USSoccer

I WANT TO BELIEVE

Just not very good defense. They look tired on that end.

This is where those three fouls that were 35+ feet from the basket kill you. It probably also won't help that the game is being called kind of tight on that end.

I don't really have an issue with going for quantity at OL and then seeing who they can coach up and picking the best 5. It has to improve the line. If your issue is who the 4th and 5th WR are, fine, I guess. I'm not all that worried that they won't be able to find somebody to stick there. TE could use some more depth, for sure. I look at it like this: if you have multiple weapons on offense who are able to make plays, your line doesn't have to hold the defense at bay for 6 seconds per play. I guess they're looking at it as though they can just toss as many guys into the mix as possible and find 8 good ones, but even if they field an above average line, you still need playmakers. They're essentially going into 2013 with the same cast of playmakers that wasn't good enough last year. Martellus Bennett is a huuuuuge upgrade over Droppy Mcgee in both blocking and receiving. He gives us more of the middle of the field. And healthy Alshon is a huuuuge upgrade over injured Alshon, because we can't assume injuries to any player. Marshall, Jeffery, E. Bennett, M. Bennett, and Forte is a pretty nice cast of pass-catchers. If cutler can't work with them, it's not going to work for him ever. And you guys know how much I love Jay. I get what you and David are saying. I'd just as soon have an extra WR there over the extra lineman. We'll see what happens.

Give me a break with this nonsense. People are well within their rights to look at a draft where they reached on their 1st pick, did alright with the 2nd and 3rd and then drafted more redundancy with their 4th. It's pretty unexciting and underwhelming. They don't need 11 OL. They could use another WR for when Bennett or Jeffrey break and we trot out a pile of crap alongside a triple covered Marshall. That anyone on NSBB thinks they know enough about scouting football players to actually get as worked up as some of the folks in here (see: cubbyvirus) have is nonsense. But thanks for being entertaining. Whatever, CT. Scouting is pretty unexact, and you don't have to work for an NFL team to have an opinion. If that's your stance, we may as well close up 4/5th of the threads here. It is pretty unexact, and I have no qualms with someone having an opinion, even stupid ones. What does amuse/trouble me is people acting like they honestly believe they could do a better job. That's just funny. There are posters on this board that I would trust to be better at identifying talent than a lot of the people in those positions for Chicago teams. Your appeal to authority nonsense is tiring.

I don't really have an issue with going for quantity at OL and then seeing who they can coach up and picking the best 5. It has to improve the line. If your issue is who the 4th and 5th WR are, fine, I guess. I'm not all that worried that they won't be able to find somebody to stick there. TE could use some more depth, for sure. I look at it like this: if you have multiple weapons on offense who are able to make plays, your line doesn't have to hold the defense at bay for 6 seconds per play. I guess they're looking at it as though they can just toss as many guys into the mix as possible and find 8 good ones, but even if they field an above average line, you still need playmakers. They're essentially going into 2013 with the same cast of playmakers that wasn't good enough last year.

That was a painful game to watch. Wigan aren't any good and every single outfield player for Spurs managed to play below average.

Give me a break with this nonsense. People are well within their rights to look at a draft where they reached on their 1st pick, did alright with the 2nd and 3rd and then drafted more redundancy with their 4th. It's pretty unexciting and underwhelming. They don't need 11 OL. They could use another WR for when Bennett or Jeffrey break and we trot out a pile of crap alongside a triple covered Marshall. That anyone on NSBB thinks they know enough about scouting football players to actually get as worked up as some of the folks in here (see: cubbyvirus) have is nonsense. But thanks for being entertaining. Whatever, CT. Scouting is pretty unexact, and you don't have to work for an NFL team to have an opinion. If that's your stance, we may as well close up 4/5th of the threads here.

Give me a break with this nonsense. People are well within their rights to look at a draft where they reached on their 1st pick, did alright with the 2nd and 3rd and then drafted more redundancy with their 4th. It's pretty unexciting and underwhelming. They don't need 11 OL. They could use another WR for when Bennett or Jeffrey break and we trot out a pile of crap alongside a triple covered Marshall. Because I was trying to take away your right to vent? Just commenting on what I've seen in this thread since the draft started. An awful lot of teams have continued to pass on this Swopes kid that everyone is drooling over. Because NFL teams fap it over measurables during draft week and constantly overlook undersized quick guys.

