Monday, December 03, 2001
Dillon grasps accountability
Corey Dillon grabbed for the guilt and refused to let it go. He stood there until the last question was asked, until most of the questions had been asked three times, clinging to contrition the way he wished he could have clung to the ball.
“I'll take full ownership of it,” the Bengalsrunning back said Sunday afternoon. “I lost this game. Corey Dillon lost this game with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers ...
“I came up short. That's the big picture.”
Dillon was trying to act accountable — taking responsibility for the fumble that facilitated Tampa Bay's 16-13 overtime victory — and he was man enough to forgive the melodrama.
On a good day, Dillon can be about as approachable as a cactus. On a bad day, he barely acknowledges reporters' pleasantries. But on a dreadful day — perhaps the most painful of his prolific career — the enigmatic back put a harness on his hostility and almost basked in blame.
Part of the unspoken orthodoxy of sports is that the player who screws up is expected to be a stand-up guy, to act professionally under duress, to repay his teammates with public remorse. But it doesn't always work that way. With Corey Dillon, predicting behavior can be perilous.
He's as hard to figure as he is to tackle; the most brilliant, brooding and baffling of Bengals. Dillon has been the team's best player for nearly five years now, and we still aren't sure what it is that's really bothering him or what it would take to free him from his funk.
We do know this much, though: Dillon's two fumbles Sunday were more rare than his laughter. Between rushing, receiving and returning kicks, Dillon has carried the ball 1,436 times in five professional seasons, and he has fumbled 14 times. That's better than 99 percent reliability and better than many of the elite backs in the National Football League.
Of the 23 NFL runners who gained at least 1,000 yards last season, only St. Louis' Marshall Faulk failed to fumble. The New York Giants' Tiki Barber fumbled nine times; Dallas icon Emmitt Smith six times. Corey Dillon has never fumbled more than four times in a single season, and has never lost the ball as disastrously as he did Sunday.
Backed up to their own 4-yard line for their first possession of overtime, the Bengals wanted the ball in their surest hands. Jon Kitna handed to Dillon, who cradled the ball in his left arm and started for the line of scrimmage.
Bucs safety John Lynch, closing from the right side of the Bengals' formation, poked the ball from Dillon's grasp and pounced on it three yards from the end zone. Bucs kicker Martin Gramatica promptly ended the game with a 21-yard field goal.
“He (Lynch) made a play, period,” Dillon said. “I don't know if it was a poke, a punch or a tap, but it was a good play.”
Ironically, Dillon's earlier exertions allowed it to happen. With 15 seconds left in regulation, Dillon willed his way through two prospective tacklers to score a game-tying touchdown on a 6-yard pass from Kitna.
“It was his heart and desire that got us to that point,” Kitna said of Dillon. “He's a tough-minded person and he's been through a lot tougher days than this to let this bother him, I'm sure.”
That it did bother Dillon was obvious. He rebuffed the first reporter who approached him after the game, and sat solemnly in his locker as a parade of owners, coaches and teammates came by to offer condolences.
“I just put my arm around him and told him we're going to go to work and get them next week,” Bengals head coach Dick LeBeau said. “Nobody feels worse than Corey does. Nobody plays harder than Corey does. Our entire team played hard. That's just the breaks of the game.”
When Dillon was finished dressing, but before he had straightened the collar of his jacket, he stood up, stood still, and signaled the cameras to approach.
“I'm going to win more games than I lose,” he said, “and that's a promise. That's a promise. I'm devastated, but I can't lay back and hang my head. We've got next week and we've got to keep fighting, but I'm going to take ownership of this one because I did lose it. If they want to put it on me, then put it on my tab.”
After all he's accomplished, Corey Dillon can easily afford whatever costs he incurred Sunday afternoon. When things go bad, his credit is still good.
E-mail tsullivan@enquirer.com. Past columns at Enquirer.com/columns/sullivan.
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SULLIVAN: Dillon grasps accountability
