HOFtime

Now that we're through the all-time playdowns and in the midst of that sleepy time of year, I thought I'd throw out the names of some non-Hall of Famers for your consideration.

Are these guys Canton-worthy? Depends about the part of Canton you're talking about, and whether you really mean Canton, Ohio, or The Huge, Stinking Chinese City Formerly Known As Canton. But they deserve to be in one of those conversations, alongside the moo goo gai pan.

Here you go.

Bobby Dillon: Just because Sammy Baugh and Don Hutson could play D-back doesn't mean it was easy, not with the Messrs. Fears and Hirsch and Lavelli and Speedie bearing down on you and the position itself going through full-on puberty. Through the mid-'50s, when the Packers' front seven consisted of Hawg Hanner and Clayton Tonnemaker flanked by large cardboard cutouts, Bobby Dillion was supporting Val Joe Walker, Jim Psaltis, Veryl Switzer, and Clarence Self in the defensive backfield. By any measure Dillion had his own work cut out for him, yet he excelled -- four times All-Pro, five times Pro Bowl. On a better team this was Canton material. On the Packers of the mid-'50s it was self-preservation.

Steve Tasker: If a healthy disregard for sanity is a prerequisite for playing special teams, Steve Tasker's disregard was Jack LaLanne healthy. It was selling carrot juicers to all the other special-teams' guys disregards. This was fortunate for Tasker, as there are few jobs not being held by North Koreans where disregarding sanity pays so well. Tasker was the Kim Jong Il of the special-teams' world, not because he came to work in a Hongqi V12 or launched pre-emptive nuclear strikes against Vai Sikahema, but because he didn't give a rip what western civilization said, he was going to disembowel Elbert Shelley if it was his last act on earth, and damn the U.N. sanctions. Such miscreance is usually only found on SpikeTV, but it got the dude seven Pro Bowl appearances, and if they ever figure that screaming down the field 10 times a game like a candidate for the rubber room is enough to get you immortalized a short drive away from The Rubber City, Tasker is so there.

Jim David: At some point with the Detroit Lions' defensive backfield you have to ask how much of it was the reputation and how much was the players. From 1949 to 1967 the Lions had at least one All-Something D-back. From 1952 to 1963 they had two or more. Now granted, the Lions essentially defined modern D-back philosophy, and granted, the Lions stuck some tremendous players in their D-backfields. But was Jim David All-Pro for six straight seasons in the '50s because he was that good, or because the system was that advanced? With the exception of Night Train Lane, none of the Lions' D-backs played much anywhere else, so it's hard to judge. There's definitely something to the system, however. Other teams that followed it, most notably the Lombardi Packers, churned out All-Pros and HOFers, though never to the extent of the Lions. It's like the Lions discovered something that no one else could figure out or find for a decade. It's perplexing, and it really took the AFL to bring pro football around to something the Lions had known since 1951.

Dave Robinson: Three Pro Bowls, four times all-something, could match Herb Adderley stride-for-stride in a straight-line race … based on athletic ability alone, Dave Robinson would be the all-time-great Packer linebacker you'd pick first -- and then your team would be mediocre because Ray Nitschke played like a guy who missed his appointment with the exorcist. But Dave Robinson certainly had it all.

Neil Smith: Lest you think I'm just Jackson Pollock splash-painting with football words, this thing about the strength of a team resting in its lines really exists. You can prove it using a spreadsheet and the simplest of analytical tools: your brain. Go to pro-football-reference.com. Call up the page that lists current teams and their all-time records. Copy it and dump it into an Excel spreadsheet, then eliminate all the extraneous stuff, such as the all-time leading receivers for the various teams. Sure, there’s some hungover eyebrow-raising to be done at the revelation that Eric Martin is still the Saints' all-time leading receiver, but that only proves that records truly are made to be broken. Once the non-essentials have been banished to Deleteville, sort the teams by won-loss percentage, with the winningest teams at the top. You should wind up with a spreadsheet that starts with the Chicago Bears and ends with the Houston Texans. (It's not a straight oldest-to-youngest search, thanks to those Terry Feltons of the football world, Detroit and ChiStlAz.) Now, go though the spreadsheet and identify the part of each team that has historically been the strongest -- QB, RB, O-line, D-line, LB, DB,WR, special teams. Do that and you wind up with nine of the 10 best teams characterized by at least one dominant line -- and the teams have been able to perpetuate those lines over time and changes in personnel, rules, game play, and coaching staffs. You can win some games with a great QB, about as many with a great RB, proportionally less with great pass-catchers and D-backs. But you ain't perpetuating nothin' unless you're committed to building powerhouse lines every season, regardless of coach or quarterback. And while Kansas City isn't the winningest team out there, its whirpool runneth over with really solid D-linemen like Neil Smith -- a stout run-stuffer, a sack machine, and very, very comparable to Buck Buchanan. If you're wondering what a perennially great team is made of, here's your answer: Neil Smith. Four Neil Smiths, ideally.

