New Fantasy Football PantsCast October 28

It's done. Holy cow it's done.

The first Fantasy Football pants podcast of the season FINALLY got underway.

Wolf Blitzer joins me to discuss all things fantasy for week 7 and a preview for week 8. Okay, it's not really Wolf Blitzer, just my friend Joe whose fantasy team is called Wolf Blitzer.

We won't pretend to be experts, just fans who enjoy the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat every Sunday as our fantasy football teams either rise up or fall apart at the seams. We'll talk about:

-The grenade player of Week 7 who came out of nowhere to blow someone's team apart
-The torpedo player that didn't live up to expectations and sunk his team
-Which waiver pickup was an oil strike and which one wasn't worth the waiver claim
-And my favorite: the fantasy sob story from Week 7 that's so sad, it could only belong in a country music song.

Plus, we preview week 8.

*So throw on some headphones and pretend to work as you hear the Fantasy PantsCast of the Week.



*batteries not included

Time To Jump Ship

There have been a rash of quarterback benchings this year among the NFL peasant class teams from the "it was only a matter of time" benching of Bucs quarterback Byron Leftwich to the "maybe he's not our future" benching of Brady Quinn in Cleveland. Jason Campbell gets pulled on and off the bench like a yo-yo in Washington while Miami coaches thanked their lucky stars that an injury allowed them to relegate veteran Chad Pennington to the bench without controversy.

Yet, it's the not benchings that boggle my mind this year. There are three quarterbacks out on the field that don't need to be on the field for a variety of reason, the foremost being that they suck. They have been starters all year long, yet have put up such putrid numbers, it's a wonder that their team hasn't locked them in a storage closet before the game. Here are their stories:

Kerry Collins: He came in last year and led Tennessee to the best record in the NFL by basically not making horrible mistakes. This year he's just an albatross on that offense. He completes barely over half of his pass attempts and he averages only 5.4 yards per pass. That ranks him 33rd in the league. 33rd. There are only 32 teams. Those numbers are bad even for a rookie, but Collins is 36 years old. His time is done. It's time to stick Vince Young in for the winless Titans and see if he sinks or swims. That way, the Titans know what they have be draft time next year.

Jake Delhomme: The loquacious gunslinger has always been a fan favorite just because he's such a crazy Cajun. This year, however, people don't know him as a gunslinger so much as an interception machine. The 34 year old (see, old) Delhomme has thrown 13 picks compared to only four touchdowns so far. He has basically made Carolina's top playmaker, wide receiver Steve Smith, a non-factor in games and puts the defense in ridiculous situations. I know it doesn't help that Carolina has given Delhomme zero help in the passing game, but something is clearly wrong. Delhomme's quarterback rating is all the way down in the mid fifties which is worse than anyone else. Unless of course you're talking about...

JaMarcus Russell: Unlike the graybeards Delhomme and Collins, Russell is only 24 years old. Also unlike Delhomme and Collins, Russell has never shown that he has any sort of clue as to what is going on during a football game. This year is Russell's third season which is usually when a quarterback starts to "get it" as the game slows down for him. Russell looks like someone is hitting the fast forward button in his head. He completes less than half of his passes and has two touchdowns compared to eight picks (and many of those picks are of the ugly, head scratching variety.) His quarterback rating is a 47.2. That's Monty Python absurd. Plus, Russell keeps coming to camp like he just left an all you can eat session at Golden Corral. He's well on his way to Ryan Leaf territory in terms of a ruined draft pick.

Team continuity is more important in football than any other sport in America, so I understand a coach's reluctance to throw a new face under center. All of these teams, however, are in no danger of making the playoffs, so it's time to start experimenting for the future. Let it go, guys. Just let it go.

Official Disgrace

Okay Arkansas fans, calm down. Yes, I know about the officials during your close game against the Gators this weekend. Some of you have written me to inform me of these controversial refs.

For those of you who don't know, a Southeastern Conference officiating crew called a very debatable personal foul penalty against Arkansas in a close game. This sent the Razorback fans into a tizzy.

The problem is I've already written about SEC officials, apparently not aesthetes to the emotional volcano of college football, who have ruined close games by calling killer penalties on kids who genuinely get excited when they make a big play.

Guess what? The referees that ruined that earlier game between Georgia and LSU by calling an unneeded excessive celebration penalty are the SAME refs who dropped an unwarranted penalty on Arkansas during the game against Florida! I guess it's good that they're consistent.

Southeastern Conference executives apparently noticed these refs as well because the officiating crew has been suspended until November 14. Maybe now teams might be able to actually play a full game without having it decided by controversial calls.

These games have enough pressure. Let'em play ref.

A Podcast Becomes a PantsCast

I done a podcast with Jordan Bernfield for his website Berning On Sports.com

We talk about stuff. What kind of stuff?

Well...

