At the P-D, a great retrospective from Bernie Miklasz on the intermittently beleaguered career of Steven Jackson, who reached the St. Louis Rams just in time to get stuck with Blame The Best Player syndrome:
↵↵↵He piled up lots of yards, but with the team losing so many games, the production was downgraded or dismissed as largely irrelevant among the more ignorant Jackson critics.
↵Which, of course, was nonsense. Blaming Jackson for the team's failure to win was silly. It's the equivalent of blaming him for all of the horrible draft picks and personnel decisions, or holding him responsible for Isaac Bruce, Torry Holt and Orlando Pace getting old.
↵
Now that Jackson's gotten a little older—now that he's basically the team's elder statesman—and the team has fallen so far from the Greatest Show on Turf that it's hard to believe it ever happened, I can already see fan opinion of Jackson starting to turn. He's less physically talented, and more beset by injuries, so it's easier to turn him into a veteran guts-and-grit hero than a rookie coaster.
↵The truth, undoubtedly, is in the middle of his various personae. Or maybe on his Twitter, where he watches Rachael Ray, eats at Pasta House, and decides on The Social Network over The Town.