Tom Sestak: By all accounts Sestak, who died young, was an absolute monster. His coach, Lou Saban, said Sestak was "one of the best I've ever seen, on any field, in any league ... for strength, interior pass rush, ability to read offensive keys, instinct to fight off traps, and raw courage." His knees were goulash but his upper body was like the palisades, and he could one-arm-tackle anyone, even bruisers like Jim Nance. The nearest thing to Sestak in today's game are Minnesota's Williamses, but Sestak was better. And less heralded, but that's Buffalo.

Maxie Baughan: This is a head-scratcher. You don't figure, do you, that the NFL is holding down Maxie Baughan because he slept with an assistant coach's wife when he was head coach at Cornell? Isn't that what assistant coaches (and their wives) are for? But it must be that, because there are a bunch of HOFers besides Trippi and Hornung with worse credentials than Mad Max. Consider that Baughan was All-Something nine times out of 10 in the Decade of the Linebacker, when teams finally concluded that, hey, it's pretty neat to have a guy who runs up into the hole and tackles Tucker Fredrickson for a loss and runs back and nails Aaron Thomas in the ribs when Gary Wood overthrows him. Nine times out of 10 for Baughan beats Dave Wilcox's seven, which is not the same thing as Baughan being better than Wilcox. If Baughan had laid down these numbers playing the middle instead of the outside he'd have been in Canton 20 years ago, because the Decade of the Linebacker was all about the middle. Just because Sam Huff was miked and Ray Nitschke had a steel plate in his head and Dick Butkus screamed at people and Tommy Nobis was the most fought-over No. 1 draft pick ever middle linebackers got an aura in the '60s, even though they were playing a position that five years earlier centers played in their free time. That stinks for Baughan, who really was a corker.

Bill Forester: Bill Forester may have been better than Ray Nitschke. Contemporary measurements say so; All-Pros are three-to-one in favor of Forester, and Forester has a 4-3 edge in Pro Bowls. Forester doesn't have as many rings and he spent more years playing nose tackle, of all things, on rotten teams, but he was Lombardi's first choice for defensive captain over Nitschke. Let's call it a draw then, except for one thing: Nitschke's one of the all-time greats and Forester nuzzles up to Brian Noble in the Packer Hall of Fame. Fairly unfair, in other words.

Alex Karras: The case is clearer with Karras, who deservedly or not served a one-year suspension for gambling in 1963, along with Paul Hornung. Gambling has always been the big stop stick in the road for halls of fame, and Karras hit it full-on – though, it must be noted, it didn't stop his partner in alleged crime. But with Karras, there was also Paper Lion, and the movie where he punched out the horse, and the other movie where he played a gay bodyguard, and the goofy TV series where he wore an apron, and, and ... and the lesson here, kiddies, is that if you want to have your cake and eat it too, relax, be patient, and always remember to play for Vince Lombardi. Think about this, though: At the time of their suspensions, what would have been the over on who would have the longer acting career: the curly-haired Golden Boy with the dimple, or the brick-shaped, stolid Greek? Gyro Boy’s upset win is the Jets-over-Colts of football-to-acting transitions.

