In the NFL, it doesn't pay to talk. Speak out and you shall be burned.

It's the sad truth because great stories often come from loose lips. But the way the NFL is going, there'll be nothing to say by the Super Bowl. Everything will have to be interpreted, extrapolated ... assumed. And you know what happens when we do that.

The NFL showed last week how much it values keeping traps shut when it fined Falcons head coach Mike Smith and Bengals WR Chad Ochocinco. Smith got into a spat with Redskins CB DeAngelo Hall as players scrapped on the sideline following a late hit. Ochocinco made a mock gesture that he was willing to buy off a ref with a dollar bill if the call were to go his way.

Smith was fined $15,000. Ocho got $20,000.

Smith spent half a minute jawing with a mouthy, scorned ex-Falcon and was whacked roughly $500 a second. Ochocinco pulled out a George Washington in jest, but saying the word "bribe" in a postgame interview is what truly got everyone's shorts up in a wad in the NFL offices.

The reaction was in direct response to the Tim Donaghy NBA referee scam and his recently released, tell-all book. The NFL is scared of such a scandal and thus will go overboard to make sure no one suspects anything afoul in its mighty league.

No question that these fines, issued on the same day, had real significance.

Talking does you no good these days. It has gone way beyond the No Fun League moniker. We're on to No Flap League now.

It's not just from the league, either. Bill Belichick has banned colorful and interesting speech for years. It's a wonder that the NFL stepped in and made teams offer up assistant coaches and front-office personnel to be available to the media once every Halley's Comet or so.

The Dolphins benched legendary yapper Joey Porter in Week 10 for a "coach's decision" without explaining why. I'll tell you why: Porter trash-talked his way out of the lineup. The coaches had enough — make that heard enough — and sat him down.

How do you think this Jamal Lewis thing will end in Cleveland? Embattled Eric Mangini is called out for his Draconian practice methods by the soon-to-retire Lewis — how dare he? Of course Mangini will hide Lewis under a rock somewhere as the team burns around him, Nero-style.

I spoke with Patriots rookie Patrick Chung last week, hoping for insight on his recent play. The young man wouldn't crack. He was tougher to break than a minister's daughter during Lent. Chung was robotic, a trained soldier. Just for kicks, I tried throwing him off by asking questions about pumpkin pie in between his offseason training regimen and the virtues of the cover-3 defense. Predictably, his answers all involved "working harder," "team goals" and "learning the playbook." He never flinched. I was so impressed. I felt like a tourist at Buckingham Palace, waving my arms in the guards' faces but never seeing them bat a wayward eye.

Look around. Even Ray Lewis, once quite a motor-mouth, quietly has given up his throne. Jaded players now turn their frustrations inward, and fans never get the full story. It's a more insipid NFL when players can't even hop on Twitter and pop off about their coaches in 140 characters or fewer without everyone getting all huffy.

Ask Larry Johnson. That got him cut by the Chiefs. Or is that what Johnson wanted? See, talking can be a good thing. 

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