that “the conversation never really got past that initial point. It was literally just a quick second, it was a comment and answer and that was it.”
Odds are the Chargers staff wasn’t actually serious about the talks. They couldn’t be. That type of desperate move would make them look like an absolute joke.
Tomlinson might be one of the greatest running backs to ever play this game, but he was clearly on the decline in 2009 and hasn’t played since 2011 when he only carried the ball about five times a game. He will be 34 by the time next season begins.
The fact that Tomlinson’s return is even being talked about – joke or not – shows how little Ryan Mathews has done to help us forget about LT. Even Telesco and McCoy couldn’t help but think about Tomlinson. Their lack of confidence in Mathews was already evident when they added Danny Woodhead into the mix and surprisingly re-signed 31-year-old Ronnie Brown. Both could see extensive playing time due to Mathews’ inability to stay healthy, untimely fumbles and poor blitz pickup.
Mathews will unfairly be compared to Tomlinson throughout his whole career. He is no LT, and at this point, never will be. However, if he performs well next season, no one will be talking about a Tomlinson return. But at this point, that’s a big “if.”
Kevin Chan is a San Diego Chargers writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter, “Like” him on Facebook or add him to your network on Google.
