Jan 31, 2019 4 min read

ATLANTA – Los Angeles Rams running back C.J. Anderson has a pretty big chip on his shoulder.

Maybe that comes from not being drafted. Or maybe it comes from those shoulders being a little hunched over as he rolls strike after strike.

“I took it serious when I was 19,”Anderson said, saying he has about a 225 bowling average. He bowls mainly with his mother and grandmother. His 75-year-old grandmother, Barbara Gaddies, bowls at a 205 average.

His mom, Nevea Craig, bowls too, but he says she’s not as good as his grandmother.

Will Anderson be able to bowl the Patriots over? If they’re not careful, one of the Rams’ better players of late – he’s been ahead of star Todd Gurley, who doesn’t seem to be completely healthy, although there’s no official evidence to the contrary – will surprise them.

Remember, nearly two months ago, Anderson was a Carolina Panther, not a Ram. Released, signed. That’s the NFL drill.

“With every carry, I just try to pick up the sticks,” he said, adding when asked if his style is tough for the Patriots to handle, “Hopefully, I’ve had some success against them.”

Anderson and Gurley have worked well together.

“It’s important to have the same (football) atmosphere you’ve had since you were a kid,” he said. “That’s the good thing about this team. They understand that, they love the game of football. They’ve had the winning formula since Week 1, and now it’s Week 20.”

But back a few years ago, Anderson wondered if he’d make it to Week 1. You can tell it sticks with him a little bit that no one selected him.

“There’s a draft,” he said. “It happens every year from April 27-30. There’s 254 picks. There’s 32 teams. And your phone doesn’t ring, throughout those three days. That’s undrafted.”

But it doesn’t translate to the field. The Broncos signed him in 2013 and by 2017 he was a 1,000-yard rusher. Then, this year, he signed with the Panthers before ending up with the Rams. Undrafted doesn’t matter to him now, and perhaps it never did.

“It doesn’t,” he said. “If you can play the game, you can play the game. The game don’t care who makes the plays, the game don’t care who has the opportunities to make the plays. If you can play, you can play.”

“I’m six years in the league with a Pro Bowl and a couple of other accolades,” he added. “The ‘undrafted tag’ left me a long time ago.”

And Rams coach Sean McVay and General Manager Les Snead tagged him as theirs.

“I think the tape he and Les watched on me is how I played the game,” Anderson said. “They put me in some of the same positions I’d been successful (in) before. … Anything we had not done, we’re not even testing those waters.”

Again, Anderson, who won a Super Bowl with Denver, says he has no reaction to not being drafted.

“Nothing,” he said, adding it didn’t bother him. “You don’t know how I grew up, you don’t know what I’ve been through. … If you want to know, you can come down to Vallejo, California, and we can have a talk at MoMo’s Cafe.”

Anderson says playing for Rams coach Sean McVay is the perfect fit.

“He puts players in the perfect position that he feels is best,” he said. “He’s asks players what they’re comfortable with, asks the veteran players what they’ve done in the past and how they can implement that in his scheme.”

Anderson says he has watched plenty of Patriots film, and he knows Patriots coach Bill Belichick has done the same.

“All the time,” he said. “It’s going to be tough. If they take away what we do best, they have a high chance of winning the game on Sunday. It’s going to be interesting to see what ‘best’ does he take away. Every team has a best; there’s always Plan A, Plan B, Plan C.”

For the Rams, C.J. Anderson has been all of that. After the Super Bowl, look for him at a tenpin bowling alley near you.