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Just got back..that was an amazing atmosphere in the stadium tonight. I think everybody was stunned. The Patriots have done that to the Colts before but never that late in the game. Belichick has always been willing to go for 4th down plays in his own territory against the Colts. But since the Patriots have always picked up the 1st down on those gambles, it hasn't received much coverage. And I can tell you that the people in the stadium were much more scared of the 4th down play succeeding then the offense driving down the field. The Colts had been playing too much soft zone all night and the shortage in the secondary means the Patriots had mismatches all over the field. I absolutely believe they made the right percentage play there. Trying to stop Peyton when he has 4 downs to work with in the 2 minute drill would have been very difficult. The hardest part would be the red zone, and even if the Pats went for it the Colts still had to execute in the red zone. Also, if the Colts did get the ball, they would still have to worry about not scoring too quickly which could have hurt their effectiveness at getting in at all. Those other 40 yards would likely have melted away very quickly as the Patriots were struggling at covering the whole field by the end of the game. So I'm sad that Belichick has enough job security to play the odds correctly, and I'm very, very happy that it went against them this time. I'm also happy that Reggie convinced Peyton to change that last play from a fade (which wouldn't have worked) to the game-winning slant.

I really don't think the replay booth has sound on their replays. So if the officials don't notice it in the first place that they blew the play dead before there was any clear recovery, then you get mistakes like what has happened to ND each of the last two weeks. The NFL has the same problem..the Colts got a huge break on the goal line last week in which the whistles had already blown it dead before the Colt touched it, but in the confusion nobody noticed it and the replays without sound made everyone forget what happened in live action. This one was bad on both fronts though. At least last week it was actually a fumble. This was was both an incomplete pass and also no clear recovery of the fumble before the play was dead and yet Pitt got the ball. I would say Pitt has a much better chance of potentially getting an at-large after all the carnage today. #9, 10, 14, 15, 16, 17 all went down today. That's also going to let teams like Penn State and Oklahoma State move very close to eligibility (Penn State will likely be eligible after this week).

If Cincy loses that game, I think they're still in at this point considering the lack of competition. Pittsburgh will be much more questionable. It will probably depend on the style points they get the next two weeks against ND/WV and how close the game is against Cincy.

They're 1 game behind Oregon and 1/2 a game behind Arizona and Stanford right now. A loss today probably gives them a trip to El Paso during the holidays. And they still have Arizona on their schedule. It also makes it much harder for the Pac 10 to get a 2nd BCS bid. The 2nd place team would be guaranteed to have 3 total losses if USC loses today. But I wouldn't be shocked to see a 3 loss Stanford if they win out get in over a 2 loss Penn State or Iowa if it comes down to those teams. Those final BCS spots are going to get very muddy if there are not upsets in the Big 12/ACC title games. It gets even worse if Boise State/TCU get upset. There just aren't that many teams with the resume that normally gets you into the BCS.

Jesus Christ are you guys all dense? Like I ALREADY said that affects it. However he is not the only on in this situation. He is however the only one with this many picks meaning he is not doing well. Open your eyes and read what I am writing rather than jumping all over a statement that is fact. He leads the league in INT's and is not the only one with a bad o-line and running game. He is forcing way too much. It's not hard to see ... unless you have blinders on. One more and you're banned. Brinoch..please let the non-Bears fans who are not very emotionally invested in this game handle it. I'm watching both sides..he's not doing anything wrong here. And Cubbiebum, do not call people dense or anything like that. This is your warning on that.

I don't think anybody has a good idea of what has happened in the David Williams situation. I don't know why he would be explaining his decision soon if it was something like Indiana chased him off, so it seems like many people are leaning towards personal problems or wanting to stay closer to home for some reason. However, he might not have wanted to come into what seemed like to him to be a hostile environment either. I think it's way too early to make any kind of good guess though. Could be, just reminds me of the way David Palmer didn't end up at Illinois. If you offer the guy, you should have to honor that offer as much as the players should honor their commitment. IMO. I agree. I think an offer should always be honored unless the player has legal troubles or something like that. This is just a strange situation. Some say that Williams never really was offered. He also might be backing out on his own. But I agree, it's not a good situation and reflects badly on the university if it ends up coming out that the offer was made and then was later pulled.

