Tuesday, October 24, 2000
Dillon has story for his kids
By JOE KAY
AP Sports Writer
Corey Dillon intends to take his children to the Pro Football Hall of Fame sometime and tell them about his special day.
They'll see the black-and-orange Bengals jersey, the grass-stained white pants and the scuffed shoes he wore when he set an NFL record Sunday by rushing for 278 yards against the Denver Broncos.
“It's going to be a wonderful moment when I actually get a chance to go up there and take a look,” Dillon said. “I don't know what I'm going to do — probably shed a tear, I don't know.
“It will be so special that I could actually take my kids there and let them know their daddy was a pretty good football player.”
For one day, no one has ever been better.
When he tumbled into the end zone Sunday on a 41-yard touchdown run with 1:54 to play, he had topped Walter Payton's 23-year-old mark by 3 yards. He'd also put the finishing touch on the best rushing game by an NFL team in 50 years — 407 yards.
“It seemed like a high school game,” Dillon said Monday, shaking his head in amazement. “I have never seen those numbers since I played in high school and Pop Warner.”
A day later, Dillon was still struggling to take it all in. The Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, had called and asked for the uniform from his latest historic game.
As a rookie three years ago, he broke Brown's 40-year-old rookie record by rushing for 246 yards against Tennessee. The uniform from that game went on display in Canton, too.
At it turned out, that was just a preview.
The second-round draft pick out of Washington rushed for more than 1,100 yards in each of his first three seasons, only the eighth player to do so. But it wasn't the success story he'd envisioned.
Tired of the Bengals' losing, he wanted out after 1999. The restricted free agent said last February that he'd rather flip burgers than play for the NFL's worst team again.
As training camp opened, he was threatening to sit out the first 10 games. He relented and agreed to a one-year, $3 million contract — well below the level for a top running back — after the team gave him an ultimatum.
“Just for the love of the game I came back, to do what I love to do,” he said. “If you ask me when I came back did I think I'd have a game like this — I don't know. I probably couldn't answer that question.”
He was rusty and ineffective at first, struggling along with the rest of the Bengals' offense. Dillon hit a low point in a 37-0 loss in Baltimore, managing only 9 yards on 12 carries. The Bengals rushed for a total of 4 yards on 16 attempts, and a frustrated Dillon removed himself from the game. Coach Bruce Coslet quit the next day.
“I don't think it could get any worse,” he said. “Four yards rushing. I've never experienced anything like that in my life. I went from 4 yards a couple of weeks ago to 278.”
He did it with essentially the same offense but a new head coach. Dick LeBeau wants to run the ball as much as possible, a philosophy that suits Dillon perfectly.
He started slowly Sunday but wore down the Broncos with six runs of at least 30 yards among his 22 carries. Dillon was so tired afterward that he went home, watched the end of the Jacksonville-Washington game on television and went to bed after talking to his family by phone.
The news had already spread. Even his mother back in Seattle knew about it.
“She was so happy,” Dillon said. “She doesn't know too much about football, but she knows I did pretty good.”
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Dillon has story for his kids