Eric Dickerson: ‘I Won’t Be at the Coliseum as Long as Fisher Is Coaching’

The man who set the NFL single-season rushing record in Rams blue-and-gold now finds himself persona non grata on the sidelines at the Los Angeles Coliseum.

“I won’t be at the Coliseum as long as [Jeff] Fisher is coaching,” Eric Dickerson again declared Monday. “I’m a man of my word, and if I tell you something, I’m going to do it.”

The spat stems from the organization rebuffing requests for sideline passes from Dickerson despite the running back rushing for 7,245 yards for the team back in the 1980s. The 56-year-old holds the all-time rushing record for the Los Angeles incarnation of the franchise.

Dickerson liberally criticized his former team earlier this season. Jeff Fisher, the head coach of the 4-7 Rams, took umbrage.

After the Rams initially denied and downplayed the dispute, Fisher acknowledged it. The coach dislikes the idea of someone trashing his team and then seeking to join his team on the sidelines.

“I had a discussion with Eric and it was brought to my attention Eric wanted some things from the organization and it was shortly after he had been critical of us, of me, of the players and of our quarterback coach,” Fisher told the Los Angeles Times. “And there’s a natural conflict there. He has every right to be critical because we’re all frustrated with the respect to the season and he has every right to comment and to be critical. But there’s a line that has to be respected, when you on one side criticize the organization and come back and ask the organization for something.”

After visiting the New England Patriots this Sunday the Rams return to the Los Angeles Coliseum, without Eric Dickerson watching from the sidelines through rose-colored goggles, the following Sunday against the Atlanta Falcons.