"You understand what T.O overcame to get back in the game, what Plaxico Burress goes through each week, and what Philip Rivers went through to play. LT told us he was close to 100%. The problem is, when you tell me that, I have expectations, and when you don't meet those expectations, you open yourself for us to try to guess. Now what's the problem? You're a big-time player. And big-time players must play in big time games.

I know a lot of people will give LT a pass and say we don't know what happened. As a teammate, as fans looking on, it must be a surgery for him to get a pass on this one. I hope he comes up with something in the offseason, nothing severe, but a surgery for him to get a pass on this one."

Deion is right that expectations were key here. I waited to write this post until the morning to see if more information was available. And wouldn't you know, Tomlinson says he has a sprained MCL. This column indicates the injury was diagnosed last week, and that the "hyperextension" and "90% healthy" public talk were smokescreens. Either the Chargers violated injury reporting procedures or they are covering up now. The Kansas City Star and Charger Nation are wondering what happened.

We take acts of incredible toughness for granted in the NFL. We expect T.O. to return in weeks from a severe ankle sprain. Antonio Gates plays two games with a dislocated toe, and Philip Rivers plays with a sprained MCL and partially torn ACL, and we wonder why he didn't play better. It's difficult to criticize LaDainian Tomlinson for another disappointing January, but the image of his frozen Sunday will be tough to shake. Let's just hope he gets another chance to erase it.