Dickerson: ‘Money Not Everything’ : Pro football: Former Ram agrees to have pay cut in half so that he can return to Los Angeles and play for the Raiders.

Four-and-a-half years after rejecting a reported offer of $1.125 million per season from the Rams, leading to his acrimonious trade to the Indianapolis Colts, Eric Dickerson has agreed to those approximate contract terms in Los Angeles.

This time around, though, Dickerson will run “47-Gap” for the Los Angeles Raiders.

Desperate to leave the Colts but stripped of his leverage, the turbulent tailback was granted passage Sunday when he was traded to the Raiders for fourth and eighth-round draft choices.

Not merely any fourth-round pick, naturally, but the one the Raiders obtained from Dallas last summer in the Steve Beuerlein trade.

For the privilege of becoming a Raider, Dickerson agreed to a significant pay cut, once an unfathomable concept. Due to earn $2.2 million with Colts next season--$8.6 million in total for the next three seasons--Dickerson walked away for an estimated $1.1 million, plus a probable incentives package.

“Money’s important, but money is not everything,” Dickerson said.

Dickerson said he was sensitive to the Raiders’ salary structure, which keeps tailback Marcus Allen in check annually at $1.1 million per season.

Dickerson has come a long way since 1987. It turns out that the Rams’ final contract offer to him then wasn’t out of line, it simply was years ahead of its time.

Dickerson hopes he can patch things up with fans of Los Angeles, many whom portrayed him as selfish and greedy when he left town.

“The image came because, when I left, people were mad,” Dickerson said. “It was like ‘How dare you leave. How dare you not stay.’ But it’s like I said before, that was business, that’s what it was all about. Nothing personal, but I had to do what I thought was best for me.”

Dickerson said he never wanted to leave. He also said the Rams lied when they made public their last contract offer of $1.125 million.

“If they offered me that, I would have stayed with the Rams,” he said. “But I never got that phantom offer everyone talks about.”

Dickerson acknowledges that he was “no angel” during negotiations, but said both sides were to blame.

With time running out on his career at 31, Dickerson is out to prove he will sacrifice millions to win a championship.

“This is it for me,” he said. “It’s got to be it. What else am I going to do, go to the World League? Canada?”

The question is: What does Dickerson have left? With 12,439 rushing yards in nine seasons, he ranks third in NFL history behind Walter Payton and Tony Dorsett.

But Dickerson will turn 32 before the season opener. His yards per carry average has decreased every season since 1987.

“We don’t think he’s a big risk,” Raider Coach Art Shell said. “We think the guy can still play.”

Dickerson gained 1,000 yards or more in each of his first seven seasons, but has totaled 1,213 in the last two.

Still, Dickerson has never undergone surgery in nine NFL seasons and maintains he still has a lot to offer.

“I’m a runner,” he said. “That’s my best attribute, and I can still run. I know my ability. I haven’t lost it yet.”.

With Dickerson, there are other considerations.

In 1990, he was suspended for five games for refusing to take a physical and played in only eight games that season.

Last season, Dickerson reported to camp in the best shape of his career, but things fell apart quickly when the Colts’ offensive line was decimated by injuries.

Dickerson sat out six games last season, three for disciplinary reasons after he was accused of refusing to practice. He finished with 536 yards, a career-low.

Dickerson wanted out, but the facts were these:

Dickerson had backed himself into a corner. Few teams were interested in claiming the tailback and his luggage. Dickerson wanted to play close to home in Malibu, but the Rams certainly weren’t in the picture.

There were few options except the Raiders, who aren’t afraid to take chances with reputed recalcitrants, or cut sweet deals for themselves, either.

In the end, they got Dickerson cheap.

“It would appear that way,” said Steve Ortmayer, the team’s director of football operations.

To the Raiders, there is no attitude problem that cannot be solved, no hard-luck story that cannot be revised and retold. The upside is that Dickerson might reclaim a portion of his once enormous talent.

“The Raiders have always had the mystique of being the bad boys on the block,” Dickerson said. “I always like being with the bad boys, so long as it doesn’t go too far.”

So much has changed since 1987, when Dickerson held the cards.

When he went to the Colts in a three-team trade that involved the Buffalo Bills, the Rams received in return three first-round draft choices, three second-round picks, and running backs Greg Bell and Owen Gill. Bell had consecutive 1,000-yard rushing seasons for the Rams before he was traded to the Raiders in 1990.

This weekend, the Raiders and Colts were haggling over whether Dickerson was worth a third or fourth-round choice.

The Colts gave in and took a fourth and an eighth.

“We wanted to keep Eric happy,” Colt owner Bob Irsay said Sunday in Indianapolis. “He wanted to be a Hollywood boy, so we sent him back to Hollywood.”

Dickerson appeared a franchise saver when he first arrived, leading the Colts to the AFC Eastern Division title in 1987 while rushing for 1,011 yards.

But the Colts have not returned to the playoffs since.

The trade made financial sense for the Colts, who could not be sure they would be getting their money’s worth from a brooding Dickerson. Indianapolis can now use the $8.6 million it would have owed Dickerson to help pay for the Colts’ draft picks.

At one time, Dickerson was one of the best backs ever. He had seven consecutive seasons in which he rushed for 1,000 yards until 1990, when his suspension limited him to 677 rushing yards.

In 1984 with the Rams, Dickerson set the single-season rushing record with 2,105 yards in 16 games.

Dickerson said he knew it was over in Indianapolis last season when he was suspended for refusing to come out of a game, a charge he also denies.

But that was another time.

“Some of the things I’ve done, I’ve been wrong in doing,” he said. “I’ve been hasty, you lose your cool and say things you really don’t mean. I think it’s out of frustration, out of anger.

“I think mine was out of frustration. It’s not fun losing a lot of games. it’s not fun going 1-15. You don’t know what it’s like.”

It was so bad that Dickerson took a million-dollar pay cut.