He will be forever appreciative of what the game has done for him, yet he's never felt appreciated.
In some ways, C.J. Anderson is a walking -- better yet a running -- contradiction. Maybe that's why he's so hard to bring down.
"Luckily I had the football talent to make it to the NFL, but a lot of people get credit for putting me in the position I'm in today," said Anderson, a 1,000-yard running back for the Broncos in 2017 who signed a one-year contract with the Panthers. "Football was a way out, and it became something I loved to do.