Eric Dickerson on Learning to Love the Rams Again (Almost)

The Hall of Famer never got over how the organization treated him during his prime. Time, a return to L.A. and a Super Bowl are changing that.

The rally doubles as an autograph session, from the second that Eric Dickerson strolls onto the field at the Oaks Christian School on Monday evening until he leaves, an hour later, having moved only a little more than the length of a football field. Thousands have gathered, packing into the grandstands and lining the spongy track. They’re clad in Rams jerseys and Rams hoodies and Rams socks, bracelets and wrestling masks. They’re wearing rams horns glued onto hardhats, their arms covered in Rams ink.

Parked cars line nearby streets in every direction. Food trucks peddle tacos and pizza. Lines snake from the merchandise trailer. Security guards stand sentry every few feet. It’s a spectacle befitting a Super Bowl in Los Angeles, the first in a long time and the first-ever featuring a local football team. That’s why they’re here, Dickerson included—because the championship tilt will take place on SoFi Stadium on Sunday, and the Rams will partake as the “away” team in their home stadium. Hence the rally. As smoke billows and lights flash, while the cheerleaders dance and highlight packages from the Rams season unspool on two giant screens atop a stage, Dickerson does one thing and only one thing: he signs everything in sight.

This isn’t necessarily what he would choose for an ideal Monday night. But he also understands the fanbase that rooted for him from 1983–87, before the trade, before the move, before the return and before something like a reconciliation—an ongoing process between all parties. Between the star who demanded out and the team that shipped him to “Siberia.” And between the fans spurned and the franchise that spurned them, as they continue to grapple with its return.

For star and fanbase good vibes remain, as evidenced by the impromptu autograph bonanza. Dickerson signs snapbacks, baseball caps and hard hats; he autographs towels, T-shirts, sweatshirts and mini-cheerleader outfits worn by infants; along with visors, foam horns, foam fingers, masks, a jean jacket and, yes, even a leg. He signs and moves two feet; signs again, then inches toward the stage. Four helpful—but ultimately helpless—security guards stand nearby, saying “last one” a few hundred times. They’re no match for the cell phone army that descends. Dickerson can’t stop smiling, because he has to, because everyone wants a selfie or a photo in addition to his signature.

The scene points him to the same place: his Rams tenure, the sublime and the awful, the single-season rushing record and his beef with the “jacka-- suits” in the front office. All the way to now. Rams versus Bengals. Super Bowl LVI.

As a woman in a Cooper Kupp jersey shouts, “Yo, Eric Dickerson signed my T-shirt!” the man himself stands at an intersection consisting of one person. He ranks among the most beloved figures in franchise history, and yet, his feelings about that franchise are forever complicated. He loved being a Ram. He just wishes the Rams front office had loved him back.

Two hours before the rally, Dickerson is lounging in the backyard of his home in Calabasas. The view down the hill stretches for miles, past the covered pool, the neatly manicured grass and the two swings hanging from a tree. He can see all the way to the Santa Monica Mountains.

He purchased the house not long after his arrival in Los Angeles, which started after a decorated career at Southern Methodist and the 1983 NFL draft, when the Rams took him second overall. Back then, he knew some of the Rams’ history already, from the Fearsome Foursome pass rush to quarterbacks like Roman Gabriel and Vince Ferragamo. But more than anything, he loved the uniforms, from the royal-blue-and-gold color scheme to the horns that ran across the helmets. “I’ve always loved uniforms—that’s one reason I didn’t go to Texas A&M,” Dickerson says. “The horns were just the coolest. I couldn’t wait to put that helmet on.”

Team officials had called the night before the draft to inform him they planned to trade up with the Houston Oilers for the second pick. He was at the airport when it became official: He was headed to L.A.

Peter Brouillet/US PRESSWIRE/USA Today Network

At his initial press conference, Dickerson balked when a reporter asked if he planned to become a Rams “savior.” “I just want to play football,” he responded, as a contentious relationship with the press continued. He says his distrust of the all-encompassing media started at SMU. He believes that writers made up or embellished stories about him for the rest of his career, making him into “the bad guy, a villain” for a number of reasons, including race.

As Dickerson dove back into his life for his new book, Watch My Smoke: The Eric Dickerson Story, the memories flooded back, eliciting every possible emotion. He recalls being so nervous in training camp his rookie season that, in his first scrimmage, against the Cowboys, he went blank, unable to remember basic plays. Yet he can remember nearly every sequence from 1984, when he set the single-season rushing record of 2,105 yards. His family wore hats to the rally with the number stitched across the front.

The trade still bothers him. It happened in the middle of the 1987 season, after a meeting with John Shaw, the team president. Dickerson says he pointed out the seven-figure salaries allotted to other NFL stars, particularly quarterbacks like John Elway, from his draft class. Dickerson, meanwhile, made $275,000 that season. A steady diet of handoffs made for a steady absorption of more than 30 collisions every Sunday, not to mention the hits he took in practice. When reporters asked him about his favorite play that season—47 Gap—he said that Coach John Robinson should be the one to run it, since Robinson made more money than he did.

While getting ready for a Halloween party that October, Dickerson answered the phone in his kitchen. As he picked up, he was dressed as a Native American chief (which he says he wouldn’t wear now). The Colts were on the line. He had been traded, just like that. Dickerson again felt villainized in the aftermath, painted as greedy and selfish. “Like, what the f---?” he says.

