bukie

Honestly, six or seven or eight years doesn't matter to me. You aren't signing Albert Pujols with an eye to what he can give you when he's 39. It's total value. $180 is about as far as I'd go. That's both absurd and was never going to be in the ballpark as to total value he'd get. If you didn't think the Cubs would have to beat the Cards' lowball 200/9 offer from last year, then you were never really thinking the Cubs could reasonably get him.

Yes please. Also, the Raiders are the top ranked AFC West team at 18th. The next worst best team in a division is the Falcons at 11th. On the plus side, that's an improvement over last week when they were 21st and the highest ranked AFC West team was 20th (SD). On an amusing note, they also passed the Vikings, but last week all four NFC North teams were rated higher than all four AFC West teams.

I hate the Chicago sports media. $130 million over 5 years, maybe, Van Dyck.

Spain-Germany-Portugal-France, please.

Because the vast majority of college football betting is from Texas? :P

You would still need one more Lions loss, a Saints loss, and maybe a Giants loss to get a bye in that scenario. Of course, all of those are really likely so maybe you just had those as implied. Yeah, I just listed the incidents that had a less than 50% chance of happening. Although, the Bears, Lions and Packers all tying at 13-3 would be...weird.

Well, the perfect scenario would involve the Bears winning out and the Packers being somehow swept by the Lions. Then the Bears would have one home game to win to get to the NFC Championship.

And the thing that concerns me going forward, offensive line efficiency (28th overall, which is up from earlier in the year): Left End/Tackle: 29th Left Tackle/Guard: 8th Center: 28th Right Guard/Tackle: 21st Right Tackle/End: 10th

Bears Special Teams efficiency breakdown as of week 10: FG/XP: 9th Kickoffs: 13th Kick Returns: 7th Punting: 1st Punt Returns: 3rd

Also, the USMNT's World Cup qualifying group teams are now known: Jamaica, Guatemala and Antigua and Barbuda. Group B: Mexico, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guyana Group C: Honduras, Cuba, Canada, Panama

