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Cowboys actually don't matter. It's all about Minnesota and the Giants at this point.

Until Christian Ponder predictably leads Minnesota by throwing for 75 yards on a 91 yard scoring drive.

Well, I definitely want the Bears IN the playoffs. But for me to have any more than 3% confidence they can actually pull 1 (not to mention 4) upsets, I have to see the Bears get back to what they did the 1st half of the season. I want to see CBs shutting people down. I want to see an opportunistic defense that not only creates turnovers, but has the sense of urgency to do something with the ball once they get it. They got the gift TO on the punt from the Packers last week, but that's a different game if Walters scoops and scores on that instead of falling on the ball after dropping it the first time. I want the aggressive version of Devin Hester the last few weeks to continue to make plays going forward. Don't try to make everything into a spectacular TD. A 15-20 yard punt return is pretty good, and much better than a fair catch with nobody around or running backwards trying to make something happen that's not even possible. And last but not least, I want to see an offense, that if not moving the ball all around for 450 yards, at least takes advantage of field positions and get points. The Cards have a pretty good pass D, so I'm not expecting an offensive onslaught. But the offense put up less than 300 yards in the first Vikings game, and still put up 28 points. Put up 28 points in any game with this defense, and they'll win every game. But they put up those 28 points because they took advantage of what they were given. While the O did put together an 80-yard TD drive and a 51 yard FG drive, the rest of the points (17) came after getting the ball at the Vikings 34, 13, and their own 46. With the Cards offense, the field position advantage should happen again today. Gotta get 7 when you get the ball on their side of the field. Gotta get at least 3 when you get the ball outside of your own 40. A drive of 30-40 yards isn't too much to ask for, especially when 30 yards could mean points. If this team wins 2 desperation games and continues that streak into the playoffs, it's not going to be pretty like the Packers and Giants before them. They aren't going to start throwing for 300-400 yards and overwhelming teams with the pass rush. They are going to have to do it ugly, with defense and a mistake-free offense. They are going to have to be the 49ers of last year without the special teams gaffes.

Big 12 with wins over 3 top 10 teams today. Wtf? Uh nevermind Mizzou is gone.

Not a bad choice if they can keep him away from the defense. Years of top 10 draft picks have them poised to make a Detroit Lions like rise to prominence next year. What kind of prominence is that? A bad team that still has a lot of holes? A 10 win team that puts it together for one year and goes back to historically being terrible the next year

What the hell is this game? Valentine Getting between players on a live play?

Not a bad choice if they can keep him away from the defense. Years of top 10 draft picks have them poised to make a Detroit Lions like rise to prominence next year.

Fans are such idiots sometimes. The vast majority of Tennessee fans opinions that I've heard centered around hope that Bray/CP/Hunter would declare (citing bad attitudes with all three - and the ever-logical "we've got a new coach so it's time to get some new faces on the field). That said, while our offense is going to suck, it has a chance to not suck as much as most people think. Nathan Peterman is a good fit for Butch's offense (Butch recruited him hard to Cincinnati) and with Ja'Waun James and Zac Fulton both returning, we'll have all but one starter from one of the best OLs in the nation returning. Marlin Lane and Raijon Neal are also solid RBs and there's still a real chance that we get Derrick Green, one of the better RB recruits in the nation. Dooley also did a good job of adding WR/TE talent the past couple years with guys like Pig Howard, Jason Croom, Brendan Downs, Vincent Dallas, Drae Bowles. It's going to be a young offense, but it does have some upside if Butch and his staff can make it work. The losses on the offense are big though. Bray is one of my favorite QB prospects in this draft. Hunter is my #1 WR. Patterson is my #3 or 4. Thomas has been the anchor of that OL and in my top 5 linemen in the draft. But yeah a new staff can only help. Dooley was a disaster.

Jamar Taylor is a good looking CB for Boise. Having a strong game as usual. Would be a nice fit in Chicago in the 4th or so.

No mention of the kick by Chandler?

The more I think about it and analyze the numbers, I don't see why Candelario is so far ahead of Marco Hernandez. The biggest difference between their numbers in SS-ball was patience. And while Candelario's numbers were pretty impressive considering he was 18, Marco was only 19 all season long. He had a taste of full season ball and started to hit toward the end of his stay in Peoria. I chalk his demotion more up to Baez being awesome than Hernandez being bad, though overall he was bad at low A. Candelario's power really dipped late in the year with 4 of his 6 HRs coming in June (though 8 of his 14 doubles were in the last month). Marco actually showed better power overall for Boise. And he really raked in the final month of the season, which was more impressive considering he was the only guy playing a full schedule of games since April. Candelario gets the edge in age and patience. But gotta give the edge to Marco everywhere else including playing the key SS position and actually playing it at a level that projects to keep him there.

