NFL
Dillon winning them over in New England

By Greg Bishop
Seattle Times staff reporter

JOE RIMKUS JR / KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS After years of being unhappy with losing in Cincinnati, Corey Dillon is happy to be winning in New England.

E-mail this article Print this article Search archive Most read articles Most e-mailed articles

Related stories Notebook: Hawks, Pats catchers receive little acclaim Pats notes: Belichick praises Hawks NFL power rankings NFC West Watch Other links Survey: What's the biggest threat facing the Hawks this weekend?

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — There's Corey Dillon, the happiest man on earth, jumping like a newlywed into the arms of teammates after the Patriots' first win this season.

Here's Corey Dillon, running like he hasn't run in years, mouth smiling while the Patriots reduce his carries, shoulders shrugging at his lack of touchdowns, head bobbing as the boom box in front of his locker pumps some old-school hip-hop.

There's no menace, no scowl, no "I want out." There's no pretense, no posturing, no "I'd rather flip burgers."

This isn't about Corey Dillon anymore. At least that's what Corey Dillon says.

This is about the New England Patriots, the winning team he never had. This is about Dillon's first 4-0 start since his days at Seattle's Franklin High School. This is about perceptions and misconceptions.

This is about Corey Dillon, model citizen. He's smiling. Corey Dillon is smiling.

"It's like a rebirth," said Greg Croshaw, Dillon's coach at Dixie State College in St. George, Utah.

Winning always took whatever went wrong for Dillon and made it right. And because the Patriots are breaking as many records as the Seattle native does tackles, his agent, Steven Feldman, doesn't pause when he says Dillon's "by far, the happiest I've ever seen him."

Croshaw and Joe Slye aren't surprised. They know Dillon. They stand up for him whenever something happens, whenever Dillon says something outlandish and the world sighs, "There goes Corey."

Slye, Dillon's football coach at Franklin, used to watch Dillon play pick-up basketball during lunch in high school. Dillon wasn't very good, but that didn't matter. Nobody left until Dillon won. He wouldn't eat until that happened.

Winning soothed Dillon like Chicken Soup for the Tortured Athlete's Soul. It made him forget about the statistics, the slights, the stops at four colleges, the unhappiness with the Cincinnati Bengals. Winning mattered most. It still does.

"I always figured that if he got on a good team, he could hold his ego in check," Slye said this week. "I knew he could blend in. Winning was always so important to Corey. Winning takes care of all that pain."

Dillon played only one season at Dixie State (he also went to Edmonds Community College, Garden City CC in Kansas and Washington, gaining 1,555 yards and scoring 23 touchdowns in 1996, his only season with the Huskies), but he made an impression on Croshaw that endures. He even helped pay for new Dixie State locker rooms recently.

Croshaw saw Dillon before training camp this season. They played golf — badly, it turns out. And this wasn't the Dillon that Croshaw knew. So happy. So carefree.

Croshaw told Dillon he hoped he hadn't paid for lessons. Dillon laughed. Corey Dillon is laughing.

"That was to be expected," Croshaw said of Dillon's improved frame of mind. "It's fine to be the famous football player on the bad team. It's fine to be the guy. But it's a heck of a lot easier to be on a team that wins.

"This will prolong his career. And his gusto for the game has picked up. He has an extra shot of excitement or adrenaline or whatever the heck it is. He's got it. Losing saps your strength. Winning gives you more."

Teammates talk about Dillon like he's two people. The one they expected to show up. And the one that did.

They talk about how much more dangerous their offense is with Dillon, a back who gained more than 1,000 yards in each of his first six seasons and has run for 417 yards in four games with the Patriots, averaging a career-best 5 yards per carry. They talk about the jokes he makes lightening the locker room. Croshaw is even predicting a return trip to the Pro Bowl.

They know nothing of the malcontent who grew tired of Cincinnati, of all the losing, of the guy who always had to explain those losses to the media.

But this isn't about redemption. Make no mistake about that.

It's about perception, the way people view Corey Dillon. And whether those perceptions will ever change, let alone if they're changing as this season passes.

	ANDY LYONS / GETTY IMAGES Dillon is focused on this year and happily has put a losing past behind him.

"The only people that really know and understand Corey already knew what he was about," Slye said. "I don't think misconceptions are changing all that much. But people are beginning to see that he can hold his ego in check, that he can be part of a cog in the wheel and not the whole dang car."

The Patriots took a gamble on Dillon, trading for a guy with the chemistry of a time bomb and putting him into a locker room with the best chemistry in football. It reminded Seahawks coach Mike Holmgren of the time he signed receiver Andre Rison, another question mark who helped Green Bay win the Super Bowl.

"I'm less likely to take a risk on something like that," Holmgren said.

But the results might be the same. At least that's the way it looks in mid-October.

Yesterday, Dillon wasn't in the mood confidants have described. He was scowling. Frowning. Too many guys with pads and tape recorders in their hands. His answers were short, crisp, mandated.

He watched the Seahawks growing up in Seattle, but he wasn't a fan. He hasn't paid much attention to Washington's awful start. He still has friends and family in Seattle, but said he doesn't live there anymore.

When asked where he did live, Dillon said in an "undisclosed location."

A reporter asked Dillon about last season, when the Seahawks came to Cincinnati and he missed playing against them because of a car accident before the game.

"I don't even remember," Dillon said, frustration seeping from his voice. "I don't care. That's last year. We're talking about 2004."

That we are. Corey Dillon is smiling. Corey Dillon is laughing. Corey Dillon has become the antithesis of everything the pre-New England Corey Dillon stood for.

"I would assume so," Dillon said when asked if this was the happiest he has been in the NFL. "This is a pretty nice situation for me. We're winning football games. I mean, what's not fun about winning football games?"

Greg Bishop: 206-464-3191 or gbishop@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

E-mail this article

Print this article

Search archive

More sports headlines...