Fletcher

The St. Louis Rams' first-year starter isn't bashful, often calling himself the best middle linebacker in the NFL.

"I think when you have the No. 1 run defense in the league and I'm the leading tackler on that defense, I feel like I'm definitely the best in the league," Fletcher said.

To that end, in midseason he asked teammates to stop calling him Fletch and refer to him as "dot.com."

"Because I feel like on Sundays, I'm on line with the other team," Fletcher said. "I'm into their playbooks, so it's dot.com."

Teammates don't want Fletcher getting too carried away.

"He'll never get me to call him that," outside linebacker Mike Jones said. "A few call him that, but not me."

But that's not to say they don't recognize his value to the Rams' underrated defense.

"For an entire season, I haven't seen anybody play better than him," Jones said. "I thought he should have made the Pro Bowl."

Coach Dick Vermeil certainly is in his corner. Vermeil gives Fletcher, a former undrafted free agent who was the team's top special teams player last year, the highest praise.

"He is to our defense what Kurt Warner is to our offense," Vermeil said. "London is a very, very fine player."

Fletcher came from nowhere just like Warner, who emerged as the NFL MVP after spending time in the Arena League and NFL Europe. Fletcher is undersized at 6 feet and 240 pounds, and he had to beat out Lorenzo Styles and Charlie Clemons in training camp for the middle linebacker job.

He quickly showed Vermeil he'd made the right choice, building a reputation of flying to the ball and making plays. He totaled 138 tackles, 80 of them solo stops, and led the team in tackles eight times. Fletcher also had three sacks and forced a fumble.

Earlier this week, Fletcher was selected to the all-Madden team. That made up for his disappointment at being only a Pro Bowl second alternate.

"I think it's more respected to be all-Madden around the league," Fletcher said. "Madden is a former coach and he knows the game, so I think it's more prestigious to me than the Pro Bowl because you have a guy selecting it that really knows football."

He has the same attitude toward media that remain skeptical of the Rams because they didn't beat a team with a winning record all season. Fletcher points out the team's average winning margin of 33-15, second-best in league history.

"We've known all along that we're a good team," Fletcher said. "You don't beat the teams the way we've beaten them so convincingly without being a good team."

Fletcher has been known to celebrate a bit after big plays, and he relishes the opportunity to show his ability to a national TV audience. The Rams haven't been on Monday Night Football since they moved to St. Louis in 1995, and Fletcher is looking forward to "chasing around" Robert Smith, Randy Moss, Cris Carter, Jake Reed and Jeff George.