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Making the extra point automatic wouldn't really change much. It would make games 5-10 minutes shorter and give some injury benefit at the loss of a few plays per year. I think the benefits outweigh the costs, but it's not exactly a big deal. Moving the extra point back would definitely change the game though. It would start to tip the balance on two point conversions for some of the better offensive teams and potentially cause quite a few more two point tries. I've seen some fans propose this as a less radical idea, but while it's certainly a worthy idea it would definitely change things more than automating it would.

I'm not sure about that. He didn't call the plays in Indianapolis.

I'm not sure exactly what you're asking, but yes it is standard procedure to backload deals, but there is a limit. When you cut somebody, all the cap money accelerates onto one year (unless after June 1st, in which it's split in half for the next two years). Let's say the Bears converted Cutler's salary for the next 3 years into signing bonuses. It works out that with the different prorations that his cap hits for each of the first three years would be around 4 million apiece. If they kept Cutler for year 4 in that scenario, his cap hit would be 21.5 million (with the years after that being even higher than that). If they cut him, his cap hit would be 35.9 million in dead money! If Cutler starts to struggle (say he puts up a season similar to Eli this year in year 3) the Bears would have a tough decision. They couldn't afford to cut him and take all that dead money, but they don't really want to keep paying him 20+ million to keep him either. That's the other danger in backloading besides of course just running out of money by backloading too many players. Of course hopefully Cutler doesn't struggle like that, but the Bears seemed to want to protect themselves long-term which is why they structured the deal the way they did. They have minimized the risk by giving him so many team options at the end of his deal, and if they end up converting some of it into signing bonus that will still mostly be the case. I think they gave themselves both options. They can hopefully keep this unique contract, but if they convert a modest amount into a signing bonus it will end up looking more like a regular contract. Some teams have taken this approach of loading up for a few years and then just blow up the team, but it's not usually the way teams like to operate. When the Colts for example lost Manning, they cut a bunch of other veterans and took 40 million of dead money in one year. The Raiders did the same thing this year and have even more dead money. I wouldn't necessarily assume the cap will keep increasing, at least not very much. After this year, it will have only gone up 3 million in the last 5 years. Most of the explosion in money has already happened for the NFL, and I think most expect only small increases in the cap in the years ahead. That might have confused rather than helped, so feel free to ask more!

I can't see a reasonable way to sign Carmelo without getting rid of Noah. The projected salary cap is 62.1 million. The starting salary for Carmelo on a max deal would be 22.46 million. So that means the Bulls could only have 39.64 million on the books to sign him outright. Rose and Noah by themselves cost 31.06. So that only leaves 8.58 million for the rest of the roster. Add in cap holds for Mirotic (1.075), a first round pick (somewhere between 1-2 million) and roster charge cap holds of the minimum salary for every player the Bulls are short of a full roster (400,000 approx each), and you're probably looking at more like four million for the rest of the roster. So unless the Bulls are willing to gut their entire team, or Camelo takes a discount, or somehow the Knicks agree to a sign and trade, I don't see a Rose/Carmelo/Noah core happening. And if it did, that would mean they wouldn't have room to bring over Mirotic over next year. I like this deal for the Bulls. It gives them assets, lots of money, resets their luxury tax, and gives them a better draft pick next year, all for a guy who has been great for them but there were questions on both sides whether he was the right fit for a new contract.

no, he's making 22.5, but that's not his cap number, it's significantly lower than that. If he truly has a base salary of 22.5 million, then that's his cap number as well. You can't prorate base salary. If true, that's a fantastic structure for the Bears. It turns it essentially into a 3 year, 54 million dollar deal with club options each of the last four years. It looks like the Bears believe that the cap is going to continue to stay relatively flat over the next few years, and they have prepared well for the long-term. The Bears won't be able to get as much talent in free agency this year, but that structure does seem to indicate that they're saving money for things like Marshall and Jeffrey extensions.

Even discounting the thumb, a player with a MCL tear, a groin injury, an ankle injury, and a moderate history of concussions in the last 3+ years is a decently greater injury risk than most NFL QB's. I don't think it hurts his value too much, but it is a factor. He was very healthy before that which definitely helps, but he didn't take the pounding he has in Chicago either. Exact structure will still mean quite a bit, but I don't have a problem with this contract as far as it relates to the other QB's around the league. Cutler is a borderline top 10 QB and is getting paid like one. My skepticism earlier is that the salaries for those particular QB's have skyrocketed over the last few years, and we're already seeing signs that those teams are suffering for it. Those teams for the most part might be locking themselves into cycles of mediocrity.