I don't think anybody has a good idea of what has happened in the David Williams situation. I don't know why he would be explaining his decision soon if it was something like Indiana chased him off, so it seems like many people are leaning towards personal problems or wanting to stay closer to home for some reason. However, he might not have wanted to come into what seemed like to him to be a hostile environment either. I think it's way too early to make any kind of good guess though.

Indiana came on late for Selby, but it appears they've made up ground fast (they made his cut down list after only recruiting him for 2 weeks). We'll know more after this weekend when Selby visits (although he won't be there in time for the game on Friday). His former teammate Oladipo might help sway him to Indiana as well. I would say the chances are still no better than 1 in 5 for Selby, but I don't think any fanbase is feeling real comfortable right now in that recruitment. Kendrick is the other one they are after. He visited IU a couple of weeks ago. IU's best connection to him is that he is A.J. Moye's cousin who was of course beloved in Bloomington so that should help. He has a lot of schools still on his list so I have no idea what Indiana's chances are. He has been pretty quiet about all his visits so far, at least from what I have seen.

People tended to describe him as the tall point guard that protected the ball, wasn't really a scorer, and played great defense. He's actually much better at driving the ball than I expected but he is probably only a little above average for a point guard at protecting the ball. He is not only long but athletic and is willing to take chances when he sees an opening. I can understand why Crean wants to start him because Rivers wants to push the ball up the court quickly as much as Crean does. I still have no idea what level of effectiveness he will have when playing against better players, but his philosophy out there is much different than I expected.

Indiana's also deciding to do a very risky strategy in the recruiting game by saving places for 2 top 10 recruits that won't decide until the spring. It would be a huge boost if they can get one of them. I can't even decide if they want the program to show progress or if they want IU to have another miserable season where they can try to ride in and save the day. I think it's the right strategy because Indiana will have plenty of depth by that point but could use an elite player. But it definitely is going to make for a tense month or two in the spring.

How many games do you have IU winning in the Big 10 this year to finish last again? I have absolutely no idea what to expect out of IU this year. They have a decently talented squad. Rivers was not what I expected whatsoever. Watford and Creek both look like they will quietly score a good amount of points. Miniru actually surprised me..he is raw, but he moves better on the court than I would expect. He can actually provide a few meaningful minutes this year and I didn't expect him to get much on the court at all. It's not all good..I'm not sure Hulls is quite ready for the speed of the Big 10 yet, but we'll see. But having a full squad will definitely help quite a bit. In the exhibition games though, I saw no evidence that they really knew how to work together to be as efficient as possible. Part of that may have been the frequent substitutions, but that will be interesting to watch as the season goes along to see if they get an identity. And they were so much worse than everybody else in the Big 10 last year that improving quite a bit might not move them up very far in the standings. But I really don't see how they are worse than Iowa, unless you feel that Iowa's strange system guarantees them a few wins every year.

Buh? So a greater percentage of the nation can get an early start on their Sunday chores? It's not as strong of competition as usual for that particular slot that week because of the three Thanksgiving games in addition to the Sunday night/Monday night games. It's Fox's doubleheader week, and their choices to move to 4:15 were this: Bears/Vikings Panthers/Jets TB/Atlanta Seattle/St. Louis Arizona/Tennessee Washington at Philadelphia Arizona/Tennessee is probably the only choice that gave them pause but Bears/Vikings almost certainly gives them better ratings.

I'd start Jackson. NO is not a great run defense, and as they showed against Indy STL might actually still run Jackson even when they are way behind. I have no idea which of the 3 I'd bench though as they seem to be about the same this week.