Winston Hill: Hill was an accomplished tennis player, so ostensibly he was better than Franco Harris, whose tennis game was not much different from his football game (meaning that, yes, he sent it out of bounds every chance he got). Just the mere fact that Hill played tennis tells you something about him: He was very nimble as offensive linemen go, even by '60s standards. Hill was listed at 6-4 and 270 but played around 250. He made all-Star games eight times, or about four times more than he would have made it in a unified NFL, but he was probably one of the 10 best AFL linemen. The fact that he was able to stand up to the Bob Lillys and Bubba Smiths after unification tells you how good he was. And you'd best stay away from his overhead smash.

Bears-Rams: Let's Try A Run, Nagurski

Final Four is trademarked, so I can’t use it in this context. I can’t even think it in this context. In fact, I had to pay $275 just to mention it in my lead. Hey, NCAA: You take PayPal, right?

Okay, $275 poorer I press on. The four remaining teams in our all-time playdown are the Colts, Packers, Bears, and Rams. Disappointed that the Cowboys and 49ers didn’t make it? Tell them to get better players. Disappointed that the Cardinals didn’t make it? Just be thankful that that D-Line of Don Brumm, Chuck Walker, Eric Swann and Leo Sugar made it out of the first round. Baby steps. And no more Kevin Kolb experiments.

If the here-and-now suggests the Colts, Bears and Rams are all-time nothings (I can hear the shouts now: “You’d rather have Dan Orlovsky over Kevin Kolb? And you call yourself an expert?”, to which I reply, using my best expert tone, “Braaaaaaaaaap!!!”) don’t get your Victoria’s Secrets in a wad. It’s the norm for at least one of the four to stink at any given time. There has only been one year when all four teams have been truly bad (1982), no years when are four have been really good, and lots of years when three of the four have been really bad (1953, 1973, and 1974) or really good (2002, 2003, 2010, and most of the '60s). It’s more a matter of how good they are when they’re really good than how bad they are when they’ve been really bad. The Chad Hutchinson years are a mulligan, in other words.

The thing that distinguishes these four teams is in fact just how good they’ve been when they’ve been good. I hesitate like Colin Firth to use the word “dynasty” to apply to professional football. In my opinion there were only three true dynasties in sports: the Canadiens, the Yankees, and the Celtics. Every other proto-dynasty was just an extended period of goodness. In fact, if we were doing this exercise in any other professional sport the fix would be in – not because the fix was actually in in the sense of pretend Mafiosos rigging the pretend results so that all the pretend betting in pretend Las Vegas would tilt their way, but because the top teams were that much better for that much longer over so many more decades. You really think the all-time St. Louis Baseball Cardinals could take down the all-time New York Baseball Yankees? Albert Pujols could be swinging the hammer of Thor and Bob Gibson could be throwing sub-atomic particles at the speed of light and the Yankees would still prevail in five.

The sketchy initial impressions of our four all-time teams are that the Bears and Rams are the “defensive” teams of the foursome and the Packers and Colts are the “offensive” teams. Of course, the initial impressions are wrong, and also of course, the two defensive teams play each other.

The Rams resemble a defensive team the same way that Newt Gingrich resembles the Dalai Lama. They’ll have three Hall of Fame quarterbacks once Kurt Warner makes it in, they’ll have four HOF wide receivers once Isaac Bruce and Torry Holt make it, they have three HOF running backs, and they throw in a couple of HOF linemen just for giggles. They actually have more offensive firepower than any of the four, but they have Deacon Jones, who holds the trademark on the quarterback sack (whoops – there goes another $75. Hey, Deacon: You take PayPal, right?) and Merlin Olsen, arguably the third-greatest athlete (after Lou Brock and Ferdinand the Bull) to while away his toast-'n'-jelly days schlepping flowers.

Actually, the most fascinating thing about the Rams-Bears matchup is how archetypical it is. How many games have been characterized as a clash between a running team that plays tough defense and a wide-open passing team that plays swinging-gate D? Well, this is that game, and on Mt. Olympus. Instead of Aaron Rodgers and Jordy Nelson versus Tim Tebow and Von Miller, this game offers Walter Payton and Dick Butkus against Norm van Brocklin and Deacon Jones. The only way this game could be more souped-up is if they were throwing around lightning bolts instead of The Duke.

As so often happens with games like these, what each team does well lines up with the other team’s weaknesses. The Rams don’t need to run, and pass defense (including a pass rush) is the Bears’ sole weakness. The Rams get after the quarterback like no one else but are lacking ‘50s-style run stuffers in the line – pity, because the Bears come right after their opponents with a battalion of ill-tempered linemen and a fleet of big-boned running backs.

