Here are the links to the calls for tonights Extra Points Podcaster draft, for your listening pleasure:

8:45 - 10:45 PM (Eastern): http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/talkCast.jsp?masterId=48807&cmd=tc
10:45 PM - 12:45 AM (Eastern, if necessary): http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/talkCast.jsp?masterId=24780&cmd=tc

You don't need to download any software to listen, just open the web app and come on in!

So, we posted an episode on Thursday night, as we usually do.  Unfortunately, it seems that most of you didn't get it because, for some reason, it didn't hit the feed until today.  We did everything the same way that we usually do, and, for some reason, Feedburner didn't decide to give out the episode when we posted it.  We're very sorry about that; Scott and I bust our butts to make sure you have content that arrives in time for you to use it, and an episode that drops the following Tuesday is about as useful as going for the touchdown on 4th and 1 when you're already up 42-7.  We're looking into the issue and we're going to do whatever we can to make sure this doesn't happen again.  You should expect Extra Points #101 to drop tomorrow (Wednesday, 11/21) in time for the Thanksgiving games, and we'll do everything we can to make sure that it does indeed get to you on time.

Thanks for staying subscribed, and happy Thanksgiving!

So we filled up our Survivor League! Thanks to all for signing up. If you couldn't get into the league, fear not, we've started another one at Yahoo.

If you'd like to give this league a shot, go to the Yahoo survivor game page and follow the sign up steps. This group ID# is 24881, and the password "extra2" (without quotes, of course).

Good luck and may the best prognosticator win...

--Scott and Steve

Back by popular demand, it's the Extra Points Podcast Survivor Fantasy League!! (so that makes it the EPPSFL!) If you're not familiar, this game is quite easy to play, but hard to win. Before the first game of week 1 (remember, it's a Thursday next week), just log on and pick one team who you think will win their game that week. If they win, you move on to the following week and repeat the process. If the team you pick loses, you're out of the contest. And always keep in mind that you can only pick a team once during the course of the contest.

Our league is set up through Yahoo, so you need a Yahoo ID to participate. If you don't have one, you can create one for free. To sign up, go to http://football.fantasysports.yahoo.com/survival and click "Sign Up," then follow the prompts.

Choose to join a private group: the group ID# is 19326, and the password is "extra" (w/o the quotes, of course).

Be sure to sign up quickly as last year we filled up all 50 spots. The last survivor will win a fabulous prize! (If everyone left in the last group is eliminated in the same week, a random drawing will determine the winner.)

Good luck! --Scott and Steve 

Note: This isn't any sort of a sponsored plug or anything like that; I just saw this come across my RSS feeds and thought it might be of interest to some of you who are planning to get together for your drafts over the next couple of weeks.

Apparently, if you host your draft at a Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant, they'll give you $100 worth of free food in addition to other stuff from CBS Sportsline.  I don't think you have to use Sportsline for your league to take advantage of the deal (which is a good thing, because several of you have had less than nice things to say about them), but if you do, they'll give you a 10% discount.

This seems almost too good to be true, so make sure to talk to the restaurant and get to the bottom of any fine print, but if there aren't any terrible stipulations, it might be checking out.  They have some details on their web site: http://www.buffalowildwings.com/promotions/current_promotions_fantasyfb.asp

Most of you have probably heard/read/seen this by now, but yesterday Michael Vick was officially indicted for running an illegal dogfighting operation, among other things. Some of the charges and events that supposedly took place are pretty gruesome and disturbing, so keep that in mind if you click on the link.

It remains to be seen what action the Falcons or the league will take. And the case still needs to go to trial. But at this point, I can't see how this won't affect his viability on the field in some way. So if you're keeping Vick in mind for your fantasy draft, I'd look elsewhere. If you have him in a keeper league, I'd be looking at replacements.

In other much less shocking news, the Dolphins finally releasd Duante Culpepper yesterday. Will be interesting to see where he ends up.

Fellow podcaster and friend of Extra Points, Jersey Todd, just put out an episode containing an excellent commentary on the NFLPA's position that they should be receiving more money for injury benefits.  You can read the commentary on his blog in its entirety, but go ahead and download (or better yet, subscribe to) the podcast for the full effect.  Besides, Jersey Todd plays some excellent music from some bands you may not yet have heard of, and he's consistently on my must-listen list. 

I saw an article on Yahoo today saying that the NFL is considering expanding the season to 17 games, with each team playing the "extra game" outside the US, most likely in Canada, Mexico, or Europe.

To me this seems like a monumentally bad idea. And that's besides the fact it would be a logistical nightmare. I know the NFL wants to expand its fan base and, naturally, revenue streams, but to have each team play a regular season game in another country just doesn't make any sense. An exhibition is one thing, but a game that counts in front of random fans!? Do people in Germany (one of the proposed countries to host) even like American football? Isn't attendance at NFL Europe games pretty low?