“I loved playing for the Rams,” he says. “I loved my teammates, but I hated the organization. It felt like they didn’t have my back, and it just became hurtful.”

In his final game as a Ram, Dickerson didn’t expect to play. But the running back who had replaced him went out with an injury, and, after Dickerson located his helmet, he ran in without warming up. He carried seven times and gained 38 yards, but it was his final rush in that horned helmet that most resonated, because he scored a touchdown. “That shows you how good I am,” he thought of the message sent.

He soon boarded a flight bound for Indianapolis. It was dark as the plane took off, and he stared out the window at all the beautiful lights twinkling down below. He shut the window and nodded off, and when he woke up just before landing, he decided to take another look. All he saw were cornfields.

Dickerson played six more NFL seasons, for the Colts, Raiders and Falcons. He led the NFL in rushing in 1988 with 1,659 yards. He would be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1999. But he never did play with an elite quarterback, and he never would win a Super Bowl. He also harbored resentment toward the Rams front office. Over time, it only grew.

The healing process isn’t complete, even now. But it began after he retired in 1993, when Shaw invited Dickerson to his office for a meeting. The running back still held a deep disdain for the “suits who knew nothing about football.” Shaw had made good on the Siberia promise he told another player when trading Dickerson, sending the running back to a franchise with “jealous teammates” and a “racist” culture, Dickerson says. But on that day, Shaw apologized, admitting he had made a terrible mistake, the worst of his career.

The full extent could be felt in 1995, when the franchise relocated to St. Louis, after briefly moving to Orange County. For years, Dickerson insists, fans and media blamed his exit for the team’s departure. But while he does not agree with the fault cast in his direction, he does see significance in the overall sentiment. Had he stayed, and had the Rams won like he expected they could, perhaps the franchise would have become entrenched and never left. “I just believed,” he says. “I think we would have a Super Bowl. After that, who knows?”

The move to the OC, “just changed our culture a lot,” Dickerson says, citing the suburban and mostly white crowds and the distance—in some ways, miles; in others, a universe—from L.A.’s diverse core. Pro football loyalty in Los Angeles shifted away from the Rams, toward the Raiders. Much of that devotion to the silver-and-black lingers still. The Rams lost most of an entire generation of Angelinos who felt jilted. Dickerson points to recent games against San Francisco, when Niners fans flooded into SoFi Stadium, as proof of the work that remains. “It’ll come back,” he says, a bit wistfully. “But it’s gonna take some time.”

His own experience informs that response. After Shaw’s apology, the Rams sometimes enlisted Dickerson to evaluate running backs, and he recalls pushing the team to sign Marshall Faulk, then with the Colts. “That’s the guy,” Dickerson remembers telling Rams executives. “And what was the result? The Greatest Show on Turf.” Think about that. The running back who had hated the Rams management also helped the franchise win a Super Bowl.

In recent years, the thaw continued between the franchise and the legend it long ago shipped out of town. Don’t mistake that to mean the current iteration of the Rams asked Dickerson to be deeply involved. It’s more that fewer hard feelings linger, that he’s around.

Dickerson is a fan of Sean McVay—“never hear a bad thing about him”—and how the coach integrated in-season additions like wideout Odell Beckham Jr., running back Sony Michel and pass rusher Von Miller on the fly. He’s impressed with Matthew Stafford and calls Jared Goff, the quarterback Stafford replaced, a “nice young man but not the guy.” He’s struck by Jalen Ramsey’s competitive nature, by Eric Weddle’s late return from retirement, by all the pieces and how they fit together at precisely the right time. He saves his highest praise, though, for Aaron Donald, a defensive force he calls a “warrior” and “Reggie White, incarnate … true greatness.”

Now, to bring more fans back, to make these Rams feel like those Rams, they must on Sunday do the one thing that fixes so many problems in pro football: win.

Andy Hayt/Sports Illustrated

Dickerson autograph day continues as the sun drops below the horizon at Oaks Christian on Monday night. He bumps into friendly faces, takes pictures with his family and sings along to “Bohemian Rhapsody” while scribbling—a symphony of signatures.

“Respect his time,” a security guard says.

“Last one,” another says.

“Please.”

“Come on, guys.”

It’s clear at that moment that, while Dickerson did leave Los Angeles, the fans’ unabated adoration for his time with the Rams has never waned. What’s less clear, until Dickerson voices the sentiment, is how a Super Bowl victory could impact his relationship with the team. When asked if a triumph could provide closure, or something close, he says, “I think so. You know why? It’s funny, but when I go to games, I see my jersey, and it’s an honor.”

Dickerson says the Rams under McVay embraced their history more than previous regimes. He laughs at Von Miller’s spoof of the infamous “Let’s Ram It” video. Dickerson took part in the original, a choice he now views as “embarrassing” in hindsight. It’s glorious, actually, as players from Dickerson’s era dance awkwardly in the old footage, with images of newer Rams superimposed over their faces, tying then to now, while music plays … we’re rocking today/let’s Ram it! McVay even takes the role of saxophone soloist—or his picture does anyway.

Dickerson laughs once more, then turns serious. He notes that the last NFL championship game played in Los Angeles took place in Jan. 1993. He does the math: 29 years ago, same digits as his jersey number. “Say no more,” he says, meaning his circular journey from 1983 to now. “That’s it.”