LaDainian Tomlinson has watched his old teammate Philip Rivers struggle from close up (when the Jets faced the Chargers) and from afar on television.
LT2 thinks he may know why Rivers hasn’t been playing well.
“He seems distracted, for some reason. Like on the sideline, he seems like he’s just distracted. And I’ve always said this: It’s hard to be ‘the guy.’ When they say this is your team, it’s hard to be the guy, because you get all the questions of what’s wrong and what’s right.
“And then you get your teammates who expect certain things from you, and when that doesn’t happen, you get strange looks in the locker room,” Tomlinson said.
Tomlinson speaks from experience. His struggles at the end of his tenure in San Diego are well documented. When he left, teammates from Rivers to Antonio Gates alluded to issues with Tomlinson’s leadership style.
While these comments from Tomlinson appear well-intended on the surface, they may not play that way in San Diego. It’s as if Tomlinson is saying to Rivers: It’s not so easy to lead, is it?
“It’s hard to be that guy when it’s your team, so that may have a little bit to do with what’s going on, too,” Tomlinson said.