San Diego – LaDainian Tomlinson is taking care of everyone these days.
With every long run and every dash into the end zone, Tomlinson adds to the impressive accomplishments that have made him the front-runner to become the first San Diego Charger to win the league MVP award.
His incredible touchdown surge has carried him within three of owning the NFL’s single-season record with a quarter of the season still to go, and pushed the Chargers to the cusp of only their second playoff berth in 11 seasons.
And fantasy geeks must be as ecstatic as long-suffering fans, who already are assuming the Bolts will go to the Super Bowl.
Yes, L.T. hears from fantasy geeks.
“Usually telling me how many touchdowns I need, or yards,” Tomlinson said last week as the Chargers (10-2) prepared to host the slumping Broncos (7-5).
“Occasionally I’ll get a ‘Thank you’ because I’m giving them 50 points a week or whatever that is.
“I just want to get them guys 50 points every week,” he said with a laugh.
Playing behind a motivated line and bruising fullback Lorenzo Neal, Tomlinson has 26 touchdowns, three shy of breaking the record of 28 set last year by league MVP Shaun Alexander of the Seattle Seahawks.
Tomlinson’s 26 touchdowns are more than 17 other teams have scored, and he’s just 1.3 off the league’s team average.
“That’s incredible to me,” said Tomlinson, who’s run for 23 scores and caught three touchdown passes from Philip Rivers – not to mention the two touchdown passes he’s thrown. “It’s been a phenomenal year. I may never have a year like this again.”
The single-season touchdown record has fallen three times since Tomlinson’s boyhood idol, Emmitt Smith, scored 25 in 1995. At the rate he’s scoring, Tomlinson could own the record by nightfall Sunday, then add on enough in the final three games to put it out of reach for some time.
“We’ll see what happens,” he said. “Hopefully, if it does happen, then we have it stand for a while.”
And to think, Tomlinson scored only three touchdowns through the first four games.
“How many could he have had if we had started playing and rolling even from Week 1 or 2 as opposed to Week 7?” right tackle Shane Olivea said.
Olivea is also awed by Tomlinson humility.
“He’s what’s right and what’s good about the NFL,” Olivea said. “He’s someone the NFL can hang its hat on, say, ‘You know what, you can do well and not have to cry for attention. You can let your play sort of speak for itself. You don’t need to go out there and play OK, but run your mouth and let people think you’re playing better than what you are.”‘
Tomlinson has scored 23 touchdowns in the last eight games. Four weeks ago, when the Broncos and Chargers were both 7-2, Tomlinson scored four times as San Diego rallied from 17 points down to win 35-27 at Denver.
The week before that, he had four TDs at Cincinnati as the Chargers made up a 21-point deficit to win 49-41.
“His achievements, I’ve run out of superlatives,” coach Marty Schottenheimer said.
“It’s what he does. I’m going to tell you what – I stand on the sideline and I watch him like a fan. It’s amazing.”
Tomlinson leads the NFL with 1,324 yards rushing and 1,794 yards from scrimmage.
He extended his career-best streak of consecutive 100-yard games to six with 178 yards and two scores in last Sunday’s 24-21 win at Buffalo.
