If the 2007 Saints season were a space-themed primetime cable soap opera, it would be called Battlestar Craptacula.

The official pompous Italian coffee drink of the 2007 Saints is the crappuccino.

Their favorite long-forgotten Prince-affiliated skank is Crapollonia Kotero.

Their favorite M*A*S*H spinoff is Crapper John M.D.

Their favorite tasty, nutritious anytime snack for kids and the elderly alike is crapplesauce.

And the cruelest part of it all? The rest of the NFC South doesn’t seem to want to go ahead and put us out of our misery. Oh no, they’re going to insist on dragging us through a long, painful three months of "We’re still close enough that if we can just string together a couple of wins…." Lovely. Sounds like a blast. 

Jake Delhomme, gone. Dan Morgan, gone. Cadillac Williams, gone. Michael Pittman, gone. Joey Harrington, still Joey Harrington. David Carr, still David Carr. You just know that before long Steve Smith is gonna break his hand punching Carr in the face, DeAngelo Hall is gonna shoot Warrick Dunn and Jeff Garcia is gonna get caught with GHB at an Ybor City rave. Hell, the way things are going, somebody’s gonna take this division at 5-11. Might as well be the Saints, right? RIGHT?

Guh. Just kill me now. Please.

But hey, we’re Saints fans. Our favorite kind of hope is false hope. It sure as hell is the kind we’re most familiar with. So don’t put those black & gold glasses back in the dresser drawer just yet. We’re riding this death spiral four abreast with the rest of the division all the way to the gates of football hell. Geaux Saints!!!!

Meantime, I’d like to go ahead and announce that I am finally, officially done with Jack Hunt. I don’t feel the least bit of remorse for sticking by him and hyping him up for this season while everybody else was insisting that he couldn’t catch, can’t catch and would never be able to catch. I thought that last year was evidence enough that he had turned a corner. Apparently, he did turn a corner. And stepped right in front of an oncoming truck. I don’t know what his problem is, nor do I care anymore. Don’t let the door hit you, Devery. Consider yourself stripped of the name Jack Hunt. Henceforth, you shall be known as TJ Douchemanzadeh. (Thanks, KSK.)

And then there’s this week’s scapegoat, Olindo Mare. I suppose that brown spot on his pants is why he wears #2. Ye gods, what the fuck is up with this guy? The Saints gave up a sixth round pick to keep this guy from signing with the Falcons? Think about that one for a second. Meanwhile Arthur Blank makes another call to the assisted living community and brings Morten back for another go. Just perfect. And four weeks in, everybody’s already more than ready to donkeypunch the mare, and the victory lap that’s just been dying to happen for what… a decade now(?)… will still probably never happen. And now the Saints are looking at yet another batch of retards retreads, including the Liquored Up Kicker and that annoying little greaseball Marteeeeeen Gramatica. Yay?

I still don’t subscribe to the idea (as recently expressed by our friend Ashley Morris) that the team carved out its own soul by parting ways with John Carney, Joe Horn and Michael Lewis in the offseason. All three of those guys have a permanent spot in my heart (even though I will always maintain that there was a significant phony-two-faced-asshole factor with Hollywood.) But eventually the time comes to move on, and that time is when they can no longer significantly contribute to the team on the field. I don’t believe that this team would be in any better shape with any of them or all of them. There is still plenty of character and leadership on this team. I don’t believe that Coach Payton has betrayed his own "character counts" mantra.

Carney wouldn’t have missed the 54 yard attempt Sunday. Coach Payton would never have let him go out there to attempt it. Hollywood has 92 receiving yards on the year. His best single game performance so far has been 3 receptions for 36 yards. Michael Lewis has returned 11 punts for 92 yards. Lance Moore has a better average, it’s just that nobody really has to punt to the Saints these days. And while all three of those guys have that nebulous "heart of a champion" thing going on, so do plenty of guys currently on this 0-4 roster.

Word is that sometime last week, Scotty Badass and maybe a handful of other players got desperate enough to exhume the awards that were buried in the offseason. Turns out that gesture was as ridiculously meaningless as the original ceremony. I mean no offense to the Asian Assassin of course, but it’s symptomatic of something that’s beginning to worry me a little about the current version of the Saints: a percieved (on my part) overemphasis on style. Whether it’s absurd exercises in superstition, or Reggie’s socialite/coverboy schtick, or the "We prefer the black tights" or the gadgety, supposedly "high octane" offense, isn’t it all starting to smell a little too fancy? Maybe it’s just me.

The Saints travel to Seattle for yet another primetime, nationally-televised ass kicking Sunday night. That ought to be about as fun as a pickaxe to the base of the skull. It’s hard to imagine coming out of that one anything other than 0-5. But Tampa gets 3-1 Tennessee, Carolina gets 3-2 Arizona and a rejuvenated Mr. Brenda Warner, and Atlanta gets the 3-2 Giants. Just watch as the entire division loses. Somebody pulling away and mercifully leaving Saints fans without the ability to continue to delude ourselves into thinking we’re still in this thing is too easy. Not nearly painful enough.

And may God have mercy on us if the Saints somehow pull one out of their asses Sunday night. Super Bowl here we come! First time for everything, right? RIGHT?

Might as well strap yourselves in, bitches. This division ain’t getting any better, and none of us will soon forget what this team looked like last year. Combine the two, and it’s gonna be a while yet before we finally bleed out.

Meantime, the Fighting Bengal Tigers of Louisiana State University are scheduled for a series of ESPN Special Presentations in which just about everybody on the campus at Bristol explores the possibility that the 2007 Tigers are the greatest college football team in human history. Surely they’re gonna do that. Right? Of course they are. They’ll stack ‘em up against USC’s 2003 AP National Championship Team, 1904’s Kentucky Wesleyan Fightin’ Wesleyans team that won the Better Homes and Gardens National Championship, and last year’s TV Guide National Champions, the Screamin’ Fruitbats of Central Montana A&M. They’ll pore over stats, win-loss records and the relative aesthetic merits of each team’s jerseys to establish once and for all whether or not you can watch the best team of all time(!!!!!!!!!) every Saturday on ABC and the Family of Networks. Yeah, it’s totally in the works.

No respeck!!!!!!!!

LSU is still not playing the right quarterback. But I promise I’ll refrain from bitching about it as long as they keep winning. I just can’t shake the feeling that it’s going to end up biting Miles in the ass though. Meanwhile, I’m comfortable admitting that as an LSU fan, I don’t want any part of Florida again. Damn, Tim Tebow is an absolute stud. Urban Meyer is a hell of a coach. I know they have two losses, but I honestly believe that Florida is the second best college football team in the country. And if LSU and Florida played 10 times, LSU would win 6 max. It’s that close.

I just realized I have no idea how to end this post.