Inside Track - Word out of Florida is that the New England Patriots second-round draft pick, German-born Sebastian “Sea Bass” Vollmer, helped the team wannabes to retain their title in the “Ultimate Rookie Challenge” trivia contest at this week’s NFL Rookie Symposium. We hear Vollmer, who couldn’t speak a word of English four years ago, “came through huge” for his fellow rookies by answering “a really tough question” that stumped the other 31 rookie teams. … Thanks to Sea Bass (and probably defensive tackle Darryl Richard, who has an MBA!), each Pats rookie took home a 32-inch flat screen TV as a prize. Last year, then-draftee Jerod Mayo, whose football smarts proved most valuable to the Pats last season, helped his rookie team to the championship.

See what it means to be a Patriot in the the Brady/Belichick Epoch? It’s not enough that you dominate from September to February. You’ve got to dominate the entire calendar. August by having a better training camp than the other 31 teams. April by having a better draft. Even late June/early July by mopping the floor with your opponents at the Rookie Symposium. The other teams talk a good game when it comes to acquiring smart young players but Belichick lives it. While teams like Green Bay are grabbing BC grads who can’t spell monosyllabic words, The Hooded One is going all the way to Germany to find the best and brightest young minds in the world. Hell, in the 7th round of the draft he took Darryl Richard, who got an incredible 37 on the Wonderlich Test, the highest among all the D-linemen drafted. Going up against the mouth breathing morons the rest of the league drafted, those Pats rookies must have felt like the faculty at MIT taking on a team of 2nd grade Mathletes. While everyone else is playing checkers, Belichick isn’t even playing chess; he’s playing that 3-D chess that Mr. Spock used to play.