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Talk about keeping everybody close to home. Five Indiana teams in the Midwest region!

Yes, he did have control of it. And because of that control, the play is dead when the ball touches. A player is either a receiver (in the process of catching the ball) or a runner (has shown possession of the ball). The rules are different for receivers and runners - a receiver has not yet shown possession of the ball, so if it touches the ground and comes loose, it's incomplete. Because a runner has shown possession of the ball already, when the ball hits, it's dead. in this case, where Bryant catches the ball, takes 2 steps, changes hands with the ball and THEN falls down, it seems more relevant to the runners situation. But JUST because the ball was thrown down the field, that changes everything? idk. and if there is a screen shot of the ball clearly touching the ground, could someone show me it? This is the difference. The NFL considers Bryant to be falling down from the moment he made the catch. He never made a controlled step. Each step was off balance, and so he is considered to be going to the ground the entire time until he regains his balance, which is why he had to control the ball all the way through the ground. If he had jumped, came down, run a couple steps and then tripped, he wouldn't have had to control it all the way through.

San Francisco also did that with Kaepernick. On a lesser level, Bengals with Dalton. I'm not saying it's a good position to be in to by trying to draft a cheap QB that's decent. It's not. That's where the comparison to the NBA comes in. But if you sign one of these non-elite QB's just to be safe, you are tying your hands completely. There have been two QB's in the last 20 years to win a Super Bowl while taking up 10% of a team's cap, and Cutler might eclipse that every single year of his deal despite not being one of the top 10 QB's in the league. It doesn't take away from your point, but per this link, there have been at least 3 over that since 2000. (4 if you count Rodgers at 9.85%) http://overthecap.com/super-bowl-rings-and-the-overpricing-of-the-quarterback/ EDIT: Difference from your results might be that this is using APY. Fair enough. Here is the article I got my figures from : http://q.usatoday.com/2014/03/07/paying-for-an-elite-qb-often-means-not-affording-even-a-mediocre-defense/ There's a decent possibility that another QB over 10% will join that list this year. Manning, Brady, Rodgers, and Flacco are over 10%, while Wilson, Romo, Luck, and Newton are under 10%.

San Francisco also did that with Kaepernick. On a lesser level, Bengals with Dalton. I'm not saying it's a good position to be in to by trying to draft a cheap QB that's decent. It's not. That's where the comparison to the NBA comes in. But if you sign one of these non-elite QB's just to be safe, you are tying your hands completely. There have been two QB's in the last 20 years to win a Super Bowl while taking up 10% of a team's cap, and Cutler might eclipse that every single year of his deal despite not being one of the top 10 QB's in the league.

There's a few elite QB's that maybe someone could say justify their contracts. Then there's a whole middle tier of "meh" QB's that get paid too much because nobody wants to be stuck with the really crappy ones. The "meh" QB's get paid too much and can never live up to the money they get. It's just how the NFL works. The question becomes if that is the way the NFL should work. With the new rookie wage scale, there is a new class of QB's: the relatively cheap ones. And the playoffs have been dominated by the elite QB's and the cheap ones the last couple of years. About 1/3 of the league is non-elite QB's on big deals, and they've had 3 total representatives in the division round the last couple of years: Rivers last year (who lost) and Flacco and Romo this year who are underdogs. The odds of winning a Super Bowl with one of those guys is significantly lower than it was 5-10 years ago. It's pretty low even if you have the best non-elite guy, and Cutler isn't that. The Bears definitely were following a trend, but the question is if it was a trend worth following. It hasn't worked out for many teams lately, and there's a potential of an NBA like treadmill team trend developing.