I'm a soccer fan, and that sport is huge just about all over the world. But I don't know of any soccer teams that play regular season games outside of their home country. If the NFL wants to get more popular internationally, they should try to start grassroots leagues in other countries using players from those countries (or regions, in Europe's case). Then they could have a tournament a la European soccer's Champions League with teams from different countries facing each other.

What are your thoughts? Weigh in at http://extrapoints.forumup.com.

This is something I've wondered about for a long time, since they have gear with the winning team's logo on it, something must happen to the shirts made up with the loser's logo on it as well. Well, the The New York Times has a feature on what exactly happens to those shirts that are never to see the light of day. It's a pretty interesting read if you've ever wondered about that...

So I make my way over to the blog for Jawbone today (which is another podcast you should definitely be listening to, by the way), and he has a link to this nominee for the Bad Ideas Hall of Fame:

Honestly? A jersey for neither team, but for the Super Bowl itself? Who in their right mind would spend $125 on this thing? Heck, that thing's so ugly, I don't think I'd wear one if they were giving them out for free.

You almost have to wonder if the NFL started hiring the chimpanzees from the CareerBuilder commercials. At least they had the good sense to keep Britney out of their Super Bowl commercial. (Of course, even a chimp would have enough sense to make that move...)

As you'll hear on our next episode, NFL.com and SuperBowl.com have conspired to make logging into the playoff league considerably more difficult.

Here's a link to the home page of the Playoff Challenge in case you end up having the same trouble we did: http://freechallenge.5.football.superbowl.com/challenge/home

If you're like me, every so often, you're watching Monday Night Football and you think, "If I hear Joe Theismann say one more stupid comment, I'm going to go insane." Well, we at Extra Points value your sanity, so here's instructions on how to mute the announcers while still hearing all the sounds of the game. You'll need a surround sound system for this to work, but it might just be worth picking one up if you don't already have one to be able to watch MNF sans Theismann.

Sunday Ticket on cable, here we come!

Outgoing Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Arlen Specter is threatening to introduce legislation aimed at eliminating the NFL's exemption from antitrust laws. Specter specifically mentioned the NFL's exclusive arrangement with DirecTV to carry NFL Sunday Ticket. The thought is that the senator is attempting to pressure the NFL into making voluntary changes as opposed to having legislation forced upon them.

I, for one, am all for it. Sure, there are more important things that the Senate could be discussing, but I'd love to be able to get all the NFL games without having to switch to DirecTV, as would many of us, I'd imagine. Let's hope that the NFL hears the Senator loud and clear and makes some changes before next season...

Congrats to everyone who's made their playoffs or are about to!  If you need help with the critical first round, e-mail us at ExtraPointsPodcast@gmail.com.  We'll try to get as many questions as we receive by the time we start recording (around 8 PM Eastern on Tuesday, 12/5) answered on the show.  And even if you come up with questions after that, we're always available to help out via e-mail, so get those questions in!

So by now, you've probably seen the Madden 2007 commercial where Dallas Clark gets levelled by two defenders. Well, that commercial was apparently done by the guys from Red vs. Blue, and Clark was none too happy with them for it, because he felt that it made him "look like a punk" among other things.

Well, apparently the Red vs. Blue guys don't want football players who could theoretically tear them apart with their bare hands angry at them, so they've posted an apology as well as a director's cut of the commercial, which you can see in this post. Pretty funny stuff, so I thought I'd share.

If you've been having trouble registering for the message board, please send an e-mail to ExtraPointsPodcast@gmail.com and we'll delete your username so you can re-register. Apparently, the forum server was having some issues yesterday, but everything seems to be fixed today. We apologize for the inconvenience.

And if you haven't already signed up, what are you waiting for?

Just some fun for a Friday:
I'm reading this week's installment of Sports Guy's NFL Picks, and he links to a YouTube video of a bug in Madden 2007. Apparently, under some circumstances, if you let the computer control your QB, he'll throw backwards on every down. The person who posted the video called it the "Aaron Brooks Glitch". Now, given how much I bust on Brooks for throwing in the wrong direction, how could I not post about that?

Due to the overwhelming response to the Survival League, we have expanded the maximum number of entrants to 50, the highest Yahoo allows!!

To enter our league (which is free- see post from Aug. 31 for complete details), go to http://football.fantasysports.yahoo.com/survival. Our group ID# is 14153 and the password is eppodcast.

