CLICK HERE FOR PART I OF JOHN DONOVAN'S VIEWPOINT

Finally, in April 2004, Dillon got what he had always wanted. The man whom Bengals tackle Willie Anderson called "a cancer" after that last game was traded to the Patriots. He was going to play for a contender.

And, suddenly, everything turned storybook rosy. Suddenly, Corey Dillon is a good guy.

"The Corey Dillon I know," said his position coach, the Patriots' Ivan Fears, "is a hell of a man."

Fears met Dillon for the first time last spring in New England and the two chit-chatted about football, what the Patriots had in mind for 2004 and their general philosophy on the game. The brief meeting was probably more notable for what the two men didn't discuss: Dillon's past.

"I didn't know the details, and I didn't want to know the details," Fears said. "Who knows how we'd react if we had to deal with the things he dealt with?"

The Patriots, though, knew all about Dillon's past. Player personnel director Scott Pioli interviewed teammates, coaches, friends, agents and family members to try to find the true Dillon. By the time he and Patriots coach Bill Belichick met with the runner for the first time, all the team's questions about him and his ability to be a good teammate had been answered.

Dillon restructured his contract, the trade was completed and he responded with a spectacular season, running for 1,635 yards, an average of 4.7 yards a carry. He had nine 100-yard games. He gave the Patriots something that they didn't have last year -- a steady, threatening runner -- and, maybe most importantly, he became the perfectly quiet teammate.

In the space of a year, Dillon has gone from a locker room cancer to an AFC champion. And Sunday, he'll play in his first Super Bowl. It's such an unlikely spot for a guy who has been where Dillon has that all he can do is laugh and shake his head.

"Winning cures a lot of things," Dillon said. "That was one of my biggest gripes, just not being able to compete."

It's hard to say now, here at the Super Bowl, whether this good-guy Dillon is the real Dillon or not. But this much is sure: This is as good as it gets for him. This is as good as it's ever been.

And it's certainly not hard to figure out why.