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Under Marshall Law

By ERNEST HOOPER

© St. Petersburg Times, published December 17, 2000

ST. LOUIS -- He can slip through a sliver of daylight and then speed by the opposition. He can make a defender defenseless with a swivel of his hips and a shift of his torso.

He also can dart out of the backfield and turn the shortest of catches into the longest of plays. His screen plays make opposing coaches scream; his flare patterns make their anger flare.

If he ever tired of being the league's most dangerous running back, he could become its most elusive receiver. When he shifts to a slot position, his routes are as crisp as his hands are soft. His athletic ability to get open is paralleled by his mental ability to read routes and adjust on the fly.

So as the Bucs enter Monday night's game against St. Louis, what should they fear most about marvelous Marshall Faulk, his gifts as a running back or his greatness as a receiver?

Neither. What should scare them more than anything is that he's not even at full strength.

"I don't know if I'll ever be 100 percent," said Faulk, who had another Pro Bowl season temporarily interrupted by a knee injury in November. "I felt like I could do my job a lot better this week than I did last week, and last week I felt like I could do it a lot better than the week before. It's just one of those things as time goes on, you start feeling better."

To hear Faulk is getting better after last week's effort against Minnesota (135 yards rushing, 47 yards receiving) cannot be comforting to anyone who hopes the Bucs will clinch a playoff spot Monday by beating St. Louis. With four rushing scores, Faulk became just the third NFL player to score four touchdowns in a game twice in the same season. And he wasn't 100 percent?

"He played like he was 110 percent," Bucs defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin said.

Kiffin was one of the masterminds behind one of the greatest defensive efforts in Bucs history when the team held Faulk in check in last year's NFC Championship Game. Faulk had 44 yards rushing and 5 yards receiving. Not by coincidence, the Rams scored 11 points.

It'll take an equal effort to contain Faulk again.

"They get the ball to him in a lot of ways," Bucs coach Tony Dungy said. "He's been able to make plays a lot of times to get them going, get them energized. He's so multidimensional and they use him in so many ways you have to be able to do a good job on him."

Around the league, a healthy debate about who will be the NFC's most valuable player rages on, and in St. Louis the top two candidates are Faulk and quarterback Kurt Warner.

Warner pulls the trigger for the Rams' dynamic offense, but Faulk is the team's most lethal ammunition. To the league, he may be the most valuable player, but to the Rams, he's simply invaluable.

"He allows us to do so many different things, from formations to attacking people down the field, because he's able to come out of the backfield and catch the ball," Warner said. "He makes defenses stay honest because he can run the ball so well. You give him a seam and he can break it for a big play at any time.

"He's just a key to what we do because he allows us the versatility to attack people in a lot of different ways and he can attack people in a lot of different ways."

Versatility is the word most often associated with Faulk. He leads the league in scoring with 118 points (13 rushing touchdowns, six receiving touchdowns, one two-point conversion). He is second in the league in yards from scrimmage with 1,796 yards (1,060 rushing, 736 receiving) behind Indianapolis' Edgerrin James (1,953 yards).

But James has played every game this season while Faulk has missed two and been limited in two others. He perseveres with the help of a strong mental attitude.

"Sometimes the person on the other side is better than you, stronger than you, faster than you," Faulk said. "But the way your emotions are or how you feel tends to help you play better than the next person. Sometimes you've got to ride that.

"You can't take that away."

Rams coach Mike Martz raves as much about Faulk's mental capacities as he does his physical abilities.

"You can make a bad call and, goodness gracious, he can make a bad call a great play," Martz said. "It's easier to game plan because of his abilities. It just makes your life so much easier when you get him into the games."

For five seasons, Faulk has made life easier for his coaches in Indianapolis and St. Louis. Since 1995, Faulk's 10,269 yards from scrimmage is more than any other player. Seattle's Ricky Watters is second, trailing by 518 yards.

Yet Faulk is driven by heart and championships, not statistics and records. MVP? He's more concerned about XXXV.

"Who cares? Who votes for that anyway? Anybody who played football?" Faulk said. "It doesn't matter. It doesn't really matter. There'll be a better MVP. There'll only be one champion this year."

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