MRI shows Tomlinson damaged knee further vs. Pats

[Sturphy]

I said babies..Not overhyped chokers

I couldn't resist.

[Chargerz]

Now Marshall Faulk is adding his .

 

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MARSHALL FAULK SAYS LT NEEDS TO FIX IMAGE

 

UNION-TRIBUNE

February 2, 2008

Nick Canepa

 

PHOENIX – Marshall Faulk can feel LaDainian Tomlinson's pain. He just can't feel the way LT feels, or has felt. Faulk doesn't get it, although he tries to understand.

 

“The LT thing isn't going away anytime soon,” says Faulk, here for Super Bowl week with the NFL Network.

 

It hasn't gone away here, despite the unbeaten Patriots preparing to meet the Giants in Super Bowl XLII and every angle being navigated.

 

More than anything, it's the sight of LT sitting on the bench during the Chargers' loss at New England in the AFC Championship Game, looking like Darth Vader in that helmet, cape and dark visor. He seemed – seemed – to take himself completely out of the game.

 

It really has nothing to do with his bum knee limiting him to two carries and a reception. There are idiots out there who may think otherwise, but anyone who knows LT realizes he wasn't going to pull himself intentionally from the biggest game of his life.

 

But you can see how some athletes, Faulk included, didn't like the way LT handled it, and Faulk this week spoke to Tomlinson about it.

 

Interesting, because Faulk, the former San Diego State All-America back and NFL MVP with St. Louis, and LT are similar in styles. Both great change-of-direction runners, who could line up at receiver and block. Smart. Very smart.

 

“Actually,” Faulk says, “personalitywise, we're the same. It's taken him longer to understand the media.”

 

Believe me, it took Faulk an awfully long time to understand the media, which we'll get into later. He's a great LT fan; he just doesn't like the way Tomlinson is being depicted since that game.

 

“I love LT,” Faulk says. “I really do.” But he doesn't love what LT did that day. And he doesn't just blame Tomlinson. He also puts some of it on the team for keeping everyone in the dark.

 

“It wasn't that he was hurt, but how he was depicted,” Faulk says, “with that helmet on his head. I've had that injury, had it once, before we played the Chargers. I ran one play and sat down. That isn't it.'

 

“I understand he sits down when the defense is on the field. We never knew anything. It's perception.”

 

I can't say I agree with everything Faulk has to say. He pointed out that LT should have gone to the podium afterward – which he always does. Instead, he never left his locker. Those who could hear him know he said he had no explosion, that after the first few hits, he couldn't go.

 

But the message never really got out nationally, so there was the perception that LT was sulking behind that visor. Never mind that he sits on the bench quite a bit. But, every time TV showed him, he was sitting there in what appeared to be an obvious slump.

 

“LT didn't talk, the coach didn't talk, the trainer didn't say anything,” Faulk says. “Meanwhile, Philip Rivers is giving a heroic effort. So what did they do? They left it up to the media.

 

“Within two days, the damage had been done. LT's integrity never should be questioned. He's the consummate pro. But something needed to be said and it was up to the TEAM to decide.”

 

So now what?

 

“I talked to LT,” Faulk says. “LT has to repair his image. This was his second incident in the last two years (remember LT's fury after the Patriots danced on the San Diego logo last year). Somebody should have helped him out.

 

“You've got to step up to the podium after a game like that. In the locker room, everyone gets their own version of the story. Take care of LT, but don't do that when you're losing. Don't sit there with your helmet on. Step up.

 

“It's easier to tear down an image than to build one up.”

 

Faulk, you know, has not always been a media maven. He came to SDSU from a terribly impoverished New Orleans background. But he wasn't stupid, and he was one of the best five college runners I've seen. In fact, LT has been much better with the media than Faulk ever was. Now Faulk has become a chatterbox.

 

He says he was aloof for a reason. He tired of listening to questions about his upbringing.

 

“It's not that I didn't get help at San Diego State,” he says. “I understood the media could make you or break you. But I didn't want my family in the line of fire anymore. So, I wanted the story to end after my freshman year. I was tired of talking about where I came from. I wanted to put it to bed.”

 

His aloofness may have cost him at least one Heisman Trophy, which he deserved.

 

“Maybe,” he says with a shrug. “What's a Heisman these days?”

 

Hurricane Katrina cost him his old neighborhood.

 

“All my family was there,” he says. “We were playing a Monday night game in Detroit. I was wondering where everybody was.”

 

And the house where he grew up?

 

“It's gone. And no one's going back. No reason to go back to poverty when you can experience poverty somewhere else.”

 

LT, it sounds to me, has it easy.