Tomlinson may not play against Steelers this weekend

January 6, 7:58 AMSports ExaminerPaula Duffy

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     LaDainian Tomlinson in his masked helmet

LaDainian Tomlinson doesn't sound convincing about anything when he speaks about injuries he has sustained. It's almost as if he wears a virtual mask when off the field.

Perhaps it's his pride or maybe a warrior's mentality not to acknowledge pain or setbacks. Whatever it is, it hasn't won him any fans and fuels the flames of criticism about his ability to play what Jim Rome likes to call a "man's game, a man's game".

But to be fair, the guy has hit that age wall that is peculiar to running backs, especially starters who weren't part of a tandem running back system. LT has absorbed punishment for eight years and two years ago it reached its peak.

He carried for more than 1,800 yards and scored 28 TD's. He won the league's MVP. The problem for the club is that he was never the same. And then the injuries hit.

LT got a reputation after 2007 and the infamous AFC Championship game in New England as a guy who might not be willing to put up with the worst kind of pain to help his team. And having hit that age wall, the injuries started to come more often and seemed more severe.

Some of that criticism stemmed from camera shots of him sitting on the bench cloaked in his big uniform cape and his dark tinted-double visor mask-covered helmet while his teammates were up on the sidelines, watching their QB, Philip Rivers play with torn ligaments in his knee.

LT spent a good part of this past off-season mending his reputation and assuring Chargers fans and that he was hurt enough not to play. The fact that he had to do that should have been a sign to him that no good deed goes unpunished. In other words, MVP of the league one year and the next, a reputation in question.

He never regained his running prowess this season although he said he was 100% and like the rest of the team seemed unable to win close games and punch it in from the red zone on cue. The team turned it around but LT's performance remained erratic. He'd alternate sub-par games with merely average ones. Three of his 11 TD's this season game in week 17.

We never learned exactly why his year was less than stellar other than some veiled discussions about play-calling. He was guarded about it all.

Now we are hearing him talk about a groin injury he sustained in the last game of the regular season and which forced him to come out of the wild card game against the Colts after he scored the first Chargers touchdown. To make matters worse, he told NBC's sideline reporter that he was fine although he never returned to the game.

He is very questionable for this weekend's contest in Pittsburgh. He watched Darren Sproles go into the record books. But he learned a lesson from last year. He was on the sideline with the team and there was no masked helmet in sight.

After watching his first long run from scrimmage I realized he shouldn't have been in the game but I'm sure he learned the lesson from last season. He wasn't about to be called soft in the playoffs two years in a row.

But someone needs to help him through the script of how to talk about his injuries and his inability to play to make us believe him. Or maybe not. Who the hell are we to judge this guy after his accomplishments?