In the NFL, you have a short shelf life. As a running back, if you're the first pick, and you're NFL life expectancy is only 3.5-6 years, your first big contract might not come until three years in - well, you might never get there. They need to get those signing bonuses up front because nothing is guaranteed.
Eric DickersonI don't love football the way I once loved the game. I don't look at it as fun anymore, and it definitely used to be fun. A lot of the fun has been taken away from it, I guess, because you go through so much on the field and off the field.
Eric DickersonI was raised by my great-great aunt. I was adopted within our family. My mother had me when she was, I think, 15, 16. They tried to get her to have an abortion and she refused. So, my 'mama' adopted me, which was really her great aunt, which was really my great-great aunt, who was named Viola Dickerson. I was told that my mother was my sister.
Eric Dickerson