davell

I love Chris Harris now. http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/01/24/chris-harris-bears-pissed-off-at-criticism-of-jay-cutler/ The last comment(by Florio) is stupidly put in, but the rest is dead on.

That's why I have so much of a problem with ESPN. They're too big at this stage and instead of just reporting news, they slant it to fit themselves and only report what's benficial to them making money. Not necessarily the truth or even what people may or may not be interested in. A perfect example is this: I was flipping through channels and landed on ESPN for something. Saw their ticker at the bottom of the screen was coming up on NBA scores. Then, it came up, and they only showed the Miami Heat score, followed by stats from each of the big 3 and whoever it was that was their 4th leading scorer that night. This intrigued me, so I stayed on the channel and next time NBA came around on the ticker, it showed ALL NBA scores, including the Heat's score again and their stats, but no one else's. Stuck around for one more go around and sure enough, they flat out alternate this, as the third time it was JUST the Heat's score again. To me, this is just one case of ESPN trying to push something down fans throats, since they've already committed so many games to the Heat and all the columns and everything else. And I don't think fans give a flying %$#$ about them. The Cutler thing will probably go the same way, since Cutler doesn't pander to the network, they see no reason to paint him in any sort of a positive light whatsoever. I'm just going to try and ignore all the damn idiots, but they all became idiots by watching ESPN to begin with.

I think that everything from the FO will have to be handled by one big educated guess. And it's a guess that every team is going to have to make. And that's how FA will work going forward? How's the franchise tag going to work? Will there even be a salary cap? The Bears are going to have to weigh these things against what's POSSIBLY available in FA, whenever that happens, and make their draft picks in whatever areas appear to be the scarcest of what their needs are.

I know it ends in March, just not sure when.

There won't be a FA period this offseason though, at least not before the draft, right? CBA runs out before then, doesn't it?

I'm doing my damndest to not go on Twitter or PFT for a few days. People are idiots. Nothing much more to say about that. As far as next year goes, I'm probably not as optimistic as some seem to be. Mainly because we were almost injury free this past season. I doubt we're anywhere near that lucky again next year. And until I see McCaskey pony up some cash after having a good season, instead of a terrible one, I'm going to assume the Bears bring back this team basically, with the major additions being the draft picks. I think we're close, I really do. But, we need an impact WR and we're not finding that in the draft where we pick. We need a bigtime LT and it's highly unlikely we find that either, but I'll give it at least a slim possibility. The rest(DT, OG, and CB are all things we CAN find in the draft anyway) can be second tier players that fit our schemes. I just hope Angelo and McCaskey see this and actually intend to do something about it.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=fleming/101028&sportCat=nfl George never even took a team to the playoffs. Call me crazy, but when Cutler's career is over, he'll have more on his resume than just this one playoff experience.

The trouble is those sportswriters set the tone of the discussion that will happen all offseason long and beyond. Yes, we can and will ignore it to the best of our ability, but it's tiring and frustrating. Yeah, you're right. It will be tiresome. And what makes it worse is most fans are pretty stupid and some will even buy into what the writer's are saying. I had a friend call me the other day and tell me that Cowherd said if the Bears beat the Packers, they'd be the worst team in history to make the Super Bowl. My response to him was "Why in the hell are you listening to the dumbass?" Cowherd and writers as well are paid to generate readers and listeners, so whether we like it or not, we're going to hear a ton about Cutler this offseason. Because it'll create response, if nothing else, because of the stupidity of fans in general. Hell, they(writers and broadcasters) probably don't even believe half of what they're saying anyway. So why should we?

I think Cutler has shown throughout the entire season how tough he is, by standing in there with our offensive line doing him NO favors at all. I'm fairly certain that the sportswriters will accuse him of everything possible in tomorrow's papers, but they're just stupid. There's no doubt in my mind he couldn't go. Jay doesn't have to prove his toughness to anyone, as far as I'm concerned. He's already done it all year. Get him some damn help on offense and see what he's capable of.

In my opinion this is barely newsworthy, but Carson Palmer is going to demand a trade and will play the retirement card, if he doesn't get it. Blaine Gabbert, congrats, you're a Bengal.

Butler may wind up being our best option next offseason, if Fielder and Pujols are already signed and the Royals feel Hosmer is ready. At least it's a team friendly contract.

