My column today was on John Madden. I tried to squeeze a lot in there, which isn't always the best of ideas. But there was one anecdote that didn't fit, but I think it's worth passing along. It comes from Kevin Byrne, the Ravens' senior vice president of community and public relations.

As part of his job, Byrne works with reporters of all stripes and coordinates with network television crews. That means he's been dealing with Madden for more than a quarter-century.

Byrne recalls running into Madden at a game about 15 years ago. You'll recall that Madden doesn't fly and took the Madden Cruiser all around the country. I'll let Byrne tell the rest:

"He said, 'This is unbelievable. You won't believe what I have. You've never seen anything like it.' Well, he had just discovered what the rest of the world already had -- a laptop computer. 'I could be in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and I could read the Dallas Morning News, I could read the New York Daily News, the Chicago Tribune. I'll be so up-to-date, you guys won't have to FedEx boxes to a truck stop outside of Toledo, Ohio any more.

"I looked at him and said, 'Coach, will that mean you won't read newspapers any more?'

"'Oh no,' he says to me. 'You have to have newspapers to go to the bathroom.'"