ST. LOUIS -- First up on the bye-week agenda for Rams coach Mike Martz?

Finish processing some funky chili.

Saturday night, before his team flattened the Falcons to finish 14-2 and the No. 1 seed in the NFC playoffs, Martz helped himself to a can of chili with an expiration date somewhere around the middle of the Cold War.

Sunday, Martz had to keep one eye on his record-setting O -- the first in NFL history to roll up 500 points in three straight seasons -- and the other on his blue-and-gold barf bag.

Aside from that, the Rams are feeling pretty good these days.

I mean, how could they not?

Fourteen wins, the best offense in NFL history, the second-best defense in the league, homefield advantage in the most obnoxiously loud dome in the league (where else can you hear Cheap Trick and Primus turned up so loud your ears ooze?), and now this: a week off to rest, rehab and recharge.

That's like the Bears' Keith Traylor giving Maurice Greene a head start in the 100-meter dash.

The team will do 45-minute run-throughs of the offense and defense on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday -- with backup Jamie Martin taking all of the snaps in order to rest Kurt Warner's arm -- and take the rest of the week off. Until next Tuesday they will do little more than drills. The coaches, meanwhile, will compile very basic game plans on Green Bay, Tampa Bay and San Francisco.

Besides revamping the Rams' K-Martz defense, new D-coordinator Lovie Smith (by far the year's best assistant coach) knows both the Packers and the Bucs intimately from his time on Tony Dungy's staff in Tampa. And the Rams already have extensive prep work done on the 49ers because they're a division foe.

After he recovers from the Dinty Moore Flu, Martz will spend the week reviewing Green Bay's entire season (the Rams have not played the Packers this year). "Throw out the records in the playoffs," said Martz. "Now, it’s all sudden death. Everyone’s on the same level."

The players handed out their own awards on Tuesday morning. Corner Aeneas Williams won the spirit award, linebacker Tommy Polley was named rookie of the year and for the third year in a row running back Marshall Faulk received the the team MVP honor.

"The veterans will rest and relax and spend time with their families," Williams told me as we perused his Pro Bowl package from the league office and debated religious philosophy. "The rookies? Man, they'll probably try to fly home for a few days so they can walk around their hometown mall with their game jersey on."

The bye week lasted all of 15 hours for Williams, who's a workout fiend (he can't stay out of the weight room) and a licensed minister who has become the Ray Bourque of the Rams. A New Orleans native, Williams grew up selling popcorn and peanuts inside the Superdome, where SB XXXVI will be played. He used to cash out, roll up his wad of 40 ones and then run down to collect souvenir chin straps from the players as they left the field.

"I used to think, 'Life can't get any better than this,' " he says. "Talk about coming full circle." The last time Williams, a seven-time Pro Bowler, went to Hawaii he baptized players in the chilly waters of the Pacific Ocean. This year, he joked, he might get smart and use a hot tub.

What else will the Rams be doing during the bye week?

Not much, it turns out.

Corner Dexter McCleon will try to get the swelling in his middle finger to go down. It seems he got in the way of a Michael Vick bullet that caused his knuckle to balloon to the size of a baseball. "That guy throws the ball harder than anyone I've ever seen," he said. "Michael Vick is gonna kill someone with a pass before he's through."

Defensive end Grant Wistrom's entire plan for the week consists of one thing. "Watching lots and lots of TV," he said. "It's an easy work week. I'm gonna get my mind off football and let my mind and body recover. Whatever is on, I don't care. I'm not real picky. I've got a satellite dish so mostly I'm gonna watch The Simpsons in, like, four- and five-hour chunks."

Four and five hour Simpsons marathons? This, actually, is the first time I've ever really wanted to be a pro athlete.

(I didn't have the heart to tell Wistrom his satellite feed might still be blocked by Steve Spurrier who, I think, is just about ready to wrap up his "farewell" press conference. My god, Celine Dion retired with less self-important, back-patting fanfare.)

We know what Kurt Warner won't be doing this week: talking.

On Sunday, an errant elbow almost turned his adam's apple into applesauce. Team doctors have ordered him to stay silent for the next week. "It’s kinda nice not being able to have him talk back," joked Martz. "We may extend this ban throughout the rest of the year."

The injury occurred early against the Falcons during another performance where Warner made the impossible (just two of his 30 passes hit the ground) routine -- the very definition of greatness in my book. "We don’t want to stop here," Warner coughed out after the game, sounding like Donald Duck on a three-pack-a-day habit. "We don’t care that we scored 500 points again this season, if we don’t win the Super Bowl, it doesn’t really mean anything."

With a bye, homefield advantage and the league’s best offense and defense, chances are good it’s gonna mean something.

In fact, keeping Warner quiet may end up being the Rams' toughest task.

David Fleming is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at flemfile@aol.com.