Most of these games go off-script. Rodgers runs a mess of pitch sweeps to Ryan Grant and Tim Tebow dazzles (okay, not really dazzles, but doesn’t suck) with flag pattern after flag pattern to Eric Decker, and the whole sloppy mess causes fantasy-football players everywhere to throw handfuls of nacho-cheese Doritos at their big-screens.

This game doesn't. The Bears run, the Rams pass, the Bears block, the Rams shoot the gaps, the Bears control the line of scrimmage, the Rams go vertical, both teams get really dirty, and one team goes home.

That team is the … well, not so fast. It’s still the pregame show.

The only way we’re going to make any headway here is to send James Brown in search of more Doritos, and while he’s gone, look more closely at the areas of discord – the Rams against the run and the Bears against the pass.

The Rams have had a top-two defense six years (1947, 1966-67, 1970, and 1974-75). The Bears have had a top-two defense nine seasons since 1942 (1942, 1948, 1963, 1965, 1985-86, 1988, 2001, and 2005), which should tell you something right there.

In the six years where the Rams had one of the league’s top defenses, they were (going from earliest to most recent) first, third, second, fourth, first, and second against the run, and second overall every year except 2004.

The Bears were first, second, first, second, first, first, first, first, and second overall and third, second, second, ninth, third, first, 25th, 29th, and fifth against the pass.

The best Rams defenses (where most of the Hall of Famers are) are better against the run than the best Bears defenses are against the pass.

The way to beat the Bears, in other words, is to pass against them. The way to beat the Rams is not necessarily to run against them.

So does any of this matter?

Not much, because the Bears also have the greatest kick returners in history. I absolutely hate – I mean, Black-Eyed Peas levels of hate -- to have a game like this come down to special teams, because that would mean Kevin Harlan is right (“Big games like these ALWAYS come down to special teams!!”), but kick-returning is a huge plus for the Bears.

Gale Sayers didn’t get into the Hall of Fame on the strength of his 4,956 rushing yards alone. He got there on the strength of 4,956 rushing yards plus a kickoff-return yardage average that’s still the best in NFL history, a kickoff-return TD number that’s still top-three, and an all-purpose-yards-per-game number that isn’t tracked as an official statistic but which is large enough to make Mark Cuban want to buy it and move it to Dallas.

The reason Devin Hester is serious Canton material isn’t because he’s a pretty good third receiver. He’s Rust Belt-bound because when you kick the ball to him … you don’t want to kick the ball to him. Ever, under any circumstances. And that’s why he’s HOFesque.

The other reason why kick returns matter is because Deacon Jones, inventor of the quarterback sack (damn – another $75 out of my pocket) doesn’t play on kick returns.

Okay. So the Rams kick off to a split-back tandem of Sayers and Hester, and … hold on. Just think about that for a second. The Rams kick off, and if they kick it long it’s going to The Greatest Kick Returner In Football History, numbers 1 and 1a. Of course they’re going to run the kickoff back a long way. There is not a number out there that would suggest otherwise.

So the Rams kick off and Hester runs it out to the Rams’ 43. A mess of runs and an incomplete pass take it down to the 21, where Kevin Butler kicks a field goal. 3-0 Bears.

The Bears kick off to the Rams and Ollie Matson, no mean returner hisownself, flies it out to the Rams’ 40. Two runs and three passes take the ball down to the Bears’ 37, where the drive bogs down. Max Zendejas comes in to kick a field goal, but Doug Atkins blocks it with his island-size paw. Fortunately there’s no Devin Hester to return the blocked kick, and the Bears go three-and-out.

The Rams are set up nicely at their 39, and a series of quick slants and sideline routes take the ball down to the Bears’ 29. A screen to Marshall Faulk seemed like a good idea at this point, but Dick Butkus strips him clean and Bill George recovers. Faulk stumbles off the field holding his forearm by the hair, like it’s a Cabbage Patch Kid, and another drive goes a-glimmering.

