Chicago – Come Sunday, and the next couple of Sundays after that, no one will be talking about the great season by San Diego’s LaDainian Tomlinson.
It might have been the best running back season ever. No NFL player scored more touchdowns and piled up more points than L.T. did in 2006.
Yet, the last anyone heard from Tomlinson, he was explaining where the line between class and classless is drawn, and when it is crossed.
After L.T., Kansas City’s Larry Johnson and San Francisco’s Frank Gore had the league’s best seasons at running back. Both are strong, fast and a load to tackle. And both are done running for the season.
When the NFL plays its conference championship games Sunday, it will not be lacking for promotional material. There is Peyton Manning and Tom Brady at quarterback. For the first time in history, the conference finals will include two African-American head coaches. There is New Orleans’ comeback from Hurricane Katrina, and Chicago’s resiliency from foul politics.
The NFC and AFC championship games will have just about everything, all right. Everything but an invitation to a superstar running back.
What do the NFC’s New Orleans Saints and Chicago Bears, and the AFC’s Indianapolis Colts and New England Patriots, have in common? All four teams got this far using a two-back rotation at the tailback position.
“I think it should be that way,” said Bears fullback Jason McKie. “It keeps the defense on their heels when you’re rotating two fresh running backs in there all game long. I think every NFL team should employ the two- back system.”
Approximately 10 to 12 teams do, including – has the case been made yet? – the four best. The Broncos were considered forerunners to the rotating tailback system last season when Mike Anderson and Tatum Bell nearly became the first duo in league history to each have 1,000 yards while running from the same position.
But for much of this season, the Broncos tried to utilize Bell as their lone featured back, only to eventually realize they were better off mixing in a more powerful complement in Mike Bell.
The Colts got flak early this season because they essentially used two backs, Joseph Addai and Dominic Rhodes, to replace Edgerrin James, who left for Arizona as a free agent. But in James’ best season, way back in 2000, he had 1,709 yards rushing. Addai and Rhodes just combined for 1,722 yards.
Officially, statistics say Tomlinson was the NFL’s leading rusher this season with 1,815 yards. Unofficially, the Bears’ Thomas Jones and Cedric Benson had a better year, combining for 1,857 yards.
“Yeah, you want to carry it 25 times. But at this level, it’s a little different than in high school and college,” Jones said Wednesday. “You take a beating over the course of the season. It helps to have a backup to go in there and keep rotating in and out, especially if you have backs with different styles. The only disadvantage is you don’t the get the ball as much as you’d like, but you do whatever means to win.”
To be clear, splitting the carries between two backs is not a novel concept. It’s just that for the bulk of the NFL’s bygone eras, the ball went to the fullback and the halfback.
Jim Brown and Jim Taylor were fullbacks. But starting in the early 1980s, when offenses fell in love with the short passing game that continues to dominate today’s schemes, tailbacks increasingly became the primary weapons. The fullback position, meanwhile, all but became a blocking, ball-toting dinosaur.
Through this evolution, teams that regularly used two tailbacks usually were those that didn’t have an elite one.
Ah, but this is a major sports league that’s not afraid to change its rules every year, much less philosophies. The action was a 16-game schedule, relatively short career spans of elite running backs such as Earl Campbell, Ickey Woods, Jamal Anderson and Terrell Davis, and 275-pound linebackers who can run the 40-yard dash in 4.6 seconds. The reaction was two of this season’s remaining four teams used their No. 1 draft picks last spring on “No. 2” tailbacks – the Saints with Reggie Bush and the Patriots with Laurence Maroney.
The rookies are the faster, more elusive complements to veteran workhorses Deuce McAllister in New Orleans and the Patriots’ Corey Dillon.
“It obviously could have gone the other way with Deuce,” Bush said Wednesday. “He could have felt threatened by it, but Deuce has been a huge help, and he has been nothing but a role model for me.”
Then again, Bush is well- trained in the two-back system. Even in college, where Bush was good enough to win the Heisman Trophy, he shared USC’s carries with LenDale White.
The trend is clear: Teams that want to win championships must split their tailback position in two. As for those elite, single backs? The Pro Bowl will be played the week after the Super Bowl. Everybody can catch up on those great seasons by Tomlinson, Johnson and Gore then.
Road to the Super Bowl
NFC championship game: New Orleans Saints at Chicago Bears, 1 p.m. Sunday, KDVR-31
AFC championship game: New England Patriots at Indianapolis Colts, 4:30 p.m. Sunday, KCNC-4
Staff writer Mike Klis can be reached at 303-954-1055 or mklis@denverpost.com.
