By Sam Jemielity

No player in the last decade has turned the NFL game into fantasy football like Marshall Faulk. At 5'10" and 211 pounds, with an almost portly physique that's more middle-school teacher than marquee running back, Faulk's dominance of opposing defenses is hard to understand. Yet it just happens, again and again. In the last two seasons, Faulk has scored an unbelievable 47 touchdowns while sharing the ball with end zone-hungry Rams Kurt Warner, Isaac Bruce, Torry Holt and former Ram Az-Zahir Hakim. In 2000, Faulk became the only player in NFL history to score four touchdowns in a game three times in one season, and he broke Emmitt Smith's single-season record when he hit paydirt 26 times. Faulk slacked off last year with a mere 21 touchdowns -- then again, he only played in 14 games due to an injury.

With those awesome figures in mind, this summer the Rams anted up a fantasy number of their own: $9.3 million. That was the reported signing bonus awarded the Rams captain in July when the team re-signed the 29-year-old Faulk to a seven-year contract worth a reported $43.95 million. The contract all but guarantees Faulk will be a Ram until he swaps his pads for a putter.

Dollar signs and past achievements mean little once the ball gets kicked off, however, something Faulk knows only too well after the Rams' stunning Super Bowl loss to the no-name Patriots last February. The Pats held Faulk in check, limiting his touches (17 carries and four receptions for a total of 130 yards) and preventing the big play (Faulk's longest carry covered 15 yards). Most importantly, the Pats defense kept number 28 out of the end zone. "The only team that can beat us is us, and we turned the ball over," Faulk told reporters after the game.

Of course, outside observers might have wondered whether Rams coach Mike Martz couldn't have gotten Faulk more than 21 touches in the most important game of the year. When Playboy.com recently sat down with Faulk, we wanted to know how he felt about the first Super Bowl loss of his career (he has a ring from the Rams Super Bowl XXXIV victory over Tennessee). We also wanted his take on Martz, whose unofficial mantle of reigning NFL genius was passed on to the Patriots defensive guru Bill Belichick in the wake of the Super Bowl. The best player in the NFL talked about everything from Kurt Warner's leadership to the baseball steroid controversy to his obsession with the Madden NFL 2003 game. Faulk's video game jones is only fitting. Until he came along, the only way for a football player to post Faulk's statistics was to plug in a Playstation.