I think they will almost certainly get Marc Gasol. They will probably sign Jimmy Butler to a max offer too, but the Bulls will match. Not sure what else is out there, unless you believe LeBron will opt out and go to a team that currently has the worst record in the NBA because Phil Jackson and Carmelo Anthony are there. Edit: looking at the FA class there are some good targets, Aldridge, Gasol and Rondo are the "max range" unrestricted FAs available. LeBron, Love and Wade have player options, while Leonard and Butler are restricted. If you go beyond that level you get guys like Al Jefferson, Dragic, DeAndre Jordan, Milsap that might work as secondard pieces, but not really the level of players that the Knicks want to be clearing cap space for. All of the guys with player options will opt out as the cap is going to rise significantly due to the TV deal. Could you imagine if LeBron, Love, and Wade went to the Knicks? LBJ would be murdered the first time back to Cleveland if he leaves them a 2nd time, particularly after all of the "coming home" nonsense from this past offseason. The TV money is not supposed to come until the 2016 offseason, although it's going to jump so massively that there are still lots of discussion on how to try to smooth out the jumps a little better to benefit everyone and not just the FA's that offseason, so it's possible some of that money bleeds forward into this offseason.

The tiebreaker is strength of schedule. Whoever has the easiest schedule gets the 1st pick. Right now that goes Tampa Bay, then Jacksonville, then Tennessee, then Oakland. Where do you get your current SOS numbers? Was glad the Jets won today because now as long as the Raiders lose their last two games, they'll get the No. 3 pick. Worst case was Tennessee beating both the Jets and Jags and leaving the Raiders with the fourth pick. This is where I got them from: http://espn.go.com/nfl/standings/_/type/playoffs

The tiebreaker is strength of schedule. Whoever has the easiest schedule gets the 1st pick. Right now that goes Tampa Bay, then Jacksonville, then Tennessee, then Oakland.

Did those people watch on WGN local or WGN America? If WGN local, why wouldn't they be able to watch on other local Chicago outlets? I'm considering those who are outside the WGN local area but inside the Cubs broadcast territory. I assume whatever local channel they land on will have around the same coverage area as WGN local does. So they watch it on WGN America? I'm not trying to be a smart ass...I'm genuinely asking. I'm asking because I'm pretty sure WGN America is dropping all national Chicago sports broadcasts. So those people would be screwed over by WGN regardless of the Cubs leaving WGN. I somehow missed WGN's decision to do that (although it doesn't surprise me, the Cubs were their most valuable property and were talking about leaving at the time they decided to do that). To rephrase my initial statement, there are lots of people who are going to be stuck with many less Cubs games (maybe all of them depending on if their local carrier carries CSN or not) with no way to get them. But really, that just puts Cubs fans in the same place as fans of many teams throughout the country thanks to the blackout rules.

Did those people watch on WGN local or WGN America? If WGN local, why wouldn't they be able to watch on other local Chicago outlets? I'm considering those who are outside the WGN local area but inside the Cubs broadcast territory. I assume whatever local channel they land on will have around the same coverage area as WGN local does.

The people who will be affected by the move away from WGN are those in the Cubs broadcast territory who will not have any access to whatever channel the Cubs land on. Those people will have no ability to legally watch those games. I completely understand what they are doing, but there are people (millions of them overall, hard to tell how many are Cubs fans) who this will be a significant downgrade to access even if they are willing to spend money.

What about Hendricks makes people think he's a lock for the rotation/is going to be good? His FB averages only 87 MPH and he struck out like 5 per 9 last year. I get he has really good control, but his stuff just isn't there. I don't know that he's going to be good, but the reason people are optimistic about him is that he's done it at every single level. His peripherals were strong at every single level of the minor leagues. Even though his strikeout numbers went way down when hitting the majors, the rest of his peripherals were still very strong. Players with his stuff profile also tend to be extremely hittable. In addition to limiting home runs, Hendricks has also been very solid at avoiding runners on base. Minor league numbers of 8 hits per 9 and 0.4 HR, and that was almost exactly what it was in the majors last year (8.1 and 0.4). Obviously his lack of overpowering stuff is going to bring hesitation. But he seems to have every other piece (great command, good offspeed pitch, ability to keep the ball down in the zone). Even if he regresses back to his xfip number next year, that's still a 4 ERA cheap back of the rotation option.

Raw, I would try to package Watkins/Beckham and Miller/Tate for a RB (I'd prefer to trade Watkins and Tate). Maybe you could only get a mid number 2 runningback for them, but you definitely need depth there. UM, I don't trust West at all to keep the job in Cleveland. I can see why you would want to make the deal as far as roster construction, but I'd maybe try to find another RB candidate. Selling high on Bryant would make sense though, his TD's seem so unsustainable.