The Bears pound it up the middle for about 17 yards, and that’s about it for the first quarter. The Rams lead in the excitement category 17-3, but excitement only matters in Battle of the Network Stars football, and then only when they hand the ball to Loni Anderson.

The Rams get the ball to start the second quarter, and they go right to work. A draw play to Eric Dickerson gets them their first positive rushing yards, and it’s quickly followed by a swing pass to Ollie Matson that nets 14. At this point Norm van Brocklin gets the bright idea to air it out to Crazylegs Hirsch and … it works. Whaddya know. Hirsch takes it 48 yards for a score, and suddenly it’s 7-3 Rams.

Oh, but then they kick it to Gale Sayers. First down Bears at midfield.

The problem with long kick returns, even for a defense as good as the Rams and an offense as woefully one-dimensional as the Bears, is that it asks the offense to do about 37 percent less to achieve the same result. And doing about 37 percent less is what the Bears’ offense is all about.

In the case of this drive, it means one middling 16-yard pass to Mike Ditka, a couple of nice eight-yard runs by Walter Payton, a little swing pass to Gale Sayers, and ultimately a two-yard plunge by Bronko Nagurski that puts the Bears up 10-7, taking us to halftime.

The halftime stats are nothing to write home about, even if you’re just writing home to ask for money. The Bears rush for just short of 70 yards and pass for 35. The Rams rush for 11 and pass for 139, but the fumble and the interception are, in the immortal words of The Philadelphia Story’s Macaulay Connor, a great levelerer.

The Rams get the ball to start the second half and take off down the field like they’ve been shot out of a gun. Unfortunately, it’s my son’s BB gun, and so they wind up about 20 yards short of the target. Max Zendejas knocks it through from 35 and we’re all tied at 10.

All things considered, the Rams would have been better turning over the ball on downs, because Hester takes the kick inside the Rams’ 40. Perhaps buoyed by this, Luckman does the unthinkable and lobs one between the arms of Deacon Jones in the direction of Lake Michigan. Harlon Hill jumps, Ed Meador jumps, and since Hill jumps better than Meador it’s a touchdown. Butler’s extra point makes it 17-10, and you can sense all the water leaking from Merlin Olsen’s Birthday Party Bouquet.

The Rams do their best to respond. Pinned back deep in their territory for the first time all afternoon, the Rams mix draws, screens, sideline patterns, and one sweet seam route to Torry Holt to move inside the Chicago 20 before the roof caves in, courtesy of Joe Stydahar and Dick Butkus. Two QB sacks plus an incompletion force Zendejas to attempt his third field goal. He knocks it through and the Bears’ lead shrinks to 17-13.

Finally the Rams squib a kickoff, forcing the Bears to start inside their 40. A three-and-out is matched by a five-and-out from the Rams, which is matched by another three-and-one, then a six-and-out, then a five-and-out, and before you know it it’s the Rams’ ball on their 27 with less than three minutes on the clock.

Van Brocklin is masterful. He works over the overworked Bears’ secondary with quick passes to fast receivers. The Rams thrust-and-parry down to the five, but then the angles tighten and the passes don’t get through. Zendejas is called on once again and delivers the field goal that brings the Rams within three.

The Bears get the ball with less than two minutes to play and a simple task to accomplish: Get a first down – just one. With the game on the line, Payton rushes for four and then two, bringing up a key third and four. The Rams are out of timeouts; a first down seals the game.

As has happened so many times in their existence, the Bears’ survival will be determined by their ability to run for four yards when they need it. True to character, they hand the ball to Bronko Nagurski and let a line-full of HOFers attend to their business. Nagurski gains five. Luckman takes a knee and Bears fans go home slightly less ornery than when they came.

It’s not a pretty game – again – but once again, it epitomizes Bears football. Payton runs for 87, Nagurski adds 36, and Luckman throws for 121 with no interceptions. Between them Sayers and Hester return nine kicks for 217 yards.

The Rams’ numbers are more impressive by far. Van Brocklin throws for 286, Hirsch has a long TD, Holt and Bruce each catch four, Dickerson and Faulk combine for 117 yards rushing – but those numbers are ultimately irrelevant. Two empty sorties into Chicago territory are fatal in a game this close.

