BigSlick

Go Buckeyes! Take home the 2nd title in 5 years! http://redsox.collider.com/uploads/imageGallery/Troy_Smith/troy_smith.jpg Gotta admit other Big Ten fans, it'd be nice to sweep the SEC and take their "BEst conference EVAR" title, eh?

I really don't know which of those two teams I'd rather face. I probably shouldn't look ahead, and I know the Bears wont be... I think I'd prefer the Saints, honestly. They have a weak defense and their offense isn't really well balanced at all.

As opposed to a home playoff loss to a higher seeded team? oh wait thats impossible.

If I were you, I'd give up those tickets. You wouldn't want to risk seeing the Bears lose. It might ruin your day. Plus, you'd miss 24! Whether or not I go to the game won't matter for that. If the Bears blow this thing, Sunday will be racked with much weeping, and gnashing of teeth. Is it sad that i'd consider this a successful postseason with just this one win? (on second thought, losing the NFC championship AT HOME would be fairly dissapointing)

Yes they might. What can you do?

Eagles. Come on guys, watching this game, how can you NOT want to play the Giants?

As the most powerful man in the country has shown us, nepotism can work wonders. Does Buck have an illegitimate mechanical son, too? On the subject, why is the robot doing calisthenics? Does it have to warm up its mechanical muscles? Why am I thinking about this so much?

Go Giants Go!! Just don't look too impressive in winning. And...hopefully Tiki Barber and Jeremy Shockey both break legs or something.

AND THE CARDINALS HAVE WON THE WORLD SERIES

I think I'd rather face the Seahawks. Alexander looked beat up last night, their secondary is demolished, and Hasselbeck is bound to choke, since it is the playoffs. You're...not serious are you? The Giants are not only the weaker team, they also have debilitating injuries and are in complete disarray. Hasselbeck>>>>>>>>>Eli manning. I don't know why everyone underrates Hasselbeck so much. He's very very good. Crazy. These Seahawks aren't the ones we played in September.

Unfortunately, after a promising opening drive, they don't seem to want to come to Chicago to lose. Its a shame. I'd really really really really love to play this team.

I, I would hope that they listened to their own advice from last year, But its possible they didn't. I just want one playoff victory. Plz? :evil:

That's funny Vance because that's how I view the SEC and Big 10. Plus, Thanks to Delaney (Big 10 Commish) we will NEVER have a playoff because he's too happy with the Rose Bowl the way it's set up now. You think the lack of a playoff makes me happy? No, it doesn't. And how do you go and call 23 teams out of 119 spoiled rich kids? Absurd. That and they seem to lick up half the national titles. I mean, at least they have something back up.

Actually if the Buckeyes lose, then we'll have had the immensely enjoyable trifecta of Michigan, Notre Dame and Ohio State losses in BCS bowl games. seconded. If only Miami and F$U had lost as well... As opposed to USC winning, which is good? I'm neither here nor there when it comes to USC. PSU rarely plays them, so I really don't care about them. If only the same applied to ND with fans of teams that never play them... :daydreams: Theres plenty other reason to hate ND without playing them. There are probably plenty of reasons to hate a lot of teams without playing them. O$U, F$U, Miami and Michigan all constantly have players getting in trouble with the law who then receive minimal, if any, punishment. There are probably more of those that I'm not thinking of. ND's only crime is accepting what is given to them (NBC, bowl berths, accolades). And obnoxious fans. (and I'm not including you in this, ndistops, you're quite a good poster and fan. But man there are some that I'm in constant contact with)

We need an emoticon to try to describe the feeling of this.

Actually if the Buckeyes lose, then we'll have had the immensely enjoyable trifecta of Michigan, Notre Dame and Ohio State losses in BCS bowl games. seconded. If only Miami and F$U had lost as well... As opposed to USC winning, which is good? I'm neither here nor there when it comes to USC. PSU rarely plays them, so I really don't care about them. If only the same applied to ND with fans of teams that never play them... :daydreams: Theres plenty other reason to hate ND without playing them.

