TAMPA, Fla. – Edgerrin James has waited 10 long years for this moment.
“I’m from the University of Miami, and confidence has never been a problem for us,” he said.
Don’t sleep on Edge, 30 years old and forever young.
“After a game now, I’m fresher than when I was younger,” James said yesterday. “Some games it don’t even feel you played a game because you know how to take care of your body. You understand your body more.”
He works out at the University of Miami, where the younger players push him.
“I’ve charted everything from Day 1,” James said. “Today I’m the same weight as when I came in. I was 216, I’m 215 now.”
At the end of a season that saw him benched, and ask out of Arizona, James (203 rushing yards and one TD in the playoffs) has gotten off the deck to give Kurt Warner a balanced offense.
“Even last year, at the end of the year, I still was fresh,” James said. “At the end of the year I was playing my best football, last year.”
James was stunned when he didn’t play at all against the Rams on Nov. 2 after losing a costly fumble the week before in a 27-23 loss at Carolina. He spoke his mind, and immediately started tutoring rookie Tim Hightower.
“When you grow up the way a lot of guys like myself grew up, you really don’t worry about stuff like that,” James said. “You never were given anything, you weren’t born with a silver spoon, so you’re able to deal with things, and me, I’m not gonna sit out there like I’m some spoiled brat.”
He isn’t close to retiring. “I think people don’t think for themselves. They just go out and just say, ‘Oh he’s 30, all right put him over here in this category,’ . . . instead of looking at the things that really matter,” James said.
James led the league in rushing his first two seasons with Peyton Manning and the Colts, and needs just 123 regular-season yards to vault pass Marcus Allen (12,243) and into 10th place on the career charts. The Colts thought so highly of him they sent him a Super Bowl XLI ring after beating the Bears in Miami, not far from his Immolakee hometown.
“Actually, I felt like I was a part of it,” James said. “I was with those guys every step of the way. Like this morning, I just got to texting Reggie Wayne, we’re texting back and forth. They’re rooting for me the same way I was rooting for them.”