Spat with Jeff Fisher leads Rams legend Eric Dickerson to say he'll no longer attend games

It’s been a dozen years since the St. Louis/Los Angeles Rams have been to the playoffs, and 13 years since they had a winning record. But one of the links to the team’s glory years, one of its most iconic players, says he’s done with the team until the Rams part ways with head coach Jeff Fisher.

Hall of Famer Eric Dickerson, who averaged more than 111 yards per game in four-plus seasons with the Rams, told The Los Angeles Times that Fisher, now in his fifth season coaching the team, called him and told him he was no longer welcome on the team’s sideline during games.

Dickerson had initially made comments on his L.A.-based radio show, but expanded on the spat with The Times.

One of the Rams’ most popular former players, Dickerson told The Times he requested multiple sideline passes for friends for Los Angeles’ home game against the Miami Dolphins on Nov. 20 and was later told the team was uncomfortable with his public criticism of the team. Further, general manager Les Snead or Fisher would be calling him to discuss the matter.

It was Fisher who called. Here’s how Dickerson says the conversation went down:

“I see a 314 number calling in. So I get on the phone and say hello. He says, ‘Hey, Eric, this is Jeff Fisher.’ I said, ‘How you doing, Jeff?’ He said, ‘I just wanted to call you. I want to tell you a few things here. I don’t have time for this, but I’m going to tell you. You’re not going to be talking about the football team, talking about our team, talking about my coaches, expecting to get things from this football team. We’re not going to give you anything. We’re not going to support you in anything. As long as I’m here as coach, we feel uncomfortable with you coming on the sideline. The players are uncomfortable with that. So as long as I’m head coach here, I’m just going to let you know it’s not going to happen.

“So I didn’t say one word. That’s how I was taught. If somebody’s talking, you listen. Because two people can’t talk. So I sat there and listened to what he had to say. I said, ‘Jeff, are you finished?’ He said, ‘I’m finished.’

“I said, ‘Jeff, thank you for the call. I appreciate it. I heard somebody might call me. But, Jeff, I want to say this to you: I am a grown … man. I am not a little kid. I do not work for the Los Angeles Rams.’ I said, ‘I don’t give a damn what you think. My thing is, I want my football team to win. That’s all I care about. I don’t care whose feelings I hurt.’ I said, ‘Jeff, I’m all about the Los Angeles Rams. I want to win.’ I said, ‘You think I’ve been sitting around waiting for the Rams to come back? Jeff, anybody who knows me knows about Eric Dickerson. I don’t have my hand out. If y’all feel like I owe you something, send me a bill in the mail. Send me something and I will pay it. I don’t want nothing from you guys.’ My mother taught me this: When you go to somebody’s house, don’t you go eating up everything. You come home and eat.

“I said, ‘Jeff, and by the way, you can coach the Rams, you can go back to the Titans, you might coach the Browns, you can go to [USC] … I will always be Eric Dickerson of the Los Angeles Rams. That’s why I have that gold jacket. I’m a player first, and I will always be a player. Always. I’m always for the players. Know that.

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“So he said, ‘Eric, man, that’s not what we want. We want you to come around. Jackie Slater comes over. Jack Youngblood. … Then he goes on and says, ‘I want you to be around. I want you to be part of the team.’ I didn’t say nothing. I just listened. I said, ‘Jeff, I’m going to say this much to you. It’s my last thing. First of all, I like [former Titans running back] Eddie George. Eddie George speaks very highly of you. I give you a pass because of Eddie. But I’m going to say this to you, Jeff: You never ever have to worry about me at a game again at the Coliseum as long as you’re coaching. I’m not coming ever again. I don’t want nobody to feel uncomfortable. Most definitely I don’t want the players to feel uncomfortable. I don’t care about your coaches feeling uncomfortable. I’m all about the players. You never have to worry about ever seeing me again.

“He said, ‘Eric, that’s not what we want.’ I said, ‘As long as you’re coaching, you won’t have to worry about ever seeing me again.’ I said, ‘Jeff, I want to thank you for having the [guts] to call me. … You have a good night.’ And that was it.

“That was two weeks ago Thursday, right before the Dolphins game. They haven’t reached out to me until [Monday].”

It was on Monday that Kevin Demoff, the Rams’ chief operating officer and vice president of football operations, reached out to Dickerson. Demoff tweeted that he wanted to clear up any confusion with Dickerson:

Demoff followed up with a tweet saying that Dickerson is a “valued member of the [Rams] family.”

During his Monday news conference, Fisher said he “had a really good conversation” with Dickerson and the former running back is always welcome around the team, even into the meeting rooms. But later in the day, after seeing the comments Dickerson made to the Los Angeles Times, Fisher said Dickerson can’t expect to criticize the team and then ask for favors.

“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 said. “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.

“And so we had a conversation about it and I wanted Eric to understand that this organization wants him to be part of our future, no differently than Jackie Slater or Jack Youngblood, who came out to practice. We want Eric to be part of our future and that’s how we left it.

“The conversation was good and that’s how we left it. I offered him whatever he needed, no different than any of our alums. But there’s an understanding, and I think it’s a logical understanding, that if you’re going to go over here, which you have every right to do, and then come back and ask for this — it doesn’t work that way.

“When the conversation was over, I wanted on behalf of the organization to afford him every opportunity to become part of what we’re doing…. There was no way, on behalf of the organization, that we wanted to alienate E.D. We want him to be a part of this organization.”

Fisher told Shutdown Corner’s Eric Edholm during the summer that reaching out to the Rams’ alumni would be one of his priorities with the team moving back to Los Angeles:

“We’ll do what we did when I first got to St. Louis, which is bring those guys back for games and pregame and halftime events and other things in the area,” Fisher said. “We want that connection. There are three groups of [Rams] fans — the ones from L.A. back in the day, the ones from St. Louis and the new fans I think we’ll have. We’re going to try to merge all those things together and make it one big family going forward.”

And in fact, in September Dickerson was supportive of Fisher in an interview with Edholm. But after an early-season three-game win streak, the Rams have lost six of seven and are 4-7 and in third place in the NFC West, which is having a down year after several seasons with some of the best teams in the NFC.

The Rams are 31-43-1 under Fisher, never winning more than seven games in a season.