It all has to do with TV contracts. Last year FOX got the NFC title game in prime time (Saints-Vikings). The year before CBS got the AFC title game in prime time (Steelers-Ravens). The year before that it was Giants-Packers, and the year before that Colts-Patriots (with Bears-Saints the early game). It alternates every year due to the TV contracts. Ahh, makes sense. Didn't even consider that. Thanks.

I haven't scanned the middle pages of this thread, but I would have thought the NFL would rather have THIS game in primetime than Jets-Steelers personally. Do they think that the other game is the bigger netional draw? I guess they do or else we'd have the late start time, right?

http://www.everydayshouldbesaturday.com/2011/1/19/1943956/the-happy-football-life-of-will-hill Will Hill. Rather entertaining fella, just don't want to see him wind up a Bear.

For what it's worth, Law loved Castro. That said, who really cares what ANYONE truly thinks of our system as long as we can do 2 things with it: 1) produce some major league players and 2) have other teams think well enough about it to make solid trades Point 1: We've gotten Castro, Soto, Marmol, Colvin, Wells, Marshall, and Cashner out of it rather recently. Some of these guys are true building blocks and some of them are complementary guys, but this is a fairly decent return over the last 5 years, if you ask me. Point 2: We've traded for Harden and Garza recently. Both of who are /were considered frontline starters when we traded for them. My hope is we restock the system BIGTIME this year and operate like the Red Sox, who seem to always be one(or three) steps ahead of everyone else. The game has changed and less and less FA's are hitting the market in their primes at this point, so spending money in this area pays off more in the long run, because of these 2 previous points. I'd like to see Wilken take more chances than he has in the past personally. Take a few more boom or bust types, because we do NEED some cornerstone type guys moreso than needing solid complementary guys right now. But, the bottom line for me is our system has done the job that we've asked of it for the most part. I just think that now we need to change some things and ask the system to do different thinfs than it has in the past. And from what we've heard anyway, hopefully the Cubs see this as well.

Reading the article on Webb, with Martz praising him as much as he does, makes me think he's almost definitely a starter next year. Omiyale? Not sure personally if he'll stay at LT, but he's going to be SOMEWHERE on the line next year, I would think. The more I think about this, the more I think the Bears will go interior linemen over taking a tackle. Could wind up being a slight reach, depending on who's still out there, but I think Martz and Tice are probably relatively happy with our tackles at this stage.

Except that it's not. What else would be?

I still don't see the infatuation with Hicks personally. He needs to start producing if he's going to stay this high on lists, if you ask me.

I was in favor of trying to get him on a 3-4 year discounted deal, but I think I've come around to either going year to year with him or just a 2 year deal. I do think it makes sense to have a little doubt about his future health.

Craig, while that's true, I'm going to think that since the word "significant" was what was used, it'll be more than just adding the slot values to account for the higher pick. Also remember that the slot value differential between the 9th pick and 15th(last year) is only around 500K anyway. We signed Simpson for 500K under slot last year.

Yeah, i was curious if you knew. The only thing I remember reading was that the Cubs misjudged his college commitment. But, that doesn't tell us what they considered him either: A slot guy(probably not) an overslot guy(probable) or a superslot guy(doubtful, since he didn't appear on any top 100 lists or anything close to that from what I can tell)

Damn, same birthday. :D

Craig, thanks for posting that. Just made my day. By the way, reading through some of AZPhil's comments(and since projection scouting was just brought up) am I the only one who didn't know Ryan Flaherty was 6'5 and weighs 230 pounds or does this surprise most people as well? As far as LeMahieu goes, when we have a thread on "breakout" guys for 2011, I think he's going to be one of my top choices. I just wish like hell he could stick at 2B, the value could be so much better there.

Counting Szczur's bonus, it puts our draft last year at 6.5 mill. Putting it right at the major league average spent last year. I don't remember hearing anything about an offer to DeJesus, did you hear what they offered him or something? Bottom line as far as Szczur goes, I like it alot and really hope that this is just the beginning of the Cubs commitment to the system.

The Cubs aren't paying any of Bradley's contract whatsoever at this point. They took on Silva and Seattle is paying 5.5 mill of HIS deal, not the other way around. The only possible way the Cubs could have more money to play with is if Silva were to be deemed unable to play because of his heart condition possibly. Then, MAYBE the Cubs could get the rest of his contract paid by insurance. As far as this happening with Milton. Shocker. Never see anything bad coming from him ever. Hope the lady is OK and it'd be nice to see him get some help.