Bzzzzzzt.

What if that creepy little girl in Nic Cage's latest movie, "Knowing", actually lived in Cleveland in the 1950s and was a huge Browns fan?

Bzzzzzzt.

What if, at the last second, she added another apocryphal scroll to her school's time capsule, but this time around the sequence of numbers all predicted a series of NFL catastrophes?

Bzzzzzzzt.

Summit Entertainment

Nic Cage studies the board intensely hoping no one remembers his marriage to Lisa Marie Presley.

And what if, on the set of the sequel, "Knowing ... MORE!", we zoom in on Cage as he stands -- his face comically twisted and overly perplexed for the emotion of the scene -- on an amateurishly stained wood porch in North Carolina, ringing the doorbell at the home of an NFL writer, the only man on earth with the numerology know-how, the gridiron gumption and, to be perfectly honest, the free time, to decode a make-believe scroll in order to predict the NFL future?

Swaying in and out of consciousness -- like Will Ferrell debating in "Old School" -- the mystic dude, wearing shorts and a new U2 T-shirt with a giant lemon on the front he got after staying up all night buying presale concert tickets, says, hey, Nic, the first part of this cipher is easy.

It's a series of NFL disasters that have already taken place.

11011111010111 48226 12282008 016 4218: A computer barcode made up of 1's and 0's meant to simulate Detroit GM Matt Millen's salt and pepper mustache, followed by the city's zip code, the date of the Lions' final game and their record. (And, finally, the numbers corresponding to the letters in the word "Duh.")

09072008 02035 4912 17: The date of the Patriots' 2008 home opener, the zip code for Gillette Stadium, Bernard Pollard (49) hitting Tom Brady (12) and, I'm guessing, the 1 and the 7 are what Brady's two legs looked like after the collision.

12 4015 1000000000 142: Years since the Cowboys won a playoff game, the score of that contest against the Vikings, the cost of the team's new stadium and, I'm only guessing here, the number of days until Jerry Jones replaces Wade Phillips with Mike Shanahan.

The rest of the crumbling scroll contained numerological references to Nick Saban's coaching job in Miami, Ryan Leaf's passer rating, the 1990s in Cincinnati, Brett Favre's December in New York, Kurt Warner's internal dialogue during James Harrison's interception return against the Cardinals in the Super Bowl, and a long, I mean long, series of zeroes that, I think, either represents the mystic's handicapping in the 2009 NFL playoffs or the number of readers who enjoy offseason column conceits stolen from bad movies.

Ah, but the rest of the ciphers seem to be codes predicting possible NFL catastrophes that have yet to take place. And that's where things get interesting.

Like ... 04252009 016 4526 14:27 10 666 530996 9 86: The date made this one easy. On the first day of the draft, with the 0-16 Lions on the clock, disgruntled Denver QB Jay Cutler, who threw for 4,526 yards last season, holds his breath for almost 14½ minutes until the Broncos finally work out a three-way deal with Detroit, sending No. 10 Brady Quinn, who had a 66.6 passer rating, to Denver in exchange for the first pick from the Lions, who then move down to No. 5 and select 309-pound Baylor tackle Jason Smith (draft rating: 96).

What looks like the Lions' first top-notch personnel move in nine years blows up in their face, however, when new coach Jim Schwartz tells the hypersensitive Cutler that there is no such thing as an untradeable player or the tooth fairy, causing the petulant passer to hold out for the first 86 days of the season.

130 000 000 6500000 12202009 0729 1118 39: Recently, NFL commish Roger Goodell hinted that if disgraced, impoverished and imprisoned quarterback Michael Vick wants to play again in the NFL he will have to show the proper amount of remorse for running a dogfighting ring. This part of the code seems to be saying: Really? What Vick did was horrific. No doubt. And he paid for it by losing his job, his home, his freedom and about $130 million. But if he pays his debt to society and squares up all of his legal and financial issues and he wants to rejoin the NFL -- a league that has allowed players convicted of everything under the sun, including manslaughter, to return to the field -- then the scroll seems to be saying the Commish should step aside and let the guy play.

Furthermore, the scroll indicates that Vick took one step closer to making that happen this week by agreeing to pay $6.5 million back to the Falcons, who are expected to release the quarterback sometime this summer. It might sound strange -- but no more odd than, say, a society that protects its pets better than its homeless, or a column based on a movie script one critic called, simply, a bunch of "Hooey" -- but the timing couldn't be better for Vick.

As I discovered in the fall while researching a story for The Magazine on innovation, as player speed increases and offenses continue to spread out, the classic pocket passer who is a great thrower and can run when he has to will slowly go extinct and be replaced by a hybrid-type quarterback who is a great runner first and can throw the ball when he has to. In a nutshell, that's Vick -- even after two years away from the game. And I see Vick and younger players like Tim Tebow as the catalyst for the next great evolution of the game.