If you've followed ESPN and Mark Schlereth this whole season, you'll see a trend here. (and I unfortunately have) Mark Schlereth HATES the Bears. I mean, someone must have cut his knees or something during his playing days for the amount of hate he unleashes on our boys. He picked against us THE FIRST THREE GAMES OF THE SEASON. Yes. He picked against us versus the Packers. Versus the Lions. And, oh yes, against the Vikings. Absurd.

Come on LJ :lol:

I've had issues with how he handles those games. However, you can't just run every down, you will kill your backs and eventually be stopped. You also won't come back from the double digit deficits they've encountered. I don't pretend to think Ron Turner is genius. But he's a legit NFL OC who has turned the Bears offense into one of the most potent offenses in football, not just middle of the pack, which is what I was hoping for at best coming into the season. I have a theory that the Bears coaches took a very big picture look at this season and it affected in-game decisions. They had this division wrapped up months ago, and they had homefield advantage locked up long ago. I believe they purposefully saved Benson for the stretch run and the playoffs. I believe they put as much on Grossman early to test him and accelerate his learning curve as they could without giving away games. I believe they held back a bit of strategy for the playoffs and almost toyed with the conference, especially since the NY games were wrapped up. Ever since then, it's been cruise control. I don't know if that will come back to haunt them, given how hard it is to just turn on a switch. But I think they were devestated by last year's loss to Carolina, and decided from the start to plan everything around how they would handle the first game of the playoffs. That is a huge game for all these guys. They knew winning a division was not enough. They've shown the ability to play pass happy offense, and to play it safe. They've shown Hester on offense just a bit. They've shown enough that whomever they play in that first game, will have a million more things to prepare for than Carolina prepared for last January. Whether they succeed, or not, depends entirely on Rex not being disaster Rex. When he's not disaster Rex, this team rolls. This is true, and while it is very true that the battle between offensive and defensive playcalling is incredibly complex and requires a lot of thought and patience (watch some of ESPN's The Best NFL Games and you'll see offensive linemen talking about their team calling a hitch when the defense is in a certain formation and you'll understand what he's talking about) but sometimes you gotta cut your losses. 3 runs and a punt is better than a pick-six. Always. Especially with our defense. I'm more than happy to punt the ball after running the ball 3 times and taking off some clock.

They have a terrible quarterback? Ohio State has a terribly easy schedule next year, and may get an undeserved BCS berth. Which would be nice. Although I should ask ND fans about how that feels. 2007 Youngstown State (9/1) Akron (9/8) at Washington (9/15) Northwestern (9/22) at Minnesota (9/29) at Purdue (10/6) Kent State (10/13) Michigan State (10/20) at Penn State (10/27) Wisconsin (11/3) Illinois (11/10) at Michigan (11/17) We might not lose a game until the Michigan game, and the team will be fairly mediocre.

