Absorbing boos and pleas for No. 1 pick Jared Goff throughout the season, the Rams at this point should be able to withstand a heavy dose of criticism.
Apparently not when it comes to Hall of Fame running back Eric Dickerson’s blunt evaluations of the 2016 version of the team he first called home, where he racked up 7,245 of his NFL-best 13,259 rushing yards.
Dickerson announced on his radio show on Monday that a Rams official told him he was no longer welcome on the team’s sidelines because his scathing remarks made the players “uncomfortable.”
“Someone with the Rams told me I’m not wanted on sidelines at games,” Dickerson said on AM 570 LA Sports, “that what I’ve said makes the players uncomfortable.”
Rams Executive VP Kevin Demoff refuted Dickerson’s claims on Monday afternoon.
“All Rams alumni, and especially Eric Dickerson,” he tweeted, “are always welcome at our games and practices.”
Dickerson, 56, has made his feelings on the Rams’ uninspired 4-7 season loud and clear. After the Rams held on to defeat the Jets, 9-6, on Nov. 13 in a battle of offensively challenged teams, Dickerson shamed coach Jeff Fisher’s side on his radio show for being practically unwatchable, despite the outcome.
“It’s a win,” he said. “But as a Rams’ fan, it’s hard for me to watch. They are so boring.”
Even if the Rams offered him season tickets for $15,000, he said, he would laugh it off.
“What’s the punchline?” he joked on the show.
Unlike other hopeful Rams fans, Dickerson has expressed little faith in the quarterback anointed as Los Angeles’ savior on draft day, saying on an NFL radio show that Goff looked “scared” and “unsure of some of his reads” during the preseason. Dickerson, a star in the ’80s and early ’90s, argues the “D” rating he awarded Goff in September falls on the shoulders of weak coaching, particularly quarterbacks coach Chris Weinke.
“We have a quarterback coach, and no offense,” he said about Weinke, a second-year coach who spent much of the aughts as an NFL backup. “We have a quarterback coach — Chris Weinke — that’s coaching our No. 1 pick that we traded all these draft picks for. Show me the proof. Show me what you’ve done. Show me your history. What history do you have of working with quarterbacks and developing quarterbacks? I just believe that they don’t have the right coaches in place for him. And that’s what it comes down to. You can’t just throw a quarterback out there and expect him to play well.”
Goff has since taken over for the struggling Case Keenum, going 0-2 in games against the Dolphins and Saints.
Until the Rams start winning with their rookie quarterback, they can try to lock Dickerson out, but they won’t shut him up.