Eric Dickerson, you are a man of integrity.
Too many professional athletes take the political high road when asked about a personal record that's in danger of being broken. Publicly, they pull for whatever young upstart is trying to erase them from the record books. Privately, they burn for the opposite.
Dickerson is above such games. He loves Adrian Peterson as a player, but he has made it clear he doesn't want the Minnesota Vikings star breaking his NFL single-season rushing record.
"I do not want him to break my record," Dickerson reiterated Friday on NFL Network's "NFL Total Access." "I'm not going to tell that lie, but he's such a great player, and I'll say it: If a record that is meant to go down to one guy, it'd have to be him."
"Everybody wants to keep their records until they die, maybe their son comes along and breaks the record, something like that, but I just want to hold on to it. ... I'm just honest about it. Like I say, great player, deserving of a record like that, deserves to be in the 2,000-yards club, that type of player, but, you know, I want to hang on to my record."
O.J. Simpson held the NFL's single-season mark for 11 seasons before Dickerson went off for 2,105 yards in 1984. Now, 28 years later, Peterson is 208 yards shy of bumping Dickerson from the record books.
Dickerson doesn't want that to happen. And we completely understand.
Follow Dan Hanzus on Twitter @DanHanzus.
