1:30 P.M. — Eddie Royal Is Turning Into a Fantasy Sleeper

*Note: Metro Mayhem apologizes in advance that the coverage has been Northern Virginia heavy. Frankly, that's where the expertise is right now. In time, we will stretch out the coverage first to include Prince George's County and then the private schools in the area to be followed by the D.C. public schools. The coverage is almost exclusively about former area athletes, high school teams, coaching hiring and firings and everything else in between.*

Westfield graduate Eddie Royal is getting raved reviews in Broncos camp.

The 5-foot-10, 182-pound Royal was considered small coming out of Virginia Tech, but apparently he got drafted by the right team.

Brandon Marshall, who is suspended for the first two games, is a definite starter. But Royal is competing with Keary Colbert, Darrell Jackson and Samie Parker for the other spot. Brandon Stokley will be in the slot.

“He’s been very impressive,” Denver coach Mike Shanahan said. “He’s got a burning desire to make the starting lineup.”

“I’m very impressed,” Dre’ Bly said. “He’s asking me constantly what things he needs to work on to improve his game.”

Who hasn't he impressed? Could you say fantasy sleeper?

Noon — Sluggers Go Different Ways

The best sportswriter in the Metro area, Washington City Paper's Dave McKenna, weighs on two former Northern Region stars, and how their paths have diverged only a little more than three years removed from high school.

This isn't the heavy-hitting feature I was hoping, but it's still nice to see that two local stars at least have made it professionally. One, Brandon Synder was scooped up in the early rounds, almost forcing him to sign a minor league contract (signing bonus!) out of Westfield.

Meanwhile, W.T. Woodson's Mike Bianucci just recently signed having gone to Auburn for a couple of years.

The real questions? Who has more notches in the bedpost and who has more money? Personally, I'd go the college route.

4 P.M. — Digital Sports Football Preview (Fairfax)

DigitalSports is previewing every 30 teams in the Northern Region. That includes Concorde District punching bag Fairfax.

The bad news? Fairfax is in the Concorde, with Centreville, Oakton, Chantilly, Robinson and Westfield, the defending state champs. Ouch. So much that Fairfax is 0-18 tries since joining in 2005.

The good news? The Rebels bring back their quarterback, running back and entire offensive line and their coach, Chris Haddock. That's about it.

Telling quote? "We've won four game in the last four years. So if we could win five games this season, that would be a tremendous boost for our program." Hell coach, if you just win one in the Concorde, it would be a tremendous boost.

8 A.M. — Rise Magazine's Teams of the Year

Rise Magazine on the 2007-2008 Teams of the Year: http://www.risemag.com/main.cfm?actionId=globalShowStaticContent&screenKey=magArticle&categoryKey=recognize

Since we're a retrospective blog, sometimes we like to look in the rear-view. With Rise Magazine, we can't argue with the few sporadic teams that were honored, though there are some heavy omissions.

Basically when picking, you have three options. One, pick the team from the Virginia public school that won the state championship, as they did with Westfield (football), Fairfax (girls swimming) and Robinson (boys swimming). Or you could pick the undefeated private school team that won its league and the largely hypocritical private school state tournament as Rise did with St. Stephen's & St. Agnes (field hockey). Or you can pick the Maryland state champs like Reservoir (girls volleyball) and Paint Branch (girls basketball).

Can you have two girls basketball teams of the year? Impossible.

The real question is which team was the Best of the Year? Gonzaga anyone?