Louisiana Fried Chicken & Chinese Food: 9/7

Yesterday's show was our first and we covered a lot of ground. College football, NFL, Rick Ankiel, and the entire Manning Family. If you missed it I'm including a few links so you can download it. If you are wondering why I posted the Jim Mora video below, well, check out the show and it will give you context.

To Download Click Here

Sweet, Sweet Fantasy

Frank Gore, on his way to breaking every bone in his body and fucking up my fantasy season.

This season marks the first time I've ever dabbled in the mystical world of fantasy football. Despite being an NFL fanatic for pretty much all of my life, the cyber aspect of fandom never reached me until I started joining NCAA pick 'em leagues and filling out March Madness brackets last year. At that point, I figured I may as well get a fantasy league together with my friends for this season.

Fast-forward to this season, and that became a reality when 13 friends and I joined forces and formed the Bropartment Lives On (don't ask) league. I gotta say, I'm pretty excited. With the luck of landing the 5th pick in the draft and the blissful stupidity of my former roommate picking Maurice Jones-Drew with the 2nd overall pick, I was able to land my boy Frank Gore with my first pick.

Rounding out the roster of Real Bropartment (again, don't ask) includes the likes of Donovan McNabb, Hines Ward, Edgerrin James (rebound year!), and the roided-up, Lights-Out defense of the city of San Diego. Hopefully my top two picks (Gore and McNabb) don't both end up breaking their legs like they usually do and send my season into a tailspin. Regardless, I'm looking at a top 5 finish for my team.

With the 7th overall pick, Glenn was a total homer like me and went with LSU alum Joseph "Joey, Live and Let" Addai. The rest of The Judges include Clinton "Coach Janky Broken Right Hand" Portis, Marc Bulger (who has a really funny name to me), Plaxico Burress, and Vincent Jackson.

Objectively, I'd give my team the slight edge. The Judges have reliable points in the high scoring offenses of the the Rams (Bulger), Colts (Addai), and Chargers (Jackson), but Real Bropartment has star power with Frank Gore, McNabb and Edgerrin James. The conventional wisdom is go for the stats, not the name, but these names have the numbers to back up the stature and I expect a return to form for Edgerrin James this year. If not for my sake, then at least for the Cardinals' sake.

Week 8 is the scheduled matchup of these two superpowers, and Yahoo!'s projection shows a 4 point advantage to Glenn's crew... with Edgerrin James on a bye week. With the cronies on Real Bropartment playing cupcake teams and the weak New Orleans defense, I expect large returns and, of course, the win.

May the best (fantasy) team win.

- Carman

Crunching Numbers : Sept 4

The first installment of Crunching Numbers features the Notre Dame quarterback crew and Georgia Tech d-linemen.


Irish quarterbacks were sacked 9 times this weekend.

LSU #1 in Week 2 ESPNU (Fan) Poll

Why not?

As I struggle with accepting the possibility that my school might not be the #1 team in the nation tomorrow when the AP and USA Today polls are released, I have already accepted the fact that LSU is viewed as the best team in the nation by the most vocal fans. The ESPNU Allstate Standings have already come out for Week 2 and USC is #2. No, it's not because USC let the Vandals of Idaho hang around until the 4th quarter (they didn't). It's also not because USC's keystone players underperformed (Booty looked pretty good). It's an entirely different reason not having to do with USC at all.

LSU just looked really good.

It's what I saw and it's what all college football fans saw on Thursday night. LSU looked great. Sure Miss St. turned the ball over 7 times but that shouldn't take away from the fact that LSU pitched a shutout. Yes, you can make the case that the offense wasn't all that impressive, but I would argue they did what their coaches asked for and then some. 45 points against a SEC team (away) deserves a pat on the back. The opening game of every season is bound to bring butterflies to even the strongest stomachs on the field and we probably saw that with above-average (although not outstanding) performance of the LSU offense. You may have forgotten but Flynn did lead LSU to the stomping of Miami in a recent Peach Bowl so we know he can perform under pressure. He's a veteran so we know he has a firm hold on the offense. And the talent surrounding him is more than enough to spread the attention around. Hester, Holliday, and Doucet are going to put up big numbers this season. I'd say the offense is in good hands.

Oh, and I'll give you one name on defense: Glenn Dorsey. Wouldn't be surprised to see him paralyze one or two QBs before the season's over.