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After a drama-filled Day 1 of the NFL combine -- thanks entirely to Andre Smith magically disappearing -- Sunday has been more about the important on-field stuff: a bunch of guys in tights running 40 yards at a pop. Because, as even casual fans know, the correlation between straight-line speed and NFL success is off the charts.

Of course, that doesn't keep teams from falling in love with players who bust out sub-4.4 40s. Last year, Chris Johnson ran an impossibly fast 4.24 at the combine and parlayed that into a first-round pick courtesy of the Titans. This morning, wide receivers Darrius Heyward-Bey (Maryland) and Percy Harvin (Florida) turned in times of 4.32 and 4.37, respectively.

So the NFL has robbed us of the usual late-season slate of Saturday afternoon games, but what they've given us in return is much, much better. Okay, not really -- for starters, as it currently stands, about 250 people get NFL Network, which means that a lot of you will be shut out of tonight's Ravens-Cowboys game.

Not only that, but most people who don't blog for a living have stuff to do on Saturday night. I suspect Roger Goodell doesn't care about such things.

Not to worry, though; the fine folks who bring us the NFL Network pregame show -- Rich Eisen, Steve Mariucci, Deion Sanders, Marshall Faulk and Warren Sapp -- are all about making the experience a happy one. For all 250 of you (via Awful Announcing):



Wow. Warren Sapp is so fat that the fat house fun mirror makes him look skinny. Which, I think, means that Shaun Rogers and Casey Hampton would look like Rob and Fab. I'd pay to see that.

By the way, I'd love to see the CBS folks "accidentally" use the fat lens on broadcasting's moral beacon, Jim Nantz. I'm guessing he'd find it hilarious in much the same way Joe Buck loved Randy Moss' decision to pretend moon Packers' fans.

Warren Sapp, fresh off not winning Dancing With the Stars, returned to his full-time job as teevee analyst for NFL Network. During GameDay Morning, Kara Henderson, in San Diego for today's Falcons-Chargers game, asked Sapp about embattled coach Norv Turner, who has "led" San Diego to a 4-7 record in one of the worst divisions in football.

Sapp, who verbalizes every thought that comes into his brain, was predictably frank:

"I tell you what, [owner] Dean Spanos and [general manager] A.J. Smith need to do their homework because the two years I played with Norv Turner, we did not practice the two-minute offense or defense one time. So when you look at the game last week ... and Norv using his timeouts in a bad situation, that's why.

He does not practice time management in a game; I've been with him two years -- he don't do it.

Sapp's GameDay Morning co-analyst, Marshall Faulk, was shocked by the revelation: "I don't know how you can get by in the NFL and not go over two-minute offense ... that's impossible."

Apparently, you "get by" by going 4-7.

Now, I have no reason to believe Sapp is making stuff up, but I also find it damn near impossible to think Turner doesn't devote at least some practice time to the two-minute drill. Wherever the truth may lie, Norval Eugene's job is safe for 2009, which must make Chargers fans very happy.

And the Vince Young news gets weirder/sadder. This morning I pointed out that Titans head coach Jeff Fisher took issue with some of the reports surrounding Young's behavior following the Titans-Jaguars game, and he refuted many of the allegations through ESPN's Chris Mortensen.

Still, no one disputes that Young was depressed -- or, at the very least, very upset -- following his performance last Sunday, one that included two picks, an MCL strain and plenty of boos from the home crowd. Today, the NFL Network's Adam Schefter reports that this isn't the first time the Titans have had to deal with a dispirited, depressed and oversensitive Vince Young:

In case you didn't get the memo, it's Hate On The Rams week across America when it comes to NFL coverage. Apparently Marshall Faulk did, and he wasn't shy about joining in:

"Decisions have to be made. Do you blow it up, where do you go, what do you do? I mean, players that have had big time success, we're talking Pro Bowl caliber players: Marc Bulger, Torry Holt, Orlando Pace, Steven Jackson. They look like they don't belong in the league. And it's not because they can't play. You're not going to tell me that. I'm not believing that they all of a sudden can't play in this league."

So he's blaming the coaches? Not completely, check out this gem:

"You're not going to tell me that the (Bears) offense that they put out there is more talented than the offense that the Rams put out. It's preparation, it's understanding what you have; it's having guys that are reliable."

It sounds like Marshall is definitely not a fan of Scott Linehan and that he has problems with many of the offensive players ... just not the four he mentioned above.

I just can't believe how often I've been reading about the vaunted Mike Martz effect on running backs recently. You could read that Frank Gore is going to put up over 2500 total yards if you look hard enough. The easiest -- and frankly the laziest -- argument is when people bring up Marshall Faulk. Huh? Marshall Faulk and Frank Gore are comparable? In what lifetime? Marshall Faulk was one of the most talented running backs in NFL history, and that's not because of Mike Martz. Check out Faulk's last season in Indianapolis compared to his first in St. Louis under Martz.