This guy is a professional sportswriter and doesn't understand guaranteed money. No, it isn't. The 7 years by itself is pretty meaningless, but I'd be surprised if that isn't a sign that the money is pretty huge as well. If the Schefter tweet turns out to be accurate, that would probably leave the Bears stuck in the 15th-23rd best QB situation overall (taking into account play and contract) in the league for the next few years. Of course, if they got rid of him, there would be no guarantee that they would get someone better.

What to do with Cutler is one of the most fascinating contract decisions the NFL has had in awhile. From an outsider's perspective, I don't think the Bears front office can be blamed either way. There are real, justifiable reasons for either decision. And the decision is close enough that the contract structure matters a ton on which way they should go. The pros to keeping Cutler-he's an above average QB who will hopefully not be making elite money. The main reason of course is that QB's are so scarce that it's hard to justify letting one go when you have one. The cons to keeping Cutler-The top end of QB salaries are starting to accelerate higher than the cap is. Combine that with rookie salaries coming way down, and signing above average QB's to big deals is becoming not a great strategy to winning games (Rivers is the only one of those QB's to make the playoffs this year). Add in Cutler's injuries and potential decline over the course of the deal, and you're really banking on the cap going up if you sign him to a true long-term deal. Personally, I feel that if you can get some decent picks for him, that tips the balance in favor of trading him. If you can't, then the decision becomes really close.

My guess at the playoff schedule: 4:30 Saturday San Diego at Cincinnati 8:00 Saturday San Francisco at Green Bay 1:00 Sunday Kansas City at Indianapolis 4:25 Sunday New Orleans at Philly/Dallas

That's because advanced statistics still don't do a great job of divorcing the player from their situation. That's one of the disclaimers in the DVOA section. Most of the talent on the Colts offense got hurt in the first half of the season. Vick Ballard, Donald Thomas, Dwayne Allen, Ahmad Bradshaw, Reggie Wayne. The four best players on the Colts offense right now are Luck, Hilton, Brown, and Fleener? That's a pretty bad list, especially when you add in the line has been terrible most of the season (which is one reason why Luck has been hit the 3rd most in the NFL) This Colts team would be one of the worst in the league without Luck. He's not an elite QB, but he's been very good this year.

Bears/Packers will only be flexed if the Lions are eliminated. I can see it being chosen over Cowboys/Eagles in that scenario although it would be close. I don't see them choosing Ravens/Bengals unless they have to, although that game will almost certainly not be a 1:00 game because it has the potential to affect so many other games.

Also the Colts would have to lose to the Chiefs in that scenario because two Colts wins+Bengals loss+Patriots loss gives them the bye. All of the AFC playoff scenarios became a lot more interesting after last weekend. It would be even more so if Denver had anybody left on their schedule.

To steal a line from Matthew Berry, Tony Romo is better than Cutler. Don't overcomplicate things, just play the guy who's better. I'm not sure Berry would agree in this case since three of the four rankers including Berry have McCown ahead of Romo this week (presumably they would do the same for Cutler if he is playing).

The Cavs are shopping Waiters, and one of the people they are interested in is Deng. This creates an interesting situation for the Bulls if they want to save money. I think they could trade Deng for Waiters and Bynum once Bynum's trade restriction lifts on December 15th. Then they could cut Bynum before January 7th which would shave 6 million off his salary. If the Bulls threw in Dunleavy into the deal (or Hinrich would be even better, but the Bulls would be truly tanking in that scenario), the Bulls could get very close to the tax line in one quick jump. Everything beyond the first sentence is my speculation, but do you think there is an possibility for a deal like that?

Found this on another board. Go to NBA.com and click on a player's game log. Click on any of the individual statistics for any game (3PM, FTA, steals, blocks, etc.) and something will pop up saying watch video. Here's Paul George's game log for example: http://stats.nba.com/playerGameLogs.html?PlayerID=202331&pageNo=1&rowsPerPage=25 Whatever statistic you select for any game, they have spliced the videos of just those plays so you can watch them in a row. So if you want to look back on whether a player took good or bad shots for example, you can look at his field goal attempts and watch all of them for a given game. This is incredible.

The most reasonable way to the playoffs for the Bears seems to be to win four out of the last five, with the Lions losing two and the Packers losing at least once. I think the Packers winning gives the Bears a better chance. The Bears are very likely to need to beat the Packers in either scenario to win the division.

Yeah, maybe it can't be called "pass interference" if you carry a player out of the area, but it's an absurdly easy holding and/or illegal contact call. Refs should be fired in a few hours. Will keep their jobs for the next few decades. The union works! Holding and illegal contact can