As for FO's playoff odds this week: AFC: Team Mean Win #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 DIV BYE WC TOT HOU 11.1 29.80% 27.60% 32.20% 4.30% 0.50% 1.30% 93.90% 57.40% 1.80% 95.70% NE 11 21.50% 29.00% 29.30% 1.40% 3.50% 7.10% 81.10% 50.50% 10.60% 91.70% PIT 11.1 20.60% 14.70% 6.80% 0.20% 31.40% 16.40% 42.30% 35.30% 47.80% 90.10% BAL 10.7 21.20% 15.70% 7.80% 0.50% 26.40% 11.80% 45.10% 36.80% 38.20% 83.30% CIN 9.7 4.90% 4.60% 2.90% 0.10% 15.40% 25.00% 12.50% 9.50% 40.40% 52.90% OAK 8.1 0.10% 0.80% 4.80% 45.70% 0.10% 0.40% 51.30% 0.90% 0.50% 51.80% NYJ 9.7 1.00% 4.10% 6.90% 0.60% 15.80% 21.70% 12.60% 5.10% 37.50% 50.10% DEN 6.9 0.00% 0.20% 1.20% 20.40% 0.10% 0.40% 21.80% 0.20% 0.50% 22.30% SD 6.8 0.00% 0.10% 0.70% 19.10% 0.00% 0.20% 19.90% 0.10% 0.30% 20.10% TEN 8.7 0.40% 1.40% 3.70% 0.30% 4.20% 8.60% 5.80% 1.70% 12.90% 18.70% BUF 8.4 0.60% 1.90% 3.40% 0.30% 2.60% 6.80% 6.20% 2.50% 9.30% 15.50% KC 6 0.00% 0.00% 0.10% 6.90% 0.00% 0.00% 7.00% 0.00% 0.10% 7.10% JAC 6.1 0.00% 0.00% 0.20% 0.10% 0.00% 0.20% 0.30% 0.00% 0.20% 0.50% CLE 5.4 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.20% 0.00% 0.00% 0.20% 0.20% MIA 4.8 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% IND 1.7 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% NFC: Team Mean Win #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 DIV BYE WC TOT SF 12.7 34.70% 55.90% 7.50% 1.90% 0.00% 0.00% 99.90% 90.60% 0.00% 100.00% GB 13.6 62.90% 28.40% 2.30% 0.20% 5.70% 0.40% 93.70% 91.30% 6.10% 99.90% NO 10.5 0.40% 5.60% 41.50% 33.70% 1.80% 4.80% 81.20% 6.00% 6.50% 87.80% CHI 10.5 0.60% 1.50% 0.50% 0.00% 52.30% 26.50% 2.60% 2.10% 78.80% 81.40% NYG 10 0.60% 3.40% 23.80% 32.90% 2.50% 5.70% 60.70% 4.00% 8.20% 68.90% DET 9.8 0.60% 2.30% 0.70% 0.10% 26.90% 31.70% 3.70% 2.90% 58.60% 62.30% DAL 9.1 0.10% 2.40% 14.60% 19.90% 2.10% 8.20% 37.10% 2.60% 10.30% 47.40% ATL 9.3 0.00% 0.60% 8.90% 8.60% 8.20% 20.20% 18.20% 0.60% 28.40% 46.50% PHI 6.5 0.00% 0.00% 0.10% 1.90% 0.00% 0.30% 2.00% 0.00% 0.40% 2.40% SEA 6.3 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.20% 1.20% 0.00% 0.00% 1.40% 1.40% TB 6.5 0.00% 0.00% 0.20% 0.50% 0.10% 0.60% 0.60% 0.00% 0.70% 1.30% WAS 5.4 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.20% 0.00% 0.10% 0.30% 0.00% 0.10% 0.40% ARI 5.6 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.30% 0.00% 0.00% 0.30% 0.30% MIN 5 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.10% 0.10% CAR 4.5 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% STL 4.3 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% So, likeliest scenarios based on existing data (i.e. it doesn't know that the Houston QB will be Matt Leinart going forward): AFC: 1. Houston 11-5 2. New England 11-5 3. Baltimore 11-5 4. Oakland 8-8 5. Pittsburgh 11-5 6. Cincinnati 10-6 -------- 7. NY Jets 10-6 8. Tennessee 9-7 9. Buffalo 8-8 10. Denver 7-9 11. San Diego 7-9 12. Jacksonville 6-10 13. Kansas City 6-10 14. Cleveland 5-11 15. Miami 5-11 16. Indianapolis 2-14 NFC: 1. Green Bay 14-2 2. San Francisco 13-3 3. New Orleans 11-5 4. NY Giants 10-6 5. Chicago 11-5 6. Detroit 10-6 -------------------- 7. Atlanta 9-7 8. Dallas 9-7 9. Philadelphia 7-9 10. Tampa Bay 7-9 11. Seattle 6-10 12. Arizona 6-10 13. Washington 5-11 14. Minnesota 5-11 15. Carolina 5-11 16. St. Louis 4-12

That's because KC's schedule is murderous the next five weeks: @New England, vs. Pittsburgh, @NY Jets, @Chicago, vs Green Bay.

Was the backfield that bad today, or just a byproduct of the 4-4-2?

The Bears are in a good position now to grab the 5 seed and a game against the NFC East winner (Dallas/NY Giants). The NFC byes are basically locked up now.

Highlights with Joniak and Thayer: http://www.chicagobears.com/multimedia/index.asp?mm_file_id=2696&play_clip=Y#

Does this mean that Bush gets a further demotion? Did they ask him to move his stuff into the basement to clear up some room?

Stat of the game: Calvin Johnson, DET - 19 targets, 7 catches, 81 yards, 1 FL Whoever was covering Calvin Johnson, CHI - 2 catches, 61 yards, FR, TD

I will say that this is the game I am most concerned with over the next five because of a potential letdown and the Bears' general ineffectiveness against opposing TEs.

This marks the first week that all four NFC West teams have won since they realigned the divisions.

According to this week's Sagarin ratings, the NFC now has the NFL's top 5 teams overall in Green Bay, San Francisco, Detroit, Chicago and New Orleans.

How so? If anything you want the west coast team playing earlier Weather being colder, maybe?

where's treymon when you need him? Going to be a fantastic opportunity for the Bears coming up, I hope they take advantage. Like I said earlier, I'm going to be pretty disappointed now if the Bears aren't 10-4 going into week 16.

Tackle no, helmet removal yes.

The most similar situation to the Manning ordeal was when the 49ers were ready to move on from Montana to Young. It took several years, but eventually they traded Montana to the Chiefs. The best case scenario for the Colts is to get Luck and trade Manning while his value is as high as possible to a team desperately in need of a quick fix at QB (49ers? Seahawks? Cards? Raiders? Chiefs?)