Ol' Bag of Donuts » Chris Lempesis

Ol’ Bag of Donuts’ July 28 Packers podcast

admin — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 18:07:37 +0000

Well, dear listeners, football is back — and so are we. Adam, Chris and I dusted off the microphones, exchanged awkwardly bromantic virtual greetings and got back to the bid’ness of podcasting about your favorite football team.

We discussed the end of the lockout, the start of training camp and what we expect to see from the Packers early this year. Chris Lempesis, who showed up in the best podcasting shape of his life, shares this year’s winner of the Chris Lempesis My Guy Award (the player he’s expecting to be the breakout story of camp, and you remember what he did for Des Bishop last year, right?). And of course, it wouldn’t be us if we didn’t poke a little fun at the returning NFC North basement-dwellers and their silly belief that they can solve their quarterback problem with Donovan McNabb.

You can listen to it below, or you can find us on iTunes. Enjoy!

OBOD 7 28 11 podcast by olbagofdonuts

Ol’ Bag of Donuts’ May 26 Packers podcast

admin — Thu, 26 May 2011 20:24:50 +0000

Well, we’ve been away for a while, dear readers. But we’re back.

After a hiatus through the first few months of the offseason, as Adam, Chris and I all juggled busy schedules with the euphoria of the Packers’ 13th world championship, we return with our first podcast of the offseason. In it, we discuss the Packers’ draft, spend a little time (OK, a fair amount of time) mocking the Minnesota Vikings’ new quarterback and weigh in with our thoughts on the NFL lockout.

And some more good news: We’ve figured out the iTunes thing, and we should have our podcasts available for download there in a few days. For now, you can listen to it in the player below. Enjoy!

–Gene Bosling






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An update on where we’ve been (and what’s next for OBOD)

admin — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 23:29:39 +0000

(Looks around…sees dustballs rolling down the street before sheepishly looking into the camera)

So, um, hi gang…how’s things?

You might have noticed – and our numbers suggest you indeed have – that, well, the three of us haven’t really been around much over the past month.

Okay, so that’s a lie – we haven’t been around AT ALL over the last 30 days.

There are a number of reasons for that, of course, and your ol’ pal Chris is here to explain as much as he can.

The main reason for our extended hiatus (think more Blink-182 than At the drive-in) is rather simple: We’ve all been incredibly, extremely, off-the-chains busy. Adam’s grad school work has ramped up (along with his 40-hour-a-week gig) and Gene’s busy with Bosling business.

As for me? Well, as I write this I’m sitting in my lovely girlfriend’s kitchen in beautiful Milwaukee, Wisconsin. That alone wouldn’t be reason enough…until you consider that I lived in Minneapolis, Minnesota until about five days ago. Translation: Moving takes up A LOT of your time.

There are other reasons, as well. The ongoing NFL/Artist formerly known as the NFLPA lover’s spat has almost totally stalled league activity. And, hey, the Packers DID win the Super Bowl, right? We wanted to take some time to enjoy the victory lap.

As Gene said to me recently: “Once we start writing about the offseason, it’s like we have to start climbing the mountain again. And I’m not ready to do that yet.”

We just want you to know that our absence had nothing to do with you guys and gals. We love each and every one of you and thank you for making year two at OBOD much bigger than year one (I suck at math, but the numbers are coming soon on just how much bigger. We’re not afraid to open our books!).

And we’re not going away for good. The rumors of our demise are greatly exaggerated. We hope to be back soon, but again, we can only do so as time allows. There’s that little event in New York later next month and we’d sure like to write about that. And we think we will. But, really, labor battles between bitchy millionaires and billionaires ain’t our bag, baby, so don’t expect a ton of posts regarding that (we’ll leave that to those who are actually, you know, knowledgeable about such matters).

So, yeah, that’s an update on where we’ve been and where we’re going. Thanks to all of you and again, we hope to be back soon.