Weird to think after the start of the season and 3 SEC teams ranked in the initial top 4 that there is still a quasi reasonable scenario out there to have no SEC teams in the playoff. It would involve lots of moving parts, but no single step is crazy. Step 1: Games hold the way they are at the moment (LSU beats Alabama, TCU wins, Michigan State wins) Step 2: Mississippi State loses two of the three games between at Alabama, at Ole Miss, and the SEC title game. Step 3: TCU, Oregon/Arizona State, Michigan State, and Florida State win out (the only ranked teams each of them play are Oregon at Utah tonight, Arizona State at Arizona, and Michigan State vs Nebraska in a Big 10 title game). That isn't all that likely to happen, but it's an interesting scenario.

Take that deal in a heartbeat I would say. Big upgrade from Wallace to Nelson, and all it costs you is a guy who you aren't guaranteed to even start from week to week. Plus Robinson has a bye next week.

It really depends on what you mean by homer. I always say a local team's announcers should be like the guy that if you got a group of fans together would be the most rational one. They are definitely rooting for the team and they focus most of their commentary on that team, but they recognize the opponents strengths and weaknesses and don't get too high or too low as the game continues. They get upset with the referees occasionally, but they're not going on and on about calls every other game. Their initial reaction to a call might be a little biased to the team, but on replay they try to look at it with objective eyes and admit when their team gets a break along when they get a bad call against them. There are a few announcers out there who act like the slightly drunk fan who refuse to give the opponents respect and tend to think that every 50/50 call has to go for them. From all I've heard, Heinsohn in Boston is a great example of this, although there are others. Some people might like that type of announcer, but I find it irritating to listen to even if you root for that team, and borderline unwatchable if you're neutral or rooting for the other team.

I'm planning on dropping him in both the leagues I have him soon. I just don't see how he plays this year. The trial isn't until after the year, and the Vikings rushing him back before the trial doesn't seem at all likely. If he pleas, the NFL plans to hit him with a severe suspension. That means he would have to reach a plea deal soon to have any chance of seeing the field this year, and the reports are that there are no talks of a plea deal. The chances of the charges being dropped in this case don't seem very likely because it is based on physical evidence more than eyewitness testimony, and both sides seem to be stipulating to most of the facts.

Yeah, it is amazing how much they are just making stuff up as they go along. I cannot believe Minnesota thought they could reinstate him without blowback, and then they turnaround and cave to the blowback? Yeah, that is astounding. And I don't understand why the NFL has done nothing about AP. Why have they left this to the Vikings? Isn't child abuse a form of domestic violence? The domestic violence policy is triggered only when there is a result of the case. There would have to be a conviction or a plea agreement.

I guess Grimm is where you draw the line?

Wait, how can a player be pulled back after being DFA'd? I thought the whole point was that you got a free 25 and 40 man roster spot for 10 days while you figured out what to do with a player. The downside is that by the end of the 10 days, you have to either trade him, or release him (through a waiver claim or outright) or send him to the minors. If you could pull a player back, why wouldn't teams be abusing this left and right to get free roster spots for 10 days? The way I'm understanding the rules, the Marlins have basically no leverage because it's August. They can send Turner through revocable waivers (normal August waivers to try to make a trade) immediately (this is assuming this has already not been done in August). If someone claims him, they can pull him back if the other team isn't offering anything. But there would be no point to that, because at the end of the 10 days they would have to send him through waivers as part of the DFA process, and the same team could just claim him again and take him. If they had done this in July or if he has already somehow cleared revocable waivers, then they could trade him to any team. But that doesn't appear to be the case here.

PTR may be responsible for most of it, but the front office quite explicitly said they left payroll on the table this year. well good for them! fortunately the $10-15m or whatever they didn't spend actually still exists, rather than being piled up and burned in a massive bonfire, so they now have the option of spending it in future years. I would not be so sure about that. That's generally not how businesses run themselves. That's true. But it was reported this spring that this was the first time that the Cubs have allowed their front office to roll over money from year to year, and the front office took advantage of that by not spending all their money this offseason.