Well, it's quite different. The NFL has a salary cap. You don't really have a good chance of having both a great defense and a great offense. Realistic expectations are to have a great unit (I'd prefer that to be defense) and an adaquate unit. The Bears were middle of the pack in offensive yards this year and top of the conference in scoring. I really don't think the offense is mediocre. To describe it as such is to make the same mistake that national media makes when saying Grossman had a bad 2nd half. The offense is inconsistent, and that is because Rex is inconsistent. When it ticks, it's very good. It'll never be Colts good. But it gets the job done. We can talk about the defense giving them a short field all we want, but they did that the past few years and the offense made nothing out of it. They still move the ball and score a lot. I think the biggest mistake fans make when critiquing teams is blaming play-calling. The NFL is just far too complicated for the average fan to truly understand, much more so than baseball. Strategy is much more than just see ball hit ball. All too often people mistake a play that works with a great play call and a play that doesn't work with a good one. An end around that results in a loss of yardage is stupid while an end around that gains 15 yards is brilliant. I've had a problem with Turner abandoning the run, but that was mostly early in the season. I have a problem with them not allowing Benson to take over games, but the times the offense has struggled has almost always been when Rex turns the ball over. Turner has taken what was largely considered one of the worst receiving groups in the game and made it very potent. He's gotten the most out of Thomas Jones, and is giving Benson more and more. He's made what most people thought was an inept TE group a real threat. And he's provided the groundwork for Rex Grossman to show real development as a potential franchise QB. Maybe he could have done a better job preventing Rex from melting. Maybe he should have relied more on a running game early in the season (although now we're in a great position with 2 healthy and not even close to overworked RB's). Maybe he could a better job of mixing some things up. But when Rex isn't a disaster, this offense runs well, passes well, moves the ball well, and scores more frequently than almost all other NFL offenses. When it's 3rd and 9 they don't try for 3 yard gains. When they are in the red zone they don't tighten up into incompetent fools. They stretch the field deep, they complete the intermediate pass that seperates the men from the boys. They get the TE the ball, they pound with the run on occasion. This offense is not mediocre. The play-calling and strategy allows for big gains, big plays and big scores. Every single problem with this offense revolves around disaster Rex. Take away disaster Rex, and this is quite possibly the highest scoring offense in the league this year. And it's hard to justify bitching about that. The problem is also that when Bad Rex appears Ron Turner seems to be intent on throwing THIRTY FIVE FREAKING TIMES THAT GAME. Can we just buckle down and run 45 times if Grossman isn't having the best game?

Actually if the Buckeyes lose, then we'll have had the immensely enjoyable trifecta of Michigan, Notre Dame and Ohio State losses in BCS bowl games. seconded. If only Miami and F$U had lost as well... As opposed to USC winning, which is good?

This would be the only reason I would be upset about Turner leaving. I'm just really underwhelmed by his playcalling. I'm not enamored by it, but there's still a part of me that's astonished everytime they complete a 20 yard pass. Turner has brought in the only legit NFL offense for the Bears since the 80's. Cubs fans have been conditioned that since we're usually so bad, that mediocrity is improvement. But Goony, you love to argue that Cubs fans shouldn't be happy about mediocrity, they should expect more. How is that different than this situation? We've had some terrible offenses in the past, no doubt. And it's improved for sure. But as fans don't we have a right to expect more than a mediocre offense? I'm not sure who I'd want to bring in, as I'm not really an expert on all all of the NFL coordinators and whatnot, but while the offense is most definitely improved, there are some jaw droppingly dumb calls made and it frustrates me. For example, we'll have success running the ball, then suddenly have to punt because we decided to throw 3 straight times. Completing the occasional long pass is nice, but I'd much rather see a game plan that attacks an opponents weaknesses, and I just don't see Turner having been able to do that. That's a good point. When we find a weakness in a defense (especially rushing), we seem to not exploit it, but instead use that success to try and spring deep passes. One other beef I have is that Rex seems to have a ton of success with crossing routes and timing routes downfield, yet we don't always use those strengths. Everyone and their mother has noticed this. It frustrates me to no end how something can be screaming in front of Turners face and he'll just say: "[expletive] it, throw it downfield"

JESUS CHRIST do I love it though. :lol: Only a few things in life come close to it...trashing the Colts, the Packers, and Michigan. Sadly, I don't enjoy my own teams victories as much as I like seeing these teams lose. At least you admit it which is more than most of your ilk can say :wink: Hey man, you can only enjoy watching your team beat up lesser competition so much. But seeing an enemy lose a heartbreaker? Well thats just beautiful. Now if (when) the Buckeyes win the National Championship, its certainly gonna feel better than my scheudenfreude, and the same with DA BEARS.

O rly? I would love that. If this happens I'm giving you an internet smooch.