All he needs is a team. A team with a hybrid offense already in place, run by a guy who's smart enough to see the possibilities of Vick's unique skills and who's also powerful enough to take the heat that will come after signing Vick. I was already leaning toward Bill Parcells in Miami when the code revealed to me that on Dec. 20, 2009, a player wearing No. 7, who will still only be 29 at the time, will rush for a new NFL quarterback record of 1,118 yards in a season -- one more yard than the best season ever turned in by Miami Dolphins Hall of Fame running back Larry Csonka -- No. 39.

62320092130659518355-1193 2181110/2281074 2953202009 4.456595 2020 28 18356: On June 23, when San Diego Chargers running back LaDainian Tomlinson turns 30, he'll be 6,595 yards behind Emmitt Smith's NFL rushing record of 18,355 (or 17,162 if you don't count the two years of stat padding he did as an Arizona Cardinal.) Despite knee, toe and groin problems the past two seasons, LT says he's not about to hit the same running back wall that made mush out of once-great backs like Eddie George and Shaun Alexander. LT ran for "only" 1,110 yards in his eighth season which, the code tells us, is similar to the 1,074 yards Emmitt gained in his 8th year.

Chargers coach Norv Turner recently hinted at increasing LT's workload from 295 carries up to 320 or so in 2009, meaning, at 4.4 yards per carry (his career average) he would still need another five seasons to reach Emmitt's mark. And as much as we'd all love to see LT hold that record, the scroll says he'll actually be on "Dancing With the Stars" in 2020 when No. 28 Adrian Peterson breaks Emmitt's record.

8000000000 18 12212010 760 85000 38 43039 22 25: With NFL owners looking for new revenue streams of around $8 billion in a failing economy, the scroll says the NFL will move to an 18-game season even though there is already substantial proof that a normal human body cannot make it through a 16-game season -- and that injuries are already watering down the competition and entertainment value of the sport. Nevertheless, on Dec. 12, 2010, the scroll predicts the unthinkable: The Texans win 76-0 against the Dallas Cowboys who, despite asking $85,000 for obstructed view seats, are able to field only 38 healthy players due to injuries suffered during the 18-game regular season.

One of them, interestingly enough, will be newly acquired 43-year-old free agent Jeff George (No. 3) playing for his ninth team but this time as a defensive end who'll lead the league in sacks with 22. This will spark an Internet campaign to get the 15 Super Bowl rings that George claims he "totally should have won" during his otherwise milquetoast career.

81818181 38 395 05 18 22-30-28 11292009 45 03 759 73: No. 81 repeating himself. Over. And Over. And over again. This code seems to be directed toward everyone -- myself included -- who, blinded by Terrell Owens' star qualities and his amazing, unique abilities on the field, refuse to see the barrel-moving-towards-Niagara-Falls-situation unfolding in Buffalo and still believe that T.O. won't bring his receiva' diva act to the Bills.

But what is the greatest predictor of future behavior? (Besides make-believe apocalyptic scrolls, I mean.) Past performance. That's right. And the code doesn't lie. It says 81, who has 38 TDs in his past three seasons, will now be playing 395 miles away from the nearest decent market (New York City) for No. 5 Trent Edwards who has 18 touchdown passes in his career, on a team that has ranked 22nd, 30th and 28th in passing offense since 2006.

Which means on Nov. 11, 2009 (right around the same time the 2008 Bills faded down the stretch in losing 4 of 5 while scoring 0 TDs in three of those games), you can expect to see a complete, full-blown, nuclear meltdown on the Bills' bench by T.O. All of this while his former quarterbacks -- No. 7 Jeff Garcia, No. 5 Donovan McNabb and No. 9 Tony Romo -- share a hearty, I-told-ya-so laugh, leaving T.O.'s agent, Drew Rosenhaus, to hold another news conference where he will be forced to use his "Next question" tactic a total of 73 times in four minutes.

02072010 XLIV 33056 504832 2424 50/50 47 750000000 00000 00000 00000 00000 6 32-0 III: This first part of the code is obvious: It's Super Bowl Sunday in 2010 in Miami. 504 means the Saints versus the Texans (832) and I'm guessing 2424 means a tie game decided by a coin flip and a 47-yard field goal that sends the TV audience into an angry flurry of Tweets that lock up the Internet, collapse the power grid and throw the world into chaos for several days until Dan Rooney returns from Ireland and pushes through a vote on a new rule that requires the winning team to score at least six measly points. The vote passes by a margin of 32-0 after Rooney threatens the owners with a screening of "Knowing ... III".

David Fleming is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine and the author of the memoir "Noah's Rainbow" and "Breaker Boys: The NFL's Greatest Team and the Stolen 1925 Championship," which has been optioned as a movie. The Flem File will run each Wednesday during the NFL season.