Agree. More talk about Self vs. Groce and coach of the year award talk!

Crean hinted at players and/or being injured and sick last game. When asked specifically about Jurkin and Hollowell though, he wouldn't say if either was injured or sick. Jurkin played tonight. So, obviously this one's just on Hollowell. Edit: Just tweeted several times from the Crean press conference: People are throwing around that he's unhappy and transferring. Not sure why he would be at this point. He was getting 11+ minutes per game. Also, Perea had a nice game tonight. 10 rebounds in 14 minutes, I believe. Blocked a couple shots. Had a good pass, a good roll on a pick-n-roll, and a putback.

Delmon Young is still only 26, and had a pretty good year just a couple season ago. The other 2 guys are both 5 years older and have never been any good. Delmon would be interesting in the sense that he could make up some of the power lost from Soriano. Not an ideal target, but I'd be OK with him if the Cubs were able to get some more power/production out of 3B somehow.

Any reason Hollowell didn't play last night? Just to get Elston and Perea one PT? Injury?

The names of the backup QBs for Drew Brees, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Eli Manning, and Aaron Rodgers are....... Chase Daniel, Brock Osweiler, Ryan Mallett, David Carr, and Graham Harrell. They combined to make about 3.2 Million this year. Jason Campbell made 3.5 Mil. And the same thing happened to the Bears when Campbell played that would happen if any of those 5 guys played for their team....the team lost. This is not a chicken/egg argument. The Bears didn't lose those 5 games last year because Caleb Hanie played. They lost because Jay Cutler didn't. So, instead of preparing for when Cutler misses games, it would have been wiser to try to build a team (specifically an OL) that would help keep Cutler from getting hurt. Now Cutler did miss time last year due to a non-sack related injury (trying to make a play on INT). But with him taking so many hits, it was inevitable that he might get injured again. The idea should have been to not let him take so many hits. No 7-stop drops are part of the solution, but getting actual guys who can block would be better. That way you don't have to limit your offense to shorter drops 100% of the time. As for the $11 Million thing, it's a 5 man position (OL). And adding Carimi, Webb, and Louis still only gets you to just over 12Mil. This team spends about 20Mil at LB for 3 players. Spends more than 12Mil for 4 DBs. Spends 8.8 Mil on RB. Spends almost as much on WR, not even including Marshall. You can't say "oh they spent 11Mil, they tried!". They didn't. Some of that money was a rookie contract for a guy that was drafted before the new draft cap was installed. Some of that was a veteran player brought back simply for the sake of stability (Garza). Some of that was to replace Kreutz who was lost last year, and they saved money by signing Spencer over him.

Point is. THERE IS NO BACKUP QB PROBLEM. The problem is keeping Cutler healthy. And that is up to the OL. Hence where money should be spent. It's like buying a beater car and having money in savings to fix it when it breaks down instead of buying a good damn car in the first place.

The Bears have been killed with T/E stunts. A good smart LG would work wonders for this team. Louis did fine this year. Garza is bad but he doesn't get 1 on 1 blocks or play in space so he's serviceable. If all Cutler had to worry about was the edges it would make a world of difference.

Regardless of the backup, he wasn't going to be as good as Cutler and the Bears probably were going win less with that guy than Cutler. So why spend worthwhile money on someone u don't want to have to play in the first place.

Underwood, Szczur and Hernandez

I think the Bears need to go for pure mobility for their #2 QB. Not Tebow but someone who can run for his life with this OL. After seeing running QBs make big plays with their legs all year, it would be a nice way to do something about a terrible weakness and move the ball when someone other than Cutler is in there.

Read on Twitter that the Padres dropped out because "the price was getting too steep". That doesn't sound too good to me. I don't expect Theo to ever overpay or do something to spite/make up for another move that failed, but I wouldn't pay too much for Jackson.

Maybe the Bears can draft Jake Matthews in the 1st and then Jordan Rodgers in the 6th.

Yes please! I'm down with anyone who leads one of the league's best offenses.

Kaepernick has put up at least 18.5 in my league every week since getting the starting job. I think he's a better bet to have 190 yards passing, 40-50 rushing, and at least 1 TD than Stafford is to have one of those 400 yard, 3-4 TD games that caused him to be drafted so high against the Atlanta defense.