BigSlick

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.

Every year me and my buds get together at the local cheap Chinese buffet (in honor of traditional Festivus...traditions) and we tell each other how much we dissapointed each other the previous year. Apparently I'm such a terrible person that I have to rip on someone over the most banal [expletive] when ever I see someone. Its not my fault that he sucks at Guitar Hero. :roll:

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.

Replace that with Michigan, and DOUBLE SADLY and you'd be right. I know this will piss of Domer fans, and I honestly dont care, but can we stop sending ND to BCS Bowls? It bores the audience, it embarrasses Notre Dame, enough already. We get it, you guys can get 9-10 wins every year. But the last 2 years you were outclassed by the elite competition, you're stealing spots away from teams that deserve to go. Would it have been less boring to see LSU clobber West Virginia, the only other eligible team? And in 05, they got an auto-bid, not an invitation. They finished top 6 like any other outside of a BCS conference team would have had to to gain an auto-bid. FOR THE LAST TIME, I DISAGREE WITH THE THREE-TEAM RULE. IT'S A LOAD OF BALONEY. DOESN'T MAKE IT LESS OF A RULE. Hey, then we agree. Shoulda been Wisconsin in there. I don't even have a problem with ND in last year, but this year...eh...they didn't really deserve to go. Except that they did, given the circumstances. It was a down year for the top teams all over college FB, and normally ND's resume wouldn't have probably gotten them in, but this year it was them or West Virginia, and we all know who they're picking if it comes to that. Whether they had any chance to beat LSU is one thing, but by regular season alone, they had every right to be at the Sugar Bowl. Oh absolutely a down year in elite teams (except for the Buckeyes, =D> ) Oh btw, something me and my brother have been kicking around: ND to Big ten Penn State to Big East Gives the Big East another respectable program, and makes a little more sense geographically speaking.

Illinois :x Why does your basketball team have to suck the minute I reach your campus? At this rate we wont even make the tournament. NIT here we come!

I would love to see the Giants win, but that ain't gonna happen. I'd prefer the Seahawks over the Cowboys, but we shall see. We shall see. AFC? Well since I hate the Colts with an undying passion I save only for Packers fans, I'd love to see them sunk, but its unlikely. (Chiefs just don't have the defense to keep them out of the end zone...like...twice, which is all thats needed) Jets Patriots? Snore.

Replace that with Michigan, and DOUBLE SADLY and you'd be right. I know this will piss of Domer fans, and I honestly dont care, but can we stop sending ND to BCS Bowls? It bores the audience, it embarrasses Notre Dame, enough already. We get it, you guys can get 9-10 wins every year. But the last 2 years you were outclassed by the elite competition, you're stealing spots away from teams that deserve to go. Would it have been less boring to see LSU clobber West Virginia, the only other eligible team? And in 05, they got an auto-bid, not an invitation. They finished top 6 like any other outside of a BCS conference team would have had to to gain an auto-bid. FOR THE LAST TIME, I DISAGREE WITH THE THREE-TEAM RULE. IT'S A LOAD OF BALONEY. DOESN'T MAKE IT LESS OF A RULE. Hey, then we agree. Shoulda been Wisconsin in there. I don't even have a problem with ND in last year, but this year...eh...they didn't really deserve to go.

Replace that with Michigan, and DOUBLE SADLY and you'd be right. I know this will piss of Domer fans, and I honestly dont care, but can we stop sending ND to BCS Bowls? It bores the audience, it embarrasses Notre Dame, enough already. We get it, you guys can get 9-10 wins every year. But the last 2 years you were outclassed by the elite competition, you're stealing spots away from teams that deserve to go.

That is indeed a classic already. I hope they do another version.

I think we'd be able to beat the Seahawks if AWFUL REX doesn't show up, even with our patheti-weak defense. The Cowboys are in free fall...matters how they show up in their game. I also think we could handle the Giants. I mean, New Years was literally, LITERALLY worst case scenario. The defense didn't play very well, both quarterbacks looked like garbage... But again, it was a meaningless game.

Now that the Packers are deflated and wont be making the playoffs, do you think that changes some peoples' picks?