-Chris Lempesis

OBOD’s Packers Super Bowl wrapup podcast

admin — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 02:08:22 +0000

We’ve been working our way through a few technical issues, but our latest Packers podcast is here, and we’re no less excited to share it with you than we were a few days ago when we recorded it. For all those people who think we’re too hard on the Packers, who come down on us for pointing out their flaws…this one is for you. The last 20 minutes or so of this podcast essentially amount to sloppy, unrepentant gushing. The Packers are the world champions, life is wonderful, and we’re not afraid to go nuts about it.

You can check it out below, and download it by clicking on the downward arrow on the right. And one of these days soon, we just might have our podcasts up on iTunes, finally. Hope you enjoy this one.

–Gene Bosling

Setting some celebration ground rules

admin — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 20:12:30 +0000

If you live in Wisconsin this week, these are wonderful times. The Packers are world champions for the 13th time. The three Lombardi Trophies proudly displayed in the final room of the Packers Hall of Fame are about to get a new friend. (Side note: We love the spotlights on the trophies, the music playing in the background and the montage of Packers greats on the walls in that room, but they really need a better ventilation system in there. Every time we’re in there, it always gets so dusty.)

But if you live outside of Wisconsin, the Packers’ status as Super Bowl champions can be fun for another reason: Gloating. This is particularly true for the Minneapolis chapter of Ol’ Bag of Donuts (Adam and Chris).

As most of you know, all three of us lived in Minnesota when we started this blog, which of course meant dealing with Vikings fans. We’ve made no secret on this site about how we feel about them — how laughable and obnoxious we find it they try to equate their legacy with ours one minute, only to grumble about how we care too much and we’re living in the past the next minute. They seem to love to point out Minneapolis’ vibrant arts scene as some kind of evidence of their sophistication, forgetting that outside of the Twin Cities, most of Minnesota is exactly like most of Wisconsin. And guys, if you can show us your last ticket stub from the Guthrie Theater or the Walker Arts Center, we’ll back off.

Most of those arguments were baseless in the first place, and now, they ring completely hollow. “Stop living in the past” is useless, because the Packers are the present champions of the world. Shots at Packers fans for caring too much just come off as phony, because the classier half of the Vikings fanbase will readily admit how much they long for what we have. The Metrodome collapsed, Brad Childress tossed a third-round pick to the Patriots on his way out of town, the Randy Moss trade was a joke, the StarCaps case may finally bring down the Williams Wall, Adrian Peterson is a free agent after next season and Brett Favre is gone. Oh, and the team might move to Los Angeles. Other than the Vikings’ infancy in the early 1960s, there may be no point in the history of these two franchises where the disparity has been as great as it is right now.

And because so many Packers fans live in Minnesota, either dating to before the Vikings arrived or owing something to the massive influx of Wisconsinites who cross the border for college, there are plenty of opportunities for trash-talk between the two fanbases. The Minneapolis Star Tribune published a story today called “Title etiquette: Packer backers need to behave.” It was written with tongue firmly in cheek, and it was good entertainment. And in the spirit of good entertainment, we’d like to respond with a few points of our own. Consider this the OBOD Super Bowl Celebration Manifesto:

–The article states that Packers fans in Minnesota are only allowed to discuss the Super Bowl if it’s brought up to them first. While we agree it’s not good to excessively rub Vikings fans’ noses in it, we can’t help but think this is all some sort of cosmic course correction for 2009, when Vikings fans, who had spent 16 years spewing bile at Brett Favre, were only too happy to remind us that they had our beloved hero. They told us at every turn how jealous we must be, even when we’d assert we were perfectly happy with our young quarterback and we’d caution them about how the playoffs would inevitably turn out. And we’re sorry, but to talk endless smack at one point and cry foul when it turns on you is just, well, so Vikings. We’ll behave (mostly), but after the Favre soap opera, know that you’ve earned yourselves a few jabs.

–We’ve been asked to refrain from mentioning the 13-championship disparity between these two franchises. Again, we at OBOD will use some discretion, but haven’t Vikings fans earned a little of that with all of their “Stop living in the past!” rhetoric? Championships, after all, are what you play for, and the Packers have more of them than any other team. And it’s easy not to remember the past when yours is so forgettable (no Super Bowls since 1976, and four losses in four tries).