---The Chicago weather (of which Jordan is reluctant stay with since it's such a non-sporty topic)
---How little I care about the Yanks and Phillies being on the brink a of a World Series match-up
---Jordan's obsessive hatred for Lane Kiffin
---The struggles of one Ohio State Buckeye highly recruited quarterback
---Whiny Jay Cutler's contract extension in Chicago
---Other random thoughts

I am not concise and I wander all over the damn place. So listen. It will be the only way anyone broadcasts me on purpose.

http://berningonsports.com/podcasts/latest.mp3

Remember Why You're Supposed To Be There

I went to a football game in Buffalo a few years ago to see the hometown Bills take on the Cincinnati Bengals. We had to wade through a sea of beer cans that came up to our shins in order to enter the stadium (cheap beer too, blech!) As we sat down, we were serenaded by some drunk Bengals fans and drunk Bills fans screaming obscenities at each other.

All part of the game atmosphere, right?

Then things got out of hand. In the third quarter the group of Bengals and Bills fans had apparently seen enough of the game on the field and decided to stage their own brawl. It was funny to watch at first as yellow jacketed security guards swooped in from all sides to expel the problem makers whose insults had graduated from "your team sucks" to "your mother is a retarded whore with a venereal disease." After the fifth or sixth fight, however, I began thinking to myself "I paid good money for these seats and I want to watch the damn game." It was hard to do with piles of humanity screaming and battling next to me.

I've heard of similar such cases from friends at games all around this great sports land of ours.

We've all seen this guy or girl walking (or stumbling) into the stadium, so toasted that there's no way he'll actually recall any of what he paid to see:



Now you may not have seen someone quite THAT drunk at a stadium since security will probably toss them, but you get my point.

Then there's the classy display of fighting at a sporting event. Someone videoed two women fighting at the Texas/OU football game this weekend:



Some guys might find the fight a turn-on since the women who do that are often the types that will get drunk and have sex in a public place. Who knows how it started, an overheard scuttlebutt, some kind of passing insult, maybe one stole toilet paper from the other. Whatever happened, it had nothing to do with the game.

Hey, stuff happens when you cram 80,000 people into one space as they watch an emotional roller coaster of a game. Yet, most seem to handle it fairly well. As for the others, I guess I learned all I needed to about them from a Simpsons episode:

NFL Noodling--Week 6

This is a SportsPants NFL wrap up session that involves silly teams and silly people. It's like a fun factory filled with violent, muscular men.

Week 6:

Biggest Matchup- New York Giants at New Orleans Saints. Best teams in the NFC? Uh not this week. Saints stomp all over the Giants' privates. Saints QB Drew Brees is a man beast.

Best Game- Minnesota almost had a meltdown. Baltimore came back from a deficit to nearly kick a game winning field goal to beat the Vikings in a hostile milieu. But they missed. So nevermind.

Biggest Joke 1- Philadelphia Eagles lose to....the Raiders? The RAIDERS? You lose to the Oakland Raiders?! That might have been an understandable score back in, say, 1980. These days Oakland has a fat quarterback who can't hit the side of a battleship with a pass. That loss is completely unforgivable. I was eliminated from my NFL pick'em league because of this damn game. Philly fans deserve to boo the team after this one.

Biggest Joke 2- Tennesee Titans may or may not have showed up to play the Patriots, I can't get confirmation. All I know is I lost my fantasy game because my opponent had Tom $*%*@ Brady. 380 yards and six touchdowns in a little over one half of work. One damn half. The Titans quit. Screw them.

Hero of the Day- Thomas Jones- New York Jets. Ran for 210 yards to help his struggling team.

Goat of the Day- Mark Sanchez- New York Jets. Unfortunately, Thomas Jones' big rushing day was in a losing effort because Mr. Golden arm quarterback forgot which team he played for and threw five interceptions. Who are you Mark, Jake Delhomme?

Moron Watch- Brandon Marshall of the Broncos never disappoints in this department. After being interfered with on Monday Night, the hot head wide reciever decided to kick the football drawing an unsportsmanlike penalty and negating the interference call. Someone please punch him.

It's about time I give Denver the Mile High Salute. No one thought that team would be .500 by now let alone undefeated. Well done, Josh McDaniels. Now go punch Brandon Marshall.

Worst Case Scenario

I bet you think that title has to do with a struggling football team or the baseball playoffs. It doesn't.

It has to do with my personal number one nightmare in life.

The next time you punch a wall/table/loved one over the fetor of your struggling team, be happy that your bruised hand will heal back up. The next time you curse because you got up from the couch and cracked your leg against the coffee table, know that you'll be able to walk again.

The catalyst for these comments is the story about a three year old boy named Josh Scoble:

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It's like a twisted power from X-Men, one that no one would ever want. Every day that goes by, more of Josh's muscles inexplicably turn to bone. Injuries make it worse. At least his parents are allowing Josh to enjoy his young life before it becomes hell on earth.

I think being imprisoned in my own body has to be the worst nightmare I've ever considered and doctors predict Josh will be unable to move by his 40's. It's not an spinal injury that an operation might make better over time. It's a disease that no one knows about and it's so rare that very few people care about it.

Just think to yourself: "what would I do if faced with this disease?" Would you stay with life until the ugly end, or would you eventually become incredibly interested in the works of Dr. Kevorkian?