When did that happen? It was said in July when Hill was put on the DL:

The Cubs received cash for Hill.

I don't know when you expected Hendry to do something about Bynum. He got only 136 AB's in his 1 season with the Cubs (and he had a 764 OPS). Half of those came in late August and September when the Cubs were hopelessly out of it and were running short on available players as well. He was then traded in the offseason for better talent. Neifi wasn't really a problem until 06 when he was on the multi-year deal (obviously the Cubs didn't intend for him to get that many at-bats in 05 but he did fine as the backup SS pressed into starting duty). Hendry then made the mistake of re-signing him to a 2 year deal, but by August he had "admitted" that mistake by trading him. There are definitely situations where Hendry has kept too much faith in guys for too long, but there are also plenty of situations where players and coaches have had shorter leashes. I have a hard time seeing how he's worse than any other GM in that area.

I guess they could have continued to try to force the ball to Gore in the Colts game, but the reason they went away from it is because after the big run in the first quarter, he was getting stuffed. Here are the rest of his runs for the day: -1, 3, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, -1, 3, 7 The big run inflated his stats, but the running game wasn't really moving the chains whatsoever in that game. They did try to line up and just run it on both 1st and 2nd down in 2 different drives and it led to 3rd and long both times and then 3 and outs. So I agree with you a little bit (they probably should have tried 3-4 more runs during the course of the game) but I can't blame them too much because getting 2 yards a run is not going to get many drives started and Smith was throwing the ball well. I'm not sure what happened this week though.

Hmm, you're right now that I look at the standings. USC is the only one that has the quality opponents ahead of it and enough sex appeal to derail a Boise bid I think. When I'm putting in both TCU and Boise, I'm also putting in USC. I think they are a lock unless they lose again. I think the at-larges will be TCU, Boise, Alabama/Florida loser, and USC if those teams win out. What other team will be attractive enough?

The big winner today is likely Boise State. The Big 10 likely ruined their chances for a second bid. ND ruined a chance for theirs. That leaves space for both TCU and Boise to get into the BCS. If those two stay undefeated, I have a hard time seeing either a potential 2 loss Iowa or a 2 loss Penn State team getting selected over them (or a 2 loss Wisconsin). I also can't see the Pittsburgh/Cincy loser getting in over them. In the ACC, you have maybe Ga Tech (if they lose the ACC title). And would they really select Oklahoma State without Bryant? So unless they derail, I have a hard time seeing how they both don't get in. Bowl organizers will hate it, but it's going to be really tough to do anything else.

I didnt think this deserved its own thread, so I figured Id hijack this one for a moment. While I dont knowmuch about Thames defense, he is the offensive equivelent of Cameron, so why not get him for cheaper instead? If we must get as player we dont really want, may as well be the cheapest one. Thames is a poor defensive corner OF. He's much closer to Jake Fox than a legitimate option in the OF. There is a huge difference between the impact that Cameron would provide and the one that Thames would.

The Colts are having a bad week so far. Tyjuan Hagler is out for the season with a ruptured biceps. Marlin Jackson is out for the season with another ACL tear. Bob Sanders is going to have surgery on his elbow and is out indefinitely. Kelvin Hayden has a knee injury and is out around 4 weeks. Anthony Gonzalez had knee surgery this week and is out at least another 2-3 weeks. The defensive injuries are the scariest as the Colts are carrying a very thin secondary into the next 4 games against some very good QB's (Schaub twice, Brady, and Flacco).

I used to think icing the kicker was stupid until I saw the stats for the past couple seasons. Don't remember it exactly but it was for kicks deciding the outcome in the final seconds and no timeout was 70% made while timeout was 57%. That stat has a lot of noise in it. If a team is already in close field goal range, then the other team is forced to take its timeouts on the earlier downs in an effort to get the ball back. Usually, the only reason why the defense still has a timeout to call right before the field goal is because it was iffy if the offense could move it into field goal range, which would usually indicate a longer field goal. Unless they accounted for that (sorting the kicks by distance as well as timeout) the stat doesn't end up meaning much.

