If a tree falls in the forest...........

Notre Dame plays Michigan this weekend, and almost literally, nobody cares. Honestly, for these two programs is there that much of a difference between 0-3 and 1-2.

Two true freshman quarterbacks. Two teams that had great teams last year, and had high hopes this season. Michigan was a national title contender about 20 days ago.

Sad story, in fact this is all I am going to write about it. It would be a disgrace to the sports world to write anything more about this pathetic game.

Weekend Picks

College Picks:

Michigan/ND Under 44
Washington +4 vs Ohio State
Bama -3 vs Arkansas
Fresno St +16.5 @ Oregon (letdown game)
Colorado +4.5 vs Florida State
New Mexico +10 @ Arizona

NFL Picks:

STL -3 vs SF
GB + 1.5 @ NYG (if Eli is out)
Chicago -13 vs KC
Jax -10 vs Atlanta (bet against ATL til they beat you)

Greg O-DUN

Wow. This may be the worst offseason in the history of the NBA. Start with one of the worst NBA Finals in history, followed by a referee scandal that still may end up getting worse for the league. Now, Greg Oden, a legend for 4 years or so before he even entered the league is out for his entire rookie season, before it even started. Ouch. I feel real bad for the fans in Portland, and even more so for Greg Oden. Oden has a lot of haters out there saying that he has no offensive game, and this and that. Now those haters are going to attack this injury and point fingers and talk about Sam Bowie.

Oden was a beast on the college level, people talk about how he has no jump shot. Umm, why the hell would he shoot jumpshots when he easily could get position 5 feet from the hoop.

Oden will be back. However, he may never reach the heights of "Bill Russell" as some had anticipated. Amare seems to have made it back from this same surgery, but it took him quite a while. Best of luck Mr. Oden, you're a class act.

Let's Go Red Sox!!!!

OK, yes I realize the Tigers chances are somewhere between slim and none to make the playoffs, but I am not ready to give up quite yet. Ask me again Sunday. The Tigers badly need to win this weekend's games, but equally important to that, the Tigers need the Red Sox to take it to the Yankees in Boston.

Basically, Michigan football sucks, and I am not ready to lend my full sports attention to the Detroit Lions, who may not even be televised in this area this weekend.

Lets GO TIGERS..and the RED SOX too.....

Back After 3 Year Absence

3 years of silence have ended, and LaBelle's got the website back and running. The site will have a new name, and will take probably a few weeks to get back up to full strength. I will be talking about everything sports, and from time to time some other topics.

Flinttown Fantasy Football Recap

Each Week I will do a fantasy football recap for the best fantasy football league on the planet---

Rocky beat Beiser in the battle of the deushebags, Beisers team sucked it up, led by -4 points from the amazing Cowboys defense. Rocky was led by Addai, Kitna, and rookie Marshawn Lynch

In the battle of the LaBelle brothers, lil bro Brian put it to Big Matt. Brian had only 4 points combined from Brees, Deuce, and Lee Evans. I wouldn't think that was possible, but as long as Gore doesn't go ballistic its going to happen.

In the LaBelle/Stebbins matchup LaBelles team went bananas. 127 (lucky number) points worth of bananas. 6 guys had double digits led by Romo's league leading 35 fantasy points.

Jacobs beat Rudy despite Rudiger having great weeks from Manning, Holt, and Andre Johnson. Rudy's team is going to be real nice in the long run, but I am sure he is missing LT from last season.

Wickam is looking to pull it out versus Peraino on Monday Night. Baltimore scored double digits and Gore is tearing it up early. Its not over, but Wickam is looking real good.

Eck V Steelers-- Eck is going to pull it off late Monday night. With the Steelers laying the smack down to the Browns Justin looked real good, but TO and Moss were amazing and Edge got an early TD on MNF.

Players of the week:

QB: Romo, Brady, Eli (ouch for LaBelle)
HB: Adrian Peterson, Gore, and LT (i know 25 yds, he still scored 17)
WR: Andre Johnson, Plexiglass, and Randy Moss
TE: Gates, Witten

Monday Lions Recap

A new addition to the BL sports website will be the weekly Lions recap.

The Lions are 1-0. Lets focus for a second on the fact that for a team like the Detroit Lions that is a very good thing. I know they beat the Raiders, and almost blew a 17 point second half lead to a team led by a former Lions backup QB/5th string WR (ouch), but they won. Currently the Lions are leading the Bears in the standings by a game (SD, I know).

The Offense:

Kitna played well for the majority of the game, and Oakland may be a terrible football team, but that is not because of their pass defense. The Raiders have a very athletic secondary, and have Sapp (10 sacks in 06) and Burgess on the D-line. Kitna from time to time made throws that were frighteningly close to those made by Jeff Garcia (floating to the outside of the field), but most of those passes were still completed.

The thing that scares me is that the Lions appear to once again have no push from their offensive line in the running game. Tatum Bell needs space, he is a downhill 1-cut runner with speed. If the O-line can find a way to get him a 3 yard head start on the defense he is going to gain a lot of yards. The only problem is that their are going to be very few teams in the NFL that are going to allow that to happen (and next weeks opponent MIN is not one of those teams). TJ Duckett is a waste of space, his NFL career is almost over. Oh, and Foster, you might wanna fix that little jumping problem (5 false starts)

The Wide Receivers were pretty much as advertised. I was pleased to see Martz go with a lot of 3 and 4 WR sets. I would rather have McDonald on the field on 3rd and long than Dan Campbell. Calvin Johnson made some plays, and even scored a touchdown. I would like to see the Lions push him vertically a bit more, but maybe they did and Kitna just dumped short to the open guys, its hard to tell from the non-HD version on FOX. Roy Williams is a perennial pro-bowler, and even though his stats were not great, he is still a monster at WR.