–Under no circumstances will we cease to mention the massive disparity in quarterbacking between these two franchises, especially after the Vikings begged, pandered (and possibly tampered) to get Favre, and tried telling us how much we still loved him over the last two years. One team had a quarterbacking plan while the other gambled and lost. That fact is pertinent, it’s timely and even in intelligent football discussions, it’s central to the difference between these two teams. Though Favre himself does not need to be the topic of discussion, the effects of backing Favre, or not backing him, will reverberate far into the future for these two teams.

–Finally, please, please, please stop with the tired old lines like, “All cheeseheads sniff paint thinner!” and “Packers fans are just drunk all the time!” We’ve all lived in Minnesota. We’ve gone to college there. It doesn’t look much different than Wisconsin. Secondly, if Super Bowl XLV proved anything, it’s that the Packers are truly a national franchise with support too broad to confine to Wisconsin. And finally, to those who would trumpet Minnesota’s sophistication edge, we have two words for you: St. Cloud.

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, here’s how we at OBOD plan to celebrate:

–We will joyfully wear our Packers championship gear throughout the offseason, even into the summer, but we will not utter the words “Vikings” unless we are asked about football first. If we are provoked, we are equipped with all manner of weapons of mass debunking to set the record straight. But we will keep our celebration on the right side of the “We’re the champs”/”We’re the champs and you suck” border.

–We will revel in the irony of Aaron Rodgers’ ascension and Ted Thompson’s vindication in the wake of Brett Favre’s departure, but we will keep most of the Favre rhetoric confined to what he said when he was forcing his way out of Green Bay, not when he played with the Vikings. There will be more attention on Favre’s relationship with the Packers going forward than his relationship with the Vikings anyway, and frankly, we don’t care enough about him to bother. He’s got his own problems these days, anyway.

–We will concentrate more energy on our newly renewed rivalry with the Chicago Bears, which frankly should have more spice than the Packers/Vikings feud anyway. We greatly enjoy the respectful, historical tenor of the Packers-Bears rivalry, and the run-up to the NFC Championship Game put that in a new light. The one problem between the Packers and Bears is that both teams are so rarely good at the same time, and there’s a chance that both will remain competitive for a few years to come (though we have our doubts about Jay Cutler). Still, we are hopeful that the playoffs put Packers-Bears back in its rightful place as the pre-eminent NFC North rivalry, ahead of the big-brother/little-brother dynamic that has always marked Packers-Vikings.

–Lastly, we will root for the Vikings to get a new stadium and remain in Minneapolis. Though we are frequently annoyed with Vikings fans, we recognize the strength of the NFC North lies in the fact it has four teams who have all been in the league for more than 50 years, and butting heads just as long. The NFC East is the only other division in football that has such a rich tradition of rivalries, and if the Vikings were to leave, something would be lost. We’ve always said we don’t hate the Vikings as much as we love to hate them, which means in the end, it’s all in good fun.

We feel these are reasonable terms under which to celebrate the Packers’ most recent Lombardi Trophy, and we plan to adhere to them throughout the offseason.

Finally, a note going forward: All we’ve ever wanted from Vikings fans is that they know their place. They’ve had plenty of successful seasons in the last 50 years, dominating the division through the 1970s and remaining competitive throughout the 1980s and 1990s. They haven’t anywhere near the dry spell between winning seasons that the Packers had between Lombardi and Holmgren, though their playoff failures speak for themselves. We’re not suggesting the Vikings are the Detroit Lions, but we’re also not going to suffer the logic they’re the Packers, Bears, Steelers, Cowboys or even the Giants. Championships do matter, and when there’s no football being played (which could be the case for a while), they’re what keep the banter lively between fanbases. The Vikings, historically, have been a good franchise that has struggled to achieve greatness, often falling short in memorable fashion. The Packers have some goofy traditions, but they’re also the most decorated team in the history of the league. Respect the economy of scale.