So, yeah, Kevin Harlan, you called it all right. It did come down to special teams. Play the game tomorrow and it might have a different outcome. But today the Bears move on. The Final Four now numbers three.

Drat. I hope the NCAA takes Visa.

Rams vs. Pats: Good Now Vs. Previously Good

One of the unfortunate aspects of the current wave of sports narcissism – come to think of it, they’re all unfortunate aspects – is that it trivializes the past. This is totally true in basketball, slightly less true in football, and somewhat true in hockey and baseball, though baseball in particular will claim otherwise.

Compare this to non-sports history, which trivializes the present. Time will show that the 2000 election was a watershed moment in American politics, 9/11 a foreign-policy turning point and George Bush a barmy gink the likes of which haven’t appeared in a leadership role since George III, but right now feeling our way through with all three.

This whole dichotomy comes to the fore when dissecting the first-round matchup between the all-time CleLaStl Rams and the all-time BostoNe Patriots.

The Patriots have been the most successful NFL franchise over the last 15 years. The Rams have been feeling their way for most of the last decade.

Both teams have known fairly equal measures of success and failure over their history and are near .500 only by virtue of several sizable spurts.

The difference between the two teams is the timing of their spurts. The Rams’ spurt occurred in the ‘50s and ‘60s. The Patriots are spurting right now.

Because the Pats are spurting and sports memories are short the instantaneous response would be that the Patriots’ all-time team would wallop the Rams’ all-time team in a head-to-head matchup. And nothing would be further from the truth except for this book (sent my way by the ever-helpful John B. Seals): The Bush Boom: How a Misunderestimated President Fixed a Broken Economy.

The Pats are a curious team in that their recent successes have been accomplished largely without the aid of talent. Outside of Tom Brady, who is marvelous in much the same way that Penelope Cruz is marvelous (though not nearly as pregnant), what do the Pats bring to the table? Vince Wilfork? Several tight ends? Logan Mankins? BenJarvus Green-Ellis? New Boston is the definitive whole-is-greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts team, because the sum of this team’s parts is null-point-seven.

What Bill Belichick PLC has accomplished is admirable, but admirable and five bucks get you a Fatte Latte at Starbucks in this man’s game. The bald fact is that when New England lines up its contemporary talent against the Rams’ historical talent, the Pats fall over dumbstruck.

For all their accomplishments, the Patriots have had four HOFers, none of them exactly top-shelf talent – John Hannah, Nick Buoniconti, Mike Haynes, and Andre Tippett. They have two more sure HOFers in the pipeline in Brady and Belichick.

The Rams trot out six HOFers on offense – Bob Waterfield, Eric Dickerson, Tom Mack, Tom Fears, Jackie Slater, and Elroy Hirsch – with one (Marshall Faulk) in the pipeline for sure and a possible in Torry Holt. They add five more HOFers on defense (Deacon Jones, Jack Youngblood, Merlin Olsen, Les Richter, and Night Train Lane) plus one on special teams (Ollie Matson). They augment this with a couple of possibles (Kevin Greene and Maxie Baughan) and perennial All-Pros in Ed Meador, Leroy Irvin, and Larry Brooks. Dick Vermeil may be no Bill Belichick, but he’s going to be an HOF coach someday.

Depth counts for a ton in these games, and the Rams are all about depth. Where the Pats have Steve Grogan backing up Tom Brady and then, oh all right, Drew Bledsoe, the Rams have Bob Waterfield – and behind him Norm van Brocklin, and behind him Kurt Warner, and behind him Roman Gabriel. The Rams bring in Lamar Lundy, Hacksaw Reynolds and Roger Brown as situational pass rushers; the Pats throw out Tedy Bruschi and Jesse Richardson into the meat grinder known as Dennis Harrah and Rich Saul. When the Rams go to five wides the five are Fears, Hirsch, Holt, Isaac Bruce, and either Henry Ellard or Harold Jackson; the Pats counter with Irving Fryar, Stanley Morgan, Terry Glenn, Randy Moss (all three-plus years of him), and, yes, Darryl Stingley. The fifth defensive back for the Rams – not a team abounding in D-backfield talent by any means -- is Jerry Gray or LeRoy Irvin; the Pats offer up – who? Don Webb? Tebucky Jones? The more you look at the Pats, the less there is to see.

