The Best Back Ever

So you want to learn why LaDainian Tomlinson, who is tearing up the National Football League's storied record book as if it were a piece of junk mail, is the best football player in the world? Let's step into his classroom. Lesson One: take a trip to the local variety store, where you can find a whirring fan and a deck of cards. "There's this trick where you throw a card up in the air when a fan is blowing and you try to catch it," Tomlinson, the San Diego Chargers running back, explains in his Texas drawl. The man is not fooling around. He does the trick twice a week during the off-season, snatching dozens of high-speed aces bouncing off the blades, in order to tune the quick reflexes a great running back requires.

It's the oddest secret of Tomlinson's success; picture a player for the ages watching cards bounce off a fan like a toddler bored out of his mind. But poke fun at your peril if you're an opponent. The humble star, 27, in his sixth year as a pro, smoked the single-season touchdown record, needing just 13 games (out of 16) to pass the previous mark, 28 touchdowns, set by Seattle's Shaun Alexander last year. (Tomlinson finished with 31.) He broke Paul Hornung's 46-year-old record for most points scored in a season and finished the year with 1,815 rushing yards--tops in the NFL--and 508 receiving yards. Tomlinson carried the Chargers to a franchise-best 14-2 record, and since they hold home-field advantage throughout the playoffs, which start Jan. 6 (the Chargers have earned a first-round bye), the Bolts are favorites to fly to Miami, representing the American Football Conference in the Feb. 4 Super Bowl.

With his team soaring and tacklers clasping air as he bursts by them, Tomlinson, a quiet leader actually stressed out by attention, has recorded the best single-season performance for a back in football history. "By far," says Emmitt Smith, the league's all-time leading rusher--for now. Tomlinson is the best ever, gushes Chargers coach Marty Schottenheimer. That means better than Red Grange, Jim Brown, Walter Payton and Barry Sanders. Heck, Tomlinson even completed two of his three passes--both for touchdowns--and is a garish seven out of 10, with six TD tosses, in his career. With the dazzling runs, sure hands and strong arm, LT, as he is known, has created the ultimate matchup problem. He has set the new standard for what a running back can do--and with his team-first attitude, how a great athlete should comport himself. "The best way to describe LT is in four words," says former Dallas Cowboys player personnel director Gil Brandt: "Player with no flaws."

All the tricks of Tomlinson's trade start with his unique vision. When a running back takes the football from the quarterback, chaos greets his line of sight: a dozen massive men pound one another at the line of scrimmage, trying to create, or prevent, a split-second opening for the back to slip through. Tomlinson's eyes process the scrum like internal software, letting him spot the holes. "It seems like things are happening in slow motion, and you're kind of moving through everything with ease," Tomlinson says. "It's a nice feeling."