Huh? What an odd thing to say when they reached on a high upside OL in the first round. They overdrafted a 24 year old meth head with a total of 5 college games under his belt or some crap. Well, that's kind of painting it negatively for the sake of nothing else but painting it negatively. Had they gotten him at 30 or beyond, the pick would've been fine. My main issue was that Eifert and Floyd (who wouldn't have been help for Cutler) were available. Regardless, I'm not sure how your read is that they're not trying to get Cutler help after doing that. Nor do I see where Cutler really needs more help at this point. A speedy WR would be nice, but there really is no excuse left for Jay if the offense doesn't do better. They now have 11 OL. They don't need 11 OL. They have Marshall and Jeffrey, and then Bennett and TBD at WR. They have Bennett and the rotating circus of failure at TE. So like I said, when Bennett or Jeffrey break again, who picks up the slack and helps out Marshall? I don't see how a couple OG/OT project-ish guys is helping Cutler.

Give me a break with this nonsense. People are well within their rights to look at a draft where they reached on their 1st pick, did alright with the 2nd and 3rd and then drafted more redundancy with their 4th. It's pretty unexciting and underwhelming. They don't need 11 OL. They could use another WR for when Bennett or Jeffrey break and we trot out a pile of crap alongside a triple covered Marshall.

Huh? What an odd thing to say when they reached on a high upside OL in the first round. They overdrafted a 24 year old meth head with a total of 5 college games under his belt or some crap.

LOL. Screw this team. Wasting another draft without giving Cutler any help.

I can't imagine Swope is going to get to them at 153, but it would be great if he did...

It's more a Tyler Colvin comp.

That was pretty bad. It's as if the thought process was "welp everyone bitches about us not using draft picks on the OL WELL WATCH THIS"

LOLBears.

Juergen Klinsmann needs to learn to shut the hell up. He has no business ripping Donovan's commitment when he let Chandler back in and started him in a WCQ despite him dicking the US around for 2 years.

I want Barca to lose more games 4-0

This stupidity is why I chimed in on Kyle's message about backup MIF The Cubs got ~ negative 1 bWAR from their 3B last year, and Ramirez put up 5.6. If you take the Cubs 69 win pace from when they stopped trying you've got a 75-76 win team. And that takes us from Gray/Appel to someone like Austin Meadows. And Ramirez is untradeable even with a great year. And we still don't have a long-term answer for third base. There's a value in retaining a player who'd been a very, very good player for the team for almost a decade. Both in terms of attendance revenue-people are probably going to be more willing to see an 80-ish win team than a 65-ish win team, and in terms of general entertainment. High draft picks are nice and all, but at the end of the day, they are still rolls of the dice. To make an analogy, lets say you have a 6-sided dice. For the top, top, top guys, you can roll 5 out of the 6 numbers and you get a very good MLB player. Gray/Appel to Meadows is like saying instead of 4 of six numbers, it's 3 of six. That's a stupid way of saying that very few of them are sure things, and most prospects don't reach anything near their ceiling on draft day. Also, the idea that they can build a team in 3-ish years by signing guys and flipping them along with sucking and drafting 4th instead of 14th is misguided. And it's annoying and uninteresting as hell to watch.

He's great, I love watching him and at worst he's a legendary MLS striker in the making, but is he more than Taylor Twellman Jr? That is not a bad thing to be, just asking. They are built and play similarly. I think he's a bit stronger on the ball than Twellman ever was, and I think his movement between the lines is really good. I think it's his mental makeup that gives him an opportunity to be much better than Twellman was. Basically, Twellman Jr. right now is his floor; I'm not sure what his ceiling is just yet, but the improvements he's made in the past couple years are really impressive. It's more likely than not he'll end up being like a Conor Casey-ish contributor to the NT, ie a guy that knocks in a few in qualifiers but is never a starter, but we'll see.

In non-psychopath news, Jack Mac with a brace today. Everyone not on board the bandwagon, hop on now.

Watch the video, it does not come across as him threatening any players. It's probably a bad move to let the press continue to bait him for 5 minutes on the topic until he's given them their headline, but the message I take away from the video is 1) These mistakes are not acceptable 2) We've taken steps to address those mistakes and 3) If play continues to be crappy, then the team keeps losing and people lose their jobs. #3 could maybe be interpreted as threatening players with benching or demotion, but to me that comes off as a collective "we lose our jobs when the team loses this way repeatedly". I'm a fan of "not giving the media the opportunity to turn something into a thing". Especially the Chicago sports media, who are right there with NY as the worst (non England division). The last thing the team half-full of young developing players needs is a meatball-driven echo chamber of stupid before April's over.

It doesn't matter if he's talking about Castro and Rizzo, or Castillo and Valbuena or whoever. Putting players on blast to the press 16 games into the season is a pretty stupid thing to do, even if he is correct.

I had him pegged for 15 in all comps this year. I think he's at 11 or 12 right now. Given the lack of a preseason and the fact that nobody on the team passed the ball to him during the month of September, it's not half bad at all.