The deadline for submitting your Week 1 pick is 2:59 am EST on Thurs. Sept. 7. The deadlines thereafter are 2:59 am EST on the day of (11:59 pm PST the day before) the first game of that week. E-mail us at extrapointspodcast@gmail.com with any questions.

Good luck!

We're all about variety here at Extra Points! As many of you know, fantasy football appears in many differnet forms. This season, we decided to organize a league for those who don't have the time to devote to the more traditional matchup-type leagues (or are already doing those other leagues and want an additional challenge): Survival Fantasy Football.

How does the game work? Simple: Every week, you pick a team you think will win its game. If the team you picked ends up winning that weekend, you stay in the game and move on to the next week. If your team loses, you are eliminated from the competition.

It's that easy. It can take as little as one minute per week to participate in this league. Just sign on to the web site, pick a team, and hope they win.

But there is a catch: once you pick a team, you cannot pick that same team again for the rest of the competition. This makes the game quite challenging.

There is no money required to enter, and we may even rustle up a prize for the eventual winner. Also, should everyone in the league be eliminated early on, we can reset everyone's status and start again.

So to sign up, go to http://football.fantasysports.yahoo.com/survival. You will need a Yahoo ID to play, but if you don't have one it's free to get one (Click "Sign Up" at the top of the screen). Follow the prompts to join a private group. Our group ID# is 14153 and the password is "eppodcast" (enter all lower case, without quotes).

As of now I capped the group size at 25, but can raise it up to 50 if there's interest (if you try to sign up and the group is full, please e-mail us indicating such).

And tell your friends! This group is open to anyone interested.

Questions? E-mail us at extrapointspodcast@gmail.com. Good luck becoming the last survivor!

If you're a player looking for a league to play with, or your league needs an extra player, leave a comment for this post with a way to get in contact with you; hopefully we'll be able to match you up!

After talking about the Roethlisberger situation when Steve and I recorded the show last night, I really needed a light and humorous sports story. So even though this is about baseball, it does have a connection to fantasy sports...

Have you ever watched a game in any sport and said, "Man, why did the manager/coach do that!?!" (If you're a Red Sox fan, you've done this quite often). "I could manage this team better than _____!" Well, now you can have your chance: an independent baseball team in Illinois is turning over key managerial decisions to fans for the second half of its season. By voting online, fans accross the country can help determine batting lineups, fielding positions, the pitching roster, and possibly even make trade decisions!

This is great. Check out the article to learn more.  --Scott

To join Scott's NCAA tourney group, go to http://tournament.fantasysports.yahoo.com. Use the group ID# 26366 and the password *indy* to sign up. You will need a Yahoo ID to participate, but it's free to set one up if you don't already have one.

Also, this is a free group, no money involved at all. You have until 11:55 am tomorrow (Thurs. Mar. 16) to submit your brakcet. Good luck!

So, let's say that you're going to a Super Bowl party this weekend, and, for whatever reason, you miss a commercial or seven. Or, worse yet, you happen to live outside the US and you get lame commercials instead. Well, podcasting has come to the rescue.

Apparently, someone's come up with the brilliant idea of putting all the Super Bowl commercials into a video podcast. You can find the details here. I personally subscribed and I think it's a really innovative new use of podcasting.

Anyway, enjoy the Super Bowl. I'll be rooting for Tom Brady to not hurt himself further during the coin flip...

Scott and I both have our favorite columns for football analysis throughout the season. Scott's is Tuesday Morning Quarterback, and mine is ESPN's Sports Guy (formerly Boston Sports Guy, also known as Bill Simmons).

In any event, Sports Guy just put out his latest version of the Playoff Manifesto. It's aimed more toward gambling, so there's some difference there, obviously, but he's got a number of good factors to consider, and he's been fairly successful in applying these rules over the years, so if you're trying to figure out, say, if the Giants or Panthers are going to win tomorrow, maybe this will help you break the tie in your mind...

-Steve

...Please make sure to make your way over to our message board and post in the new forum that I set up for the Playoff Fantasy Football Challenge. After all, it's not a fantasy league without somewhere to smack talk, right? And even if you're not signing up, head over there anyway and introduce yourself. We love to talk to you guys!

Greetings listerners (and web site visitors!). Just wanted to make you aware of a new poll I put out on our message board today, in the "Football Discussion" Category. There's a link to our message board on the right side of this page.

We've mentioned in the last couple of episodes how the Colts (and maybe Seahawks) will likely bench some of their more valuable players once they clinch homefield advantage. What do you think: is this a good idea?

Vote in the poll, and then add to the message thread with your opinions.

Good luck in Week 13! --SB

So Libsyn had some technical issues today with their DNS servers. All seems to be better now. Thanks for being patient with us; hopefully Libsyn will get their act together soon and all will be back in order...