There are several reasons why the game yesterday was so damaging for Iowa. 1) 6 TO's. That's quite a bit, and since all of those were when Iowa was trailing the sloppy play in a blowout rationalization doesn't work. 2) The officials. How much of an impact they had is debatable. But when certain calls are a joke (the 2nd TD replay certainly was when the best anybody can say about it was that they weren't sure if the foot was down or not) that tends to stick with people. 3) The fact that the plays in the 4th quarter were so easy hurt Iowa. They didn't really need to make plays to win the game-they completed two medium length passes and Indiana just let them go all the way for scores. Then the INT that sealed the game was just a duck. There is the perception out there that Iowa ended up not having to show they were the better team as Indiana just stopped playing. On that last point, Iowa's first 3 TD's in the second half were on a fluke interception, then 2 good 20 yard routes where the receivers were allowed to run up the field and score without much opposition. Iowa clearly showed they were much better than Indiana. But the way that was accomplished was worrying for them. Indiana was able to drive on them (2 60+ yard TD drives and would have had 3 if not for that horrible overturn on the replay). Iowa made lots of mistakes with the turnovers. After being given lots of chances, they were able to have some plays that got them back into the game and then allowed them to pull away. Now, this does happen to other teams. In many ways, this was much the same game as the Florida-Mississippi State game. But these type of games build on each other. Almost everybody has 1. It's not unusual to have 2. But to have at least 3 and possibly 4 of these types of games against really bad teams is a very bad trend for Iowa.

The advantage to Burrell over the other options is that it is only for 1 year. And if you brought in some other pieces around him (a player to hit most of the right-handers and a defensive replacement on the bench) he just turns into a very expensive platoon OF. And he has value in such a spot. The Cubs could accomplish that in two ways. Either find somebody in CF and have Fukudome/Burrell in RF or trade for somebody like Luke Scott who could platoon with Burrell, and have somebody like Fuld on the bench who can come into the game late in CF and have Fukudome shift over to RF. The other names on the list have bigger contracts and their deficiencies are not so easily hidden. Burrell is still not a good option, but it's much less ugly than any other bad contract.

I didnt even know thats how it weant down. Well Im glad they forced him on us, considering hes our best players and everyone else involved in the trade is long out of baseball. That's because it didn't go down like that. We were after Ramirez, Lofton was a 1/2 year rental that we got thrown in. You certainly botched the quotes on that response. But, the trade happened basically on the same day Tom Goodwin got hurt, which was less than 3 weeks after Patterson went down for the year. To me, Aramis was a throw in by Pittsburgh just to be rid of his salary. It certainly helped that the Cubs had Jose Hernandez playing 3rd base. But, it cost the Cubs Jose Freaking Hernandez, Matt Bruback and Bobby Hill to get both Lofton AND Ramirez. Any team in the league basically could have beaten that offer, Hendry was just lucky enough to be in desperate need for someone who could field the CF position for half a season when the deal was consumated. The Cubs were in need of a 3b long before July 22nd, 2003. It's when they no longer had a viable CFer that the trade actually happened. If Patterson never gets hurt, I'm not so sure Aramis ever gets traded to the Cubs. If you want to call it working some sort of magic, go for it. But, to me it's just dumb luck. The Cubs had been trying to trade for a 3rd baseman for the previous 2 months. They were chasing after Lowell and then the Marlins suddenly didn't want to trade him. When the Patterson injury then happened, the chance to get Ramirez and Lofton together was a big opening. But I think the Cubs would have very likely gone after Ramirez even if Lofton wasn't in the picture. He wasn't their first choice, but he would have been the fallback plan at a position that the Cubs were desperate to try to upgrade. I do agree with Jersey that in Pittsburgh's mind it was a salary dump though.