We hope these terms are agreeable to all, and we’ll be rooting for the Vikings to get a new home this winter. And, we hope, we’ll be butting heads with the Vikings as we chase title No. 14 next fall.

–The Ol’ Bag of Donuts staff

2010 Packers prove it just doesn’t matter

admin — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 03:55:52 +0000

None of it mattered to the 2010 Green Bay Packers.

Oh, it could have. At times, it probably should have. And for most teams, well, it unquestionably would have.

Injuries mounting at an (almost) comedic rate. Disappointing losses to teams they should have crushed. The weight of colossal expectations. Yeah – they were all there.

And that was before the calendar turned to January.

Adversity was the name of the game for this team. The road less traveled? How about the road you don’t travel on unless you’re insane?

But that was the road this team would have to take, due mainly to a regular season full of obstacles, ones that seemed destined to alter a season that’d begun with so much hope. That hope never fully pulled up its stakes and left town, mind you. No, it just moved into the background to make way for something else, something much more important.

Heart.

The heart the 2010 Packers earned – it’s never just handed to you, of course – served them well, even when everyone was ready with shovels and epitaphs at hand. And it was even more handy when every game they played could be their last.

When they were told they’d have no choice but to head on the highway and win…and win…and win some more just to get to North Texas, well, they leaned heavily on gameplanning and talent. But they relied on heart. The difference is subtle, but oh so important.

See, heart is what gets you by when you have to defeat the top three seeds in your conference in their own buildings. Heart is what allows you to dig deep and come up with a key first down or a crucial game-ending stop. There were other teams that had just as much talent, just as much intelligence as these Packers. But they didn’t have the heart.

No – not even close.

And when they got to North Texas, they knew what they had, even if others wanted to put their money on the team with the experience.

They knew what they had when key players were heading down that long ramp into the lockerroom, seemingly after every other play. They never lost sight of it because they couldn’t. By this point, it was long within them.

Someone else would just have to make a play. So what? Did that really matter now? Someone else always had to.

And someone else did. A whole hosts of “someone else” stepped up on a February evening in North Texas. And the result was that beautiful, heavenly confetti shower we’d spent 13 years wondering if we’d ever see again.

We saw it because it just didn’t matter to the 2010 Green Bay Packers. Not because they didn’t care, but because when you have heart, nothing else really matters.

And when they come blasting out of the tunnel on a warm September evening to an announcement that they are now the 13-time world champion Green Bay Packers, we’ll once again be reminded that the heart is the most important thing. If you have that, the rest really does just fall wonderfully into place.

-Chris Lempesis

OBOD’s final Super Bowl Packers podcast

admin — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 22:57:54 +0000

In just over 24 hours, the Packers and Steelers will kick off Super Bowl XLV. All the talking and analysis will finally be over, worth about as much as the air that was used to breathe it into existence.

But hey, what are you going to do until then?

While you’re burning away the last few hours before the big game, we’ve got another edition of the Ol’ Bag of Donuts podcast for you. We’re talking about the X factors for the game and offering our predictions for Green Bay-Pittsburgh. And, of course, we had to catch up with our old buddy, disgraced former Green Bay Packers coach Mike Sherman, who isn’t taking the news of his former employer’s Super Bowl berth so well.

You can listen by clicking below – and you can download the podcast for yourself by clicking on the downward arrow on the right. Enjoy!

–Gene Bosling

OBOD’s (first) Super Bowl week Packers podcast

admin — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 20:25:29 +0000

It’s Super Bowl week, Packers Nation, and we’ve got you covered. We’ve got our first of two podcasts this week ready to go — in this one, we look at a few matchups to watch and break down the Steelers with Dave from South Bend. Oh, and we’ve got a snippet of Favre news toward the end of the podcast that you might find interesting.

You can check it out below, and download a copy of the show by clicking on the downward-pointing arrow on the right. Enjoy!

–Gene Bosling

Dear Mike…I’m sorry

admin — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 03:07:50 +0000

To: Michael John McCarthy

From the desk (or couch) of: Chris Lempesis

Dear Mike,

Hey man – how’s it going? Silly question, I know. You must be on top of the world right now (or, at least, 60 minutes away from it).

