The highest-paid running back in the NFL currently is Bills running back LeSean McCoy. At 29, he’s one of the older workhorse tailbacks, too.
He plans to hold the latter distinction for a while.
“I feel good,” McCoy told reporters on Friday after the issue of his 29th birthday came up. “I feel the same. I feel young. I feel 25. Making the same runs, same cuts. I feel good. Explosive. That’s my game being explosive and quick. So when that kind of turns and then leaves, then I’ll be in trouble. But for now, I feel fine. I could keep doing this ‘til I’m about 33 man.”
Why 33?
“I don’t know,” he said. “I thought about just playing 10 years in the NFL and getting to 30 and that’s easy. I’m going to have a good year this year, we’re going to win some games. That’s easy, 30, ten years. So you look past that. I’m chasing something that I didn’t think I could do coming in. I set a mark and I feel like I passed that mark so I’m just trying to move on.”
One of the things that fuels McCoy is his lingering love of the game.
“I look at a lot of players who left the game early and I’m sure they think about it, if they should have stayed or could or would,” McCoy said. “But I love this game. I’ve been playing this game all my life, you know, and it’s brought me a lot. You know so I’ll have fun with it. We have a good team here, a good coach in Sean [McDermott] and the guys around him. So, I’m very positive about this year. I look forward to it.”
His finds motivation in that fact that "[i]t seems like everyone is against us and we don’t have a shot,” along with trying to get a rushing title. McCoy also made it clear that he has changed his diet and other things in order to get the most out of his aging body. He declined to reveal his secrets, other than to say he now spends the offseason “watching what I eat, limit the drinks and the long nights.”
Whatever he did last year, it worked. He had nearly 1,300 yards rushing and 5.4 yards per carry, along with 14 total touchdowns and 50 catches.