That's dumb and by extension you're dumb, you dirty apologist. It's uncanny how the assessment of our chances in each year always goes down after the fact, when it makes things look better to retcon those chances. Okay, good talk. The first part was meant jokingly, of course. The second part is dead-on. Every year that's gone by, the state of the Oct. 2011 Cubs gets downgraded retroactively in order to justify what's happened since. Baseball is far too high-variance of a sport to pretend like Epstein couldn't have had the Cubs in position to have a chance by 2013, even if we stipulate 2012 was gone (which we really shouldn't, and weren't at the time). Every year, teams that projected to be in the middle of the pack before the season end up in the playoff hunt. Last year, one such team won the World Series. Epstein failed to give the Cubs that chance (and let's not pretend he didn't try. Edwin Jackson wasn't given $52m to be flipped). He just failed. When we were projecting the Cubs in October 2011, most people didn't expect the payroll to go down by 30-35 million a year. That's the key variable that changes everything. In 2011, the Cubs were a 71 win team. Their two position players who had above an .800 OPS were both 33 years old and free agents after the season. They had one starting young position player that was projected to take a leap. They had an elite reliever and an excellent starter in their prime, and another very good young starter coming off his first year. They had one other pitcher that had the potential to make a leap, and not very much impact talent beyond that coming from the minors. When they went into 2012, they had 72.6 million committed before arbitration for players like Garza and Soto. When they potentially had 50 million to spend after that, it would have been a very interesting free agency year. When that turned out to be 20-30 million and they still had to replace the key parts of the offense in Ramirez and Pena just to get back to where they were, that become much less so. There really wasn't a great path to relevance in 2012-2013. Not when you had a league average payroll where only mildly productive players are taking up close to 30% of it (Soriano and Marmol). Some young assets to balance them out but not enough, and not enough money anymore to spend their way out of trouble. If the Cubs payroll had kept growing slowly instead, the equation looks quite a bit different.

I was initially fully on Aiken's side, but the more I read suggests that the Astros weren't at fault here. Let's review the timeline. As the BP article suggests, the Astros select Aiken and Nix, and do so in a way that suggests that 1) they are very confident in signing them and 2) Marshall isn't given a high importance. They then announce verbal agreements with both that match up very well with that strategy. When Aiken goes into that MRI, in order for the Astros to be in the wrong they either had to be a) looking for something to use against him (which doesn't make sense with the clear strategy they were using and the relative unimportance they had shown Marshall), or 2) the doctor had to show this abnormality, declare it not a concern, and the team than hastily came up with this plan to play it up to try to gain leverage on talks that had already been completed rather amicably. It seems much more likely that the doctor brought it up because he thought it was a concern. I do think the Astros made a mistake here. The doctor should have known he was not with most of the medical community on this issue, and the Astros should have known that Aiken would not be happy once he confirmed this with other doctors. As the BP article demonstrates, they did underestimate Aiken's ability to bet on himself knowing that other teams would not be scared off by this issue and the PR problems they would get. If anybody's at fault, it's the MLB rules here. Not being able to get medical information beforehand combined with no ability to trade the selection gives teams very few options. The team is boxed into a corner and you then give them compensation, and it starts to seem to them like a way out of the situation which leads to things like this. I believe the doctor did have what he thinks is a legitimate concern here. Comparing this to the other similar case recently (the Saffold contract with the Oakland Raiders) it seems far more likely in that case that things were dirty than it does in this one.

I don't think Love even can sign an extension right now. He's only two years into his deal, and I think you have to be three years in to even have a chance of an extension. What he can do for security though is essentially opt in to his 4th year of his deal, which would give the team who trades for him at least two years.

Between 70 and 75 is usually what I've seen quoted lately. Of course, those are mostly based on average run scoring tables. Teams that run the majority of time in smart situations (with poor hitters due up, when they need 1 run, with runners on 1st and 2nd, etc.) can lower that break even percentage by another decent bit.