Banedon

In other words, Palko will likely be benched in this game. Yep. Orton is taking about 40% of the first team reps in practice.

Not according to the Playoff Machine on ESPN. There are several scenarios where the Lions, Bears, and Falcons are all 10-6 and the Bears are left out due to strength of victory tiebreakers. If it's just us and Atlanta at 10-6 and the Lions even at 11-5, it's better for the Bears. We have the tiebreak on ATL head to head, but when 3 teams are in it, there's some weird scenarios. If the Lions and Bears both finish 10-6 (and Atlanta better than 10-6), it is very likely that Detroit wins the tiebreaker with the Bears. The only way the Bears win it is if they can somehow beat GB or Detroit somehow loses to Minnesota. The most likely scenario is that the teams both split their remaining division games, both losing @ GB, and both winning @/vs. MIN. In that scenario, the Lions make it due to record vs. Common teams, which Detroit has already clinched. The chances of a 3 way tie seem pretty far fetched. Frankly, for Detroit to finish 10-6, they'll have to beat a few teams that are over .500. They haven't done that all season.

Sounds like Cutler would prefer Martz to stay...

Bears 3 Chiefs 0 As I commented on PFT, flex this game to SNF, fast!!

Palko to start!

Just verifying what CCP said.

Oops...article already posted in the other thread.

10 wins will be enough.

That would mean only missing Chiefs, Broncos and Seahawks games. If Cutler was coming back for the Packers and Vikings, we could probably go 2-1 in those games and have a pretty good shot. Call me crazy but I think they mean the Bears' 16th game, and not week 16. It says 5-8 weeks, which would mean at least the next four weeks, which includes the GB game. I've heard the possibility of him being back for the GB game since the surgery was announced. It seems pretty unrealistic though.

Hmm...I disagree about Lovie being anywhere near the hot seat. He's had his ups and downs, but he manages to take teams that experts don't think belong near the top of the league and keeps them playing hard, and really, beyond the level that most think they should be playing. I can see an argument for Angelo being on the hot seat, but I think Lovie's pretty safe, actually. Well I kind of think raw is right that he's one bad season away from the ax, but 7-9 isn't going to do it. 4-12 could cost him his job, but simply changing offensive systems shouldn't cause them to take such a step back. Ok, I can agree with that. Bears have never been that bad under Lovie though.

Yeah, I've heard that. Don't really know what his qualifications are. Does Martz just say, "here's my playbook". Not sure how this would work. He's been a tight ends coach, offensive line coach, tight ends coach, head coach, assistant head coach and now line coach again. I think he's probably qualified in the general sense, but I fear he'd run a dumbed down version of this scheme and isn't very imaginative, or bright for that matter. Actually, he'd probably be more to Lovie's liking consisidering his history. I'd much rather prefer the guy who could be the next head coach (the next Sean Payton as raw said and as we said last time this position was available). Well, that brings up another issue too. Lovie and crew are still 1 bad season away from getting the axe, IMO. Do you risk starting from scratch this year, going 7-9 next year, and then needing an entire new coaching staff the year after? I definitely don't want Tice as OC, unless it's only as a figurehead like Lovie as DC. But I don't really want to start over just yet. Hmm...I disagree about Lovie being anywhere near the hot seat. He's had his ups and downs, but he manages to take teams that experts don't think belong near the top of the league and keeps them playing hard, and really, beyond the level that most think they should be playing. I can see an argument for Angelo being on the hot seat, but I think Lovie's pretty safe, actually.

Yeah, I've heard that. Don't really know what his qualifications are. Does Martz just say, "here's my playbook". Not sure how this would work. Yeah, unfortunately I didn't hear the whole conversation, so I'm not sure if this was addressed in any way.

Dan Pompei was theorizing this morning on The Score that if Martz leaves, that they may make Mike Tice the OC in order to maintain some level of stability.

I'm confused about this. You think we have a bottom 1/4 QB and RB? Seems like it'd be more accurate to just say we have WR issues.

Martz has done a better job than Ron Turner ever did, I'll give him that much. But the most successful things the Bears have done offensively are things that are against the Martz "profile" and, most people presume, he had to really be forced to do. After the Bears/Smith canned his brother? Don't see it.

That would actually work out pretty well. I'm not convinced the Bears want him back after the season.

Phil Rogers is entertaining is his silliness.

generally don't like guys named jamie Huh...that's a strange quirk.

Suh suspended 2 games.

Chiefs cut Jared Gaither.

Sorry if I missed this in this thread somewhere: http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=jp-passan_10_degrees_pujols_fielder_free_agents_112711

Likely to be only a 2 game preseason. The NBA says that teams will play out-of-conference opponents at least once each, with three teams getting a second meeting. Of the other 12 out-of-conference opponents, six will be faced at home and six on the road. The other 48 games will be played within the conference. There are six teams who will share four meetings with any given team, and the other eight with play three-game sets. The NBA also says that the playoffs will begin on April 28, and that there could be one back-to-back per series in the second round.

I'm not overly concerned or anything, but if we lose to KC, it's panic time, right?

75% of responders on Chicagosports.com say they aren't excited. I call BS. I'm gonna love the compacted schedule.

I'd imagine because it was the only way to get the Seahawks to a good enough record to knock the Saints, Packers, and Giants out. If you have the Bears win that game Green Bay becomes the 6 seed and would face the Bears in the divisional round if they won. Ahh, yeah...that makes sense. I guess if I had gone ahead and changed that result I'd have answered my own question.