Given the setup, the conclusion is inevitable. The Pats’ only real hope lies in bad weather at Foxboro, and when that doesn’t materialize the BostoNe bench hangs its collective head and the groundskeeper reattaches the mower deck. The Rams spread out the Patriots, tucking Marshall Faulk in the slot, and it becomes immediately apparent that all of King Belichick’s horses ain’t nearly enough. Mark Haynes does fine, but the other D-backs – Ray Clayborn, Ty Law, and Asante Samuel – struggle against the Giulietta Alfas and Lancias that are the Rams’ wideouts. Defensively Merlin Olsen et cie. dismantle the Pats’ undermanned O-line, shut down a running game that was asking for it, and force Tom Brady into throw after ill-advised throw, turning Captain Cool into Spec Four Favre.

Once the Rams get a lead, the Greatest Show on Turf makes its astonishing transformation into Ground Chuck, riding Eric Dickerson and his mates straight out through the fourth quarter and on to the next round.

This one’s a rout, over almost before it begins. Waterfield and van Brocklin go a combined 24-for-39 for 327 yards, four TDs and a pick; Hirsch, Holt, Faulk, and Fears each get one; the Rams’ backs rush for a combined 187, pushing the team-total-offense total over 500 yards. Brady throws for 292 with a TD and a pick, but it’s not nearly enough. Rams 48-10.

Bob Waterfield: Imagineering At Work

Imagine a Tom Brady who doubles as a kicker, plays D-back, and shares snaps with Brett Favre because Brett Favre just happens to be around. And then imagine Tom Brady being deemed so vital to the success of the New England Patriots that the team moves to Ann Arbor so he can be closer to his alma mater and hyper-gorgeous wife.

Getting too weird yet? Such was the world of Bob Waterfield, West Coast jock, husband of quasi-actress and 18-Hour Bra spokesbust Jane Russell, rotten football coach, and marvelous go-for-broke quarterback who spent the last half of his career sharing time with another go-for-broke quarterback and semi-rotten coach, Norm van Brocklin.

The Rams' move from Cleveland to L.A. happened for reasons mostly other than Waterfield, but having your best player pining for his home and actress wife -- which happen to reside in the country's fastest-growing metro area -- certainly weren't marks in the minus column for Dan Reeves. Not with the AAFC right there in both backyards. (Which reminds us: If you're going to have a team in a two-team market, you want it to be Cleveland or LA CA?)

Waterfield didn't put up Van Brocklin's numbers but was smarter, which resurrects the Starr-vs.-Favre argument but puts the two QBs on the same team at the same time.

As with the Packers, the starting nod on the all-time Rams goes to the smarter QB over the numbers guy. Especially if he's married to Jane Russell.

Rich Saul: Help A Brother Out, Wouldja?

Rich Saul was a six-time All-Something center -- someone has to play the position, remember -- who should not be confused with his brother Ron, though we're not sure why not.

Actually, the fact that there is a Saul brother (as opposed to a Skoal brother) to not confuse begs a different question, namely: which positions are most conducive to brothers (biologically related siblings if you please, not, you know, brothers)? If your hunch was that the positions most conducive to multiple family members of the same generation (oh, heck, let's just call them brothers) are those requiring only the ability to be consistently large, you would be right.

According to the Football HOF's list of football-playing brothers there are 157 offensive linemen who are brothers with other players -- most often other offensive linemen (though not always; leave us not forget the dynamic tandem of center Dan Turk and punter Matt Turk). This is 47 more than the next closest category, running backs, but when you figure that for what is now the majority of football history a team has played two running backs and five offensive linemen, the percentage is higher of running backs who are brothers with other players.

The overall lesson appears to be that large runs in the family, but running runs in the family, too.

As for the best of the brothers, the Matthews brothers and the Upshaws get the nod over the more highly publicized modern pairs like the Barbers, the Sharpes, the Mannings, and the Joneses, but here's a dark-horse pair to consider: Charlie Taylor and his half-brother Joe "Turkey" Jones. Taylor was a no-doubter HOFer and Jones played great D-line for the Browns and other teams for a decade. Once you get intergenerational, though, it's no contest: The Matthewses rule the day.