great story and great picture...

I can't stop thinking about that ring. I've tried in vain to concentrate on other more important topics, but it's no use. All I do is wrack my spacious head wondering how Bob Kraft's New England Patriots Super Bowl ring, all five carats of it, wound up in Russian President Vladimir Putin's pocket.

I keep imaging the moment. One minute you're showing off your bauble. And then next minute the president of Russia, a man not to be toyed with, is hinting that he really, really likes it. What do you do?

You make an impromptu international offering of peace, is what you do.

Kraft didn't set out to give the ring away. It's unclear exactly what happened. It was one of those international, lost-in-translation episodes, and the oddest moment in sports this week, an NFL owner giving a Super Bowl ring to a world leader.

"I showed the president my most recent Super Bowl ring," Kraft said in a statement released Wednesday. The Russian president "was clearly taken with its uniqueness," Kraft said. "At that point, I decided to give him the ring as a symbol of the respect and admiration that I have for the Russian people and the leadership of President Putin."