LaDainian Tomlinson hasn’t given up on being a starting running back in the NFL. He says the Jets don’t want him to, either.
Tomlinson, signed this offseason and thought to be veteran insurance behind second-year player Shonn Greene, told ESPN Radio in Dallas he’s prepared to compete for the starting job.
“I think at this point in my career, people put this label and this title on you once you get to a certain age: ‘Yeah, he has to be a backup now.’ I don’t believe that. I absolutely don’t believe that,” Tomlinson, 31 next month, said Thursday. “You determine your role on the football field, and that’s what the Jets have been so great about, allowing me to do that.
“They didn’t put a label on me at all. They didn’t say ‘You know what? You’re going to be a backup.’ They said, ‘No, you’re going to prove what you can do on the football field,’ and that’s all I can ask.”
The former Chargers star, thought to be one of the classiest players in the NFL, stopped far short of claiming the job should be his.
“The thought process is kind of like when you go to college, when you graduate from high school and you go to college, you don’t look to go in and start,” Tomlinson said. “If it happens, it happens. But you go in to find a role on the team, to be part of something special, and that’s where I am.”
Tomlinson’s new Jets jersey reportedly was the sixth-best seller in the NFL last month.