Marshall Faulk

Former Rams running back Marshall Faulk, now an NFL Network analyst, said he hasn’t made his peace with the way the Rams lost to the Patriots in the 2002 Super Bowl.

“Am I over the loss? Yeah, I’m over the loss. But I’ll never be over being cheated out of the Super Bowl,” Faulk told CSNNE’s Tom E. Curran on Tuesday. “That’s a different story. I can understand losing a Super Bowl, that’s fine. … But how things happened and what took place. Obviously, the commissioner gets to handle things how he wants to handle them but if they wanted us to shut up about what happened, show us the tapes. Don’t burn ‘em.”

Faulk was referring to tapes the Patriots allegedly made of the Rams’ coaches’ defensive signals before the 2002 Super Bowl, although none of those tapes were ever found and commissioner Roger Goodell said in 2008 that he had no evidence of the Patriots taping the Rams’ pregame walkthrough.

Still, Faulk said he doesn’t believe the game could have gone the way it did if the Patriots didn’t have prior knowledge of the Rams’ plans.

“I understand Bill [Belichick] is a great coach,” said Faulk. “But No. 13 [Kurt Warner] will tell you. Mike Martz will tell you. We had some plays in the red zone that we hadn’t ran. I think we got to fourth down — we ran three plays that we hadn’t ran, that Mike drew up for that game — Bill’s a hell of a coach … we hadn’t ran them the whole year [and the Patriots were ready for them].”

“Bill has done a great job,” Faulk continued. “I love [Robert] Kraft and what he’s done. They almost drafted me. I remember [Kraft's] vision for that organization. I respect everything about that organization. But am I bitter about how that went? Am I bitter about how the league handled them taping people? If Bountygate was that bad and Sean [Payton] got suspended for a whole year? If we want to talk about some unfair assessment of how we’re assessing things? Man.

“If you lost a game and your brother cheated you, you’ll remember that.”

The connection between Tom Brady and Wes Welker has been impressive this season. (AP)

Over the course of the next few days, we’ll roll out something called Bye Week Breakdown, a position-by-position look at the Patriots as they head into the bye weekend. We’ve already tackled the tight end spot. Now, it’s the wide receivers.

Overview: The Patriots passing game has been the best in the league through the first six games of the season, and a sizable reason for that has been the connection between Tom Brady and Wes Welker.

Welker’s 51 catches and 785 yards make up 32 percent of the Patriots’ receptions and 36 percent of their total receiving yards. (He’s just off the pace to shatter the league records for most catches, but can still break the record for most receiving yards in a season — at this rate, Welker will have 136 catches and 2,093 receiving yards.)

As for the rest of the receiving corps, Deion Branch has provided depth and dependability at the No. 2 spot (he has managed to make at least one important catch through each one of the first six games). However, it’s clear that Chad Ochocinco continues to struggle in the offense, and it will be interesting to see what sort of role he has in the passing game when he returns from the bye weekend.

Meanwhile, Julian Edelman and Matthew Slater continue to serve more as special teams contributors than as wide receivers, getting only occasional snaps on offense, while second-year receiver Taylor Price remains a non-entity with just one snap through six games.

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Shane Vereen (AP)

The latest draft class profile we did was on Cal running back Shane Vereen, who was compared to Marshall Faulk by his position coach while a collegian, Ron Gould. One thing we didn’t include in the story was the statement from Gould about just how smart Vereen is.

“The thing that people don’t understand is that Shane has a great football IQ,” Gould said of Vereen. “He’s a brilliant guy — he graduated from Cal in three-and-a-half years, but he also has a great football IQ . There were things we would discuss, and most guys couldn’t tell you the things he can.”

Another thing about Vereen — he and college teammate Jahvid Best had an “unbelievable relationship,” according to Gould.

“They’re like brothers,” Gould said of Vereen and Best, the latter of whom is now with the Detroit Lions. “They both fed off each other and were fierce competitors. There were things that Shane did that Jahvid liked and vice-versa. They tried to one-up each other, but their relationship is second to none. If Shane scored, Jahvid wanted to score twice and vice-versa. They just fed off each other.”

Cornerback Deion Sanders and running back Marshall Faulk led a class of seven new inductees into the NFL Hall of Fame. Those two first-time eligible players were joined in this year’s class by tight end Shannon Sharpe, defensive end Richard Dent, linebackers Les Richter and Chris Hanburger and NFL Films founder Ed Sabol.

Former Patriots and Jets running back Curtis Martin, a finalist for this year’s Hall of Fame class, was not selected for entry into Canton. He reportedly made the cut from 15 to 10, but did not make the next round of cuts from 10 to five Hall of Fame inductees.

Sanders, who recorded 53 interceptions in his 14-year career, is regarded as one of the best — if not the best — cover corners of all time. He also proved a dynamic kick and punt returner and occasional wide receiver during his career with the Falcons, 49ers, Cowboys, Redskins and Ravens.

Faulk, the NFL Rookie of the Year in 1994, Offensive Player of the Year from 1999-2001 and league MVP in 2000, was an impact rusher and receiver, finishing his career with over 12,000 rushing yards and more than 6,000 receiving yards. In 1999, he became the second running back ever to go over 1,000 rushing and receiving yards, and he recorded a then-NFL record 26 touchdowns in 2000.

Martin, who started his career with three straight seasons of more than 1,000 yards rushing with the Patriots before jumping to the Jets as a free agent after the 1997 season, had 14,101 rushing yards in 11 seasons, the fourth most yards on the ground in NFL history.

For more on this year’s Hall of Fame class, click here. For complete Patriots coverage, visit weei.com/patriots.