It’s Not Over for Dunn

One of the NFL’s unwritten commandments is to never trust anyone over 30 to carry the football.

Yet in his first game since reaching the age that qualifies running backs as senior citizens, Warrick Dunn established an Atlanta Falcon postseason record with 142 yards rushing Saturday in a 47-17 victory over the St. Louis Rams.

Afterward, beaming Falcon players made their way from the field to the locker room as fans shook their hands and slapped their backs. All the players had a spring in their gait after advancing to the NFC championship game, but only Dunn was in a full sprint.

“Look at him, after all those carries,” a woman exclaimed. “He can’t stop running.”

Why should he? Dunn still has lightning in his stride and lightness to his step. For the first time in years, he doesn’t feel as if he’s carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.

He no longer is made to feel like a payroll burden and the owner’s pet, not since Coach Dan Reeves was fired with three games left in the 2003 season.

He no longer feels obligated to support his five younger siblings the way he did for years after his mother, a Baton Rouge, La., police officer, was shot and killed while working a second job as a security guard in 1993. His three brothers and two sisters all are in college or have graduated.

And he certainly doesn’t want to stop until a Super Bowl is reached, not after missing out on the Tampa Bay Buccaneer title run in 2002. He signed with the Falcons before that season for $28.5 million over six years, having built a strong resume in five seasons with the Buccaneers.

So Dunn bounded into the locker room, changed quickly and paused only to put the victory in perspective. This was his ninth playoff game, and several were major disappointments, including an eight-carry, one-yard effort in a loss to the Philadelphia Eagles in 2000. He had averaged 41 yards a game and less than 3.0 yards per carry in the postseason until the breakout against the Rams.

“I had never been a huge factor in a playoff game,” he said. “I wanted to come out and make some plays to help our team win.”

Someone needled him about his age -- he turned 30 on Jan. 5. “I feel young,” he said. “My legs are fresh, and I’m just having fun.”

Dunn had more than 100 yards in the first quarter and scored on runs of 62 and 19 yards, proving that a defense will pay for being overly concerned with explosive quarterback Michael Vick.

“When you have a guy like that rolling one way and we’re going the other, the defense tends to go with him,” Dunn said. “That created some running lanes that I was able to take advantage of early.”

His teammates talked about his leadership and maturity, terms that can carry the subtext of over-the-hill. Rather than take umbrage and point out that Curtis Martin, Marshall Faulk and Emmitt Smith are also 30-something tailbacks, Dunn took the compliments at face value.

“Guys were so anxious during practice this week they were fighting a little bit,” he said. “I tried to help cut the tension. Even in pregame, guys had to calm down. I was getting tired before the game even started.”

Soon the Rams were tired of chasing him into the end zone. It was the kind of performance Falcon owner Arthur Blank envisioned when he signed Dunn.

Reeves bit his tongue but made his feelings clear when he used a first-round pick in 2002 to draft running back T.J. Duckett rather than fill the team’s more pressing need at receiver.

Blank was said to be smitten by Dunn because of his community involvement, especially the Home for the Holidays charity that has enabled single mothers from Baton Rouge to St. Petersburg and Tampa, Fla., to become first-time homeowners.

Blank, who co-founded Home Depot in 1978, soon partnered with Dunn, supplying furnishings in the homes provided to low-income mothers. Dunn makes the down payments.

“I put them in a position to succeed, to become stable, to try to better their lives, move forward and better their kids’ lives,” Dunn said. “It’s not about me, it’s about a mother and her family.”

He began the program in 1997, his rookie season, after signing for $8.8 million as a first-round pick from Florida State.

Helping single mothers had been his dream since his own mother, Cpl. Betty Dunn Smothers of the Baton Rouge Police Department, was shot and killed while escorting a supermarket manager to make a night bank deposit.

Dunn, the oldest of her children, was an 18-year-old high school senior. He thought his dream of playing college football had been dashed, but his grandmother had the help of the Baton Rouge police and other community services to ensure his brothers and sisters were cared for, and he went to Florida State.

In his first year in the NFL, his three youngest siblings moved to Tampa with him.

“Sometimes after practice some of the guys would go out, and I couldn’t,” Dunn said. “I’d be like, ‘I gotta go make dinner for everybody, make sure they do their homework.’ They were leaning on me for emotional support, and every now and then I’d give financial benefits.”

Now the youngest of his brothers and sisters is 20 and all are self-sufficient. Dunn’s attention has turned to providing guidance on the field.

“I think last year [retired fullback] Bobby Christian was maybe 70% of our leadership and Warrick 30%,” Falcon running backs coach Ollie Wilson said. “Now, he’s probably 100%.

“Before, maybe he only spoke if he was asked questions. Now, he starts conversations and asks questions: ‘What if we do this? How can we do that better?’ ”

Dunn racked up his third 1,000-yard season in 2004, and he got better as the season progressed. His performance against the Rams was his fourth 100-yard game in the last five. Only 5 feet 8, 190 pounds, he started all 16 regular-season games for the first time and set career highs with nine rushing touchdowns and 265 carries.

“I think the misimpression people have about Warrick is that because of his size, he’s an outside runner,” Coach Jim Mora said. “But he’s not.

“He’s so good between the tackles because he can find that crease and he can hit it quickly. That’s one reason why he’s so effective.”

And another is that he doesn’t stop running -- until he reaches the locker room.

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Dunn by the Numbers

Warrick Dunn’s career statistics and this season’s playoff stats:

*--* Season Team Yards Avg TD Rec Avg TD 1997 TB 978 4.4 4 39 11.8 3 1998 TB 1,026 4.2 2 44 7.8 0 1999 TB 616 3.2 0 64 9.2 2 2000 TB 1,133 4.6 8 44 9.6 1 2001 TB 447 2.8 3 68 8.2 3 2002 ATL 927 4.0 7 50 7.5 2 2003 ATL 672 5.4 3 37 9.1 2 2004 ATL 1,106 4.2 9 29 10.1 0 CAREER: 6,905 4.1 36 375 9.0 13 Playoffs Team Yards Avg TD Rec Avg TD 2004 ATL 142 8.4 2 1 2.0 0

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