Once upon a time, the Rams enjoyed a magical season that ended in a Super Bowl championship and an MVP award for an unlikely superstar. It was fairy-tale stuff, but, sadly, the happily-ever-after part hasn't quite worked out.

Then-Rams coach Dick Vermeil resigned after that glorious season, only to return with the Chiefs, where he's continuing to chase the Super Bowl dream. Then-Rams quarterback Kurt Warner returned to the Super Bowl again but failed to win and eventually lost his job to Marc Bulger. Now he's on his third team in as many years, operating on a one-year contract in Arizona, where Josh McCown is the starter.

Vermeil and Warner may have gotten off easy if the reports out of St. Louis are accurate regarding the weird power struggle emerging between sidelined coach Mike Martz and Rams management. Martz is effectively on injured reserve for the rest of the season, unable to continue in his duties as coach because of a bacterial infection in a heart valve. He says it's his intention to coach the Rams next season when he recovers, and he has a year left on his contract.

Hardly a ringing endorsement, but then Shaw is reportedly fed up with internal strife. Written reports have said Martz wants to run off the team's president of football operations, Jay Zygmunt, a Chicago native who has moved up the ranks of the organization with a background in salary-cap management.

It was reportedly Zygmunt who intercepted a Martz call to assistant coach Steve Fairchild during the Rams game against New Orleans last week. Depending on which side is speaking, Martz either wanted to run a particular play from his sickbed or was looking to continue a conversation with Fairchild that began during halftime. Shaw told reporters the team didn't want an open line into the coaching box, and it was he who decided not to let Martz speak with Fairchild.

Shaw said his understanding of the role Martz will play, if any, is that of adviser before games or during the week. Martz told the paper he was stunned to learn he wasn't allowed to speak with his former assistant coaches during games.

Martz has since been encouraged by the team and doctors to take a complete break from football. He said he won't have input unless interim head coach Joe Vitt asks for help. "I'm going to stay out of it completely,'' Martz said.

You have to love Bengals receiver , who says the NFL is the entertainment industry and he's an entertainer. The guy is always working hard to that end. This week's opponent is the Packers, which means cornerback is next up on the matchup list that Johnson keeps.

There's a neat little hook to this game, by the way. Back on Sept. 20, 1992, in Green Bay, it was the Bengals who knocked out in the first quarter, opening the way for , who rallied the Packers to victory and began a 231-game starting streak that takes him to Cincinnati this week. That victory was the first for then-Packers coach , who had opened the season 0-2, and it ended a 2-0 run for , who's now managing steakhouses.

Pity poor . First the Ravens running back gets shut down for 34 yards by the Bears' defense last week, then his old buddy buries him on sports radio while rushing to his defense. McCrary, who does game-day work for WJFK radio in Baltimore, called into the station to stick up for Lewis after fans started railing against him last Sunday night after a loss to the Bears.

But McCrary wound up damning his friend instead of defending him when he said the man who once rushed for over 2,000 yards wasn't going to give 100 percent this year because the Ravens didn't give him a rich contract extension before the season. Apparently, the player had been assured before accepting a plea agreement to serve four months in prison on federal drug-conspiracy charges that the situation would have no impact on contract negotiations.

But after offseason ankle surgery and a trip to prison, the Ravens haven't been in a rush to extend an aging player with two strikes against him in the league's drug program. And McCrary says that's why Lewis isn't running well.

"I called in and told them the reason Jamal wasn't probably running as well was because the club had broken its promise, that it never came to fruition,'' McCrary said. "Jamal is running at 100 percent, but he doesn't have that killer instinct. He isn't running with the same passion.

There were nine field goals of 50 yards or longer in the NFL last Sunday led by former Bear 56-yard game-winner for Minnesota that was the second-longest as time expired in NFL history. Seattle's kicked a 55-yarder against Dallas and added a 50-yard game-winner as time expired. The previous one-week high for 50-yard field goals this season was four.

Who says sacks matter? The Broncos have a 5-2 record but are tied with the Browns for the fewest sacks in the league with eight. Of course, they have an excuse. They've played four of the eight teams that have surrendered 10 or fewer sacks this season -- the Giants (10), Dolphins (10), Chiefs (10) and Patriots (seven) -- and recorded only two sacks in those games.

Described as "the best and perhaps most disliked punter in NFL history'' during his days in Carolina, Todd Sauerbrun came into the NFL as a second-round selection in the 1995 draft (56th overall). Sauerbrun famously showed up in Platteville, Wis., with vanity license plates that read Hang Time and battled with coaches who wanted him to punt directionally while he chose to outkick the coverage. He left as a free agent in 2000 and signed with Kansas City before moving on to Carolina in '01.

He was traded from Carolina to Denver for punter Jason Baker and a seventh-round selection despite producing the highest gross average during a three-year period in NFL history by averaging 45.9 yards from 2001-03. It was problems off the field more than on it that led to the trade. Sauerbrun was fined repeatedly for not making weight, picked up a DUI and was named prominently in a steroids scandal.

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