Anyways, I’m writing you today to tell you I’m sorry. That’s right – your old buddy Chris is choking down a heapin’ helpin’ of crow.

In case you aren’t familiar with our odd little corner of the Interweb, I’ll fill you in. See, I’m the idiot who wrote, after your team’s loss to the Detroit Lions in December, that you should be “relieved of your duties at season’s end.” I felt then that you had peaked as a head coach, that you’d never be the guy to get this team – and, okay, this diehard fanbase of ours – to the promised land. You seemed capable of pulling things together for stretches, but never long enough to really get us there.

Or so I thought then. Man, how stupid was I, huh?

In my defense, you hadn’t done so up to that point. And, with a battered, bruised roster that had just turned in its most disheartening performance of your tenure, the 2010 season – one that began with “Super Bowl or Die” dreams – seemed destined for all-time worst season status for yours truly. Actually, after your loss at New England the next week, I wrote that this season had been the most disappointing of my lifetime as a fan.

Again, I was wrong. I should have given you the benefit of the doubt…or at least waited until the season was officially over to make such a ridiculous statement. Others, including our own Adam Somers, felt like that was the smart approach. I didn’t. I was completely overreactionary (a sign of the times, I suppose) and wanted your head on a platter.

You’d been pretty good at dodging bullets in the past – you move well for a big guy, kudos – but I never, in my wildest dreams, could have imagined you’d do what you’ve done over the past six weeks. But you’ve done it, sir – you’ve really done it.

You’ve gotten this team, this ragtag collection of stars and castoffs, to rally together as one. They never wavered in their belief that they could be the best, that they could get to where they are now. Of course, you’ve had some help in all this – tell Dom I said hi and thanks for everything – but, really, a lot of the credit must go to you. Your confident, steadfast approach was absolutely the right approach to take, even if things were as bleak as they’d ever been in your time as head coach of this team.

A lot of us doubted you. But the 53 men in that lockerroom never did. They bought what you sold. In the end, that’s all that matters, I’ve learned.

In turn, you’ve made me a believer in you, Mike. Okay, so sometimes you still drive me nuts – coaching not to lose instead of coaching to win late in two of your team’s three postseason games this year, for example – but all in all, I’m a believer in the “Book of Mike,” so to speak.

Lord help me – I’ve seen the light!

If I had any advice, though, for this next game, it’d be this: Your best moments have come when you’ve been aggressive, when you’ve really gone for it. Don’t forget that next Sunday. As I wrote after the Super Bowl last year, “in the biggest games of your life, you turn it loose.” That worked for the last NFC team in this game. Something tells me it will work for you, too.

But, really, this letter isn’t about that. If you check us out at all over the next week, you’ll find no shortages of us telling you what your team needs to do to win.

For right now, I just wanted to say, again, that I’m sorry. You’re much smarter than I ever gave you credit for. Keep doing what you’re doing, Mike. It’s working great.

And, oh yeah – go get us that trophy. It belongs in Green Bay. Bring it home.

Sincerely,

Chris Lempesis

OBOD’s Packers podcast for Jan. 28

admin — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 21:12:21 +0000

We’re officially in the Super Bowl Fortnight (two weeks, for those of you not educated in Shakespeare), and we here at Ol’ Bag of Donuts have chosen to spend the first half of that looking back on the remarkable run your 2010 Green Bay Packers have undertaken to get here. Thus, this podcast will be the lightest of our Super Bowl offerings — we discuss the 2010 season, talk about some of the news of the week (a team picture? Really?), and touch on a few other items (Glibert Brown coaching a Lingerie Football League team?). And we’ve got a visit from a good friend of the show: Barry from D.C.

This, of course, didn’t stop us from delving a little into the Super Bowl matchup, talking in some detail about the Steelers, but in more detail about why our friend David from South Bend, a Sheboygan native who’s also a Steelers fan, is a shameless front-runner.

All that and more is available to your ears, hearts and minds. Click below to listen, and click on the link to the right to download.

–Gene Bosling