The Defense:

I am going to try and be honest here. They were terrible. I know it is week 1, but how many times can you be completly fooled by the same play. At times it looked like the Raiders were only running a 4 play playbook. Bootleg, Bootleg, Bootleg, ten yards at a time. McCown earned at least a week 2 start, but lets see how he does when he plays an actual defense.

The good:

Rogers was a beast at times in the game, disrupting McCown and Jordan in the backfield, and even blocked a FG. Redding spent a lot of time in the backfield as well. Ernie Sims is the best defensive player on that team. Sims was all over the field and at least shows hope for this weak defense. DeWayne White looked like a superstar for about 5 minutes last night with a spectacular interception, followed by a play where the defensive end forced two fumbles on the same play.

The defensive backs were terrible. Ronald Curry and Zach Miller were wide open the entire game. It was bad, I guess you could say at least the DBs tackled well, but that is not what I want out of my DBs. I am not talking about the DBs anymore, but in week 3 in Philly, all the Lions fans will learn the hard way.


The conclusion:

It is only one week, but a lot was shown. To me, it's the same old Lions. They are going to get a lot of yards on offense. From 20 to 20, we will be one of the best offenses in the NFL. The problem is the next 20 yards. Oakland did something on defense that I expect to see a lot this season. When the Lions got to 2nd and 3rd down inside the ten yard line the Raiders were in Dime. They dropped their LBs into the endzone and had 5 DBs in the endzone, it makes it extremely difficult to pass the ball, and Martz will pass the ball.

The defense is bad. The loss of Bullocks hurts, he was a potential bright spot. Sims is a stud, if he was on Philly or Chicago he would be a pro-bowler this season. The corners are terrible, and injury prone. Paris Lenon is our middle linebacker, for christ sakes, our middle linebacker's first name is PARIS!!!! That sure does show the toughness of this Lion's defense.

As for week 2 vs MIN----- I predict the Lions will stack the line. Rogers and Redding are going to have to play big. Lenon is going to have to grow a set, and Sims is going to need 14 tackles. Tavaris Jackson is terrible, he is the black version of Joey Harrington.

Lions win 30-17, but that is only because the Vikings are just as bad as the Raiders.

Baltimore Was Robbed!!!!

I will try and make this short and simple. Todd Heap caught a touchdown pass on 4th down to tie up an amazing game, and their was a phantom call in the endzone that cost the Ravens a chance at winning the game in Overtime. In the refereeing world that includes the likes of Tim Donaghy, this is not the start the NFL wanted. Maybe, just maybe this play will not get talked about tomorrow as much as it should due to the fact that the Ravens got a second chance after a defensive holding call on the 4th down play, but it should. The refs ruined a great game. Just one game, but something tells me that Baltimore and Cincy will not be too far away in the standings at the end of the season.

Great game, Cincy wins, but not the way I wanted a great game like that to finish.

Monday Night Doubleheader BRILLIANT!!!

I must say, the NFL has their shit straight. They may do some things that are unbelievable, say fine Jake Plummer for a "40" sticker in honor of Pat Tillman, or fining players for wearing the wrong color socks, however they know what they are doing when it comes to giving fans good games. Nearly half the games could be seen this week by anyone owning cable that includes ESPN.

Baltimore/Cincy was a great game, now I am preparing to get close to zero sleep because of the second Monday Night game. This is a dream.

The flex schedule for Sunday Night football is an absolutely amazing idea as well.

The NFL is great, too bad the Lions are barely a part of the league.

The Tigers are D-U-N, Done!!

I am not a person who likes to make excuses so I won't mention the fact that darn near every guy that has throw a pitch for the Tigers this year has spent time on the DL. I wont mention that Zumaya, Bonderman, Rogers, and Rodney have spent more time either playing hurt or watching games than contributing. Since, I am not making excuses I won't mention that the Tigers started going downhill when Gary Sheffield got hurt and was replaced by the likes of Perez, Raburn, and Maybin.
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OK, while I was writing this the Tigers scored 4 runs to comeback in the 9th inning. I will finish this article after they stink it up in the doubleheader tomorrow.

Michigan Football at an All-time Low Point

Ok, so Michigan fans thought it was bad when they lost to Appalachian State in week 1. While I will not argue the fact that at that point, that was the worst day in Michigan Football in my twenty years as a fan of the Blue and Gold powerhouse. I will now argue, however, that today is the worst day in the storied history of Michigan football. Michigan followed their loss to D II App St. (ya I know it's got a new name, who cares) with an absolutely unbearable performance against Oregon. The game was over very early, and the defensive backs for the Wolverines seemed non existence as Oregon went "Madden on Rookie level" and threw 50 yard passes with ease without a DB in sight.

As if all this was not bad enough, today Michigan fans get the news that Chad Henne will not play versus Notre Dame on Saturday. Chad Henne is not an All-American, in fact at times he is flat out average, but Ryan Mallet is a true freshman. I feel bad for Mallet right now, everyone else on the team is getting what they deserve, but Mallet drew the shortest straw and now must suffer the consequences of the rest of the team's actions. Notre Dame has been terrible, possibly even worse than Michigan, but with Mallet at QB it is very possible that Michigan is looking in the face of an 0-3 start.

The only positive I can think of at this time is that the Lloyd Carr 1976 football era may be coming to an end finally. Lloyd has had a decent resume put together in his Michigan tenure, but he is a stubborn bastard who refuses to make any adjustments to all of the changes that are being made in the college football world. Now we can all pray for Les Miles or Rich Rodriguez. Pray with me people, something needs to happen.

As for now, I am ready to hit fast forward on the college football season. Put Florida and USC in the title game and then wake me up when next season starts.