1998, Indianapolis: 1319 yards rushing, 10 total TDs, 908 yards receiving on 86 catches

1999, St. Louis: 1381 yards rushing, 12 total TDs, 1048 yards receiving on 87 catches

Sure, 1999 was a bit better ... so was his team. The Rams went 13-3 and won the Super Bowl while the '98 Colts sputtered to 3-13. You can't look at those numbers and point to Martz. The following season Faulk went bonkers with TDs, but the rest of the numbers were largely comparable. Again, you can attribute that to playing on a good team instead of an awful one, because the Greatest Show on Turf was an absolute machine.

I just can't believe how often I've been reading about the vaunted Mike Martz effect on running backs recently. You could read that Frank Gore is going to put up over 2500 total yards if you look hard enough. The easiest -- and frankly the laziest -- argument is when people bring up Marshall Faulk. Huh? Marshall Faulk and Frank Gore are comparable? In what lifetime? Marshall Faulk was one of the most talented running backs in NFL history, and that's not because of Mike Martz. Check out Faulk's last season in Indianapolis compared to his first in St. Louis under Martz.

1998, Indianapolis: 1319 yards rushing, 10 total TDs, 908 yards receiving on 86 catches

1999, St. Louis: 1381 yards rushing, 12 total TDs, 1048 yards receiving on 87 catches

Sure, 1999 was a bit better ... so was his team. The Rams went 13-3 and won the Super Bowl while the '98 Colts sputtered to 3-13. You can't look at those numbers and point to Martz. The following season Faulk went bonkers with TDs, but the rest of the numbers were largely comparable. Again, you can attribute that to playing on a good team instead of an awful one, because the Greatest Show on Turf was an absolute machine.

This is hardly shocking in light of last year's revelation that Steven Jackson didn't think Marshall Faulk mentored him sufficiently, but Faulk publicly undressed Jackson on Sporting News radio:

"I am surprised he's holding out. I don't know where he's getting his advice. He's played four years and he's played every game once and he's been hurt three times. I know if I was in the front office, even if it wasn't Steven, even if it was someone else on another team, it would be hard for me to justify giving them a lot of money, regardless if he was 'the team'."

There was more, mostly self-serving junk about how Jackson's trying to follow in his footsteps.

I really hate it when players or former players throw in their two cents about contract holdouts (Brett Favre vs. Javon Walker, ahem), because it shouldn't be any of their business. Sure, Faulk was asked about the situation and told the truth. He also didn't have to go after the fact that Jackson has been injured several times. It's especially hypocritical when you consider that Faulk himself held out once -- though not nearly this long -- and he did have a few injuries of his own over the years. It's not like Jackson has missed significant time -- out four games last year after playing every game in '06.

Oh, you silly fools, you ignorant mortals. You underestimated it. You doubted its power. You thought it couldn't exact its revenge on an NFL piss-drunk on its own power if you put a retired player on the cover.

Oh, you silly fools.

The Madden Curse has clearly struck again, as Brett Favre has decisively ruined his reputation worse than any other retired quarterback who doesn't want to kiss you. In many ways, this is worse than breaking Michael Vick's leg or taking Randy Moss away from Daunte Culpepper; those men, after all, were still in the league and fully aware of its dangers. Let's say Culpepper and Vick's misfortune is like "swimming with the sharks." By way of comparison, Favre's last two weeks, which elicited this angry (yet wholly amusing) tirade by Stephen A. Smith, have been akin to dipping a big toe into a wading pool and having your leg severed at the hip by pirahnas.

Stop yourself, Mr. Favre. You don't know what these Madden gods are capable of. They took away Shaun Alexander's legs. They exploded Marshall Faulk's and Garrison Hearst's ankles. And don't even ask Donovan McNabb about that sports hernia. Imagine what happens if you set one foot on Lambeau Field in 2008. Those video game programmers are going to have to add a new injury to their list: "Death By Flaming Meteor." That's at least six weeks on the shelf, man.

Every spring in the weeks leading up to the draft, somebody gets a hold of the prospects' Wonderlic scores, the worst of the bunch are highlighted, and fans and media take a moment to point and gawk. But there's an argument that a player's Wonderlic results don't correlate to NFL performance. Maybe that's just a myth perpetuated by agents of low-scoring clients. Or maybe there's some truth to it.

San Francisco 49ers offensive coordinator Mike Martz offers support for the latter. In an interview with the Sacramento Bee's Matt Barrows, Martz lauds running back Frank Gore for his ability to quickly pick up the offense. As Barrows points out, Gore had a "low-low" Wonderlic score and some teams "worried about his dyslexia almost as much as they did his surgically repaired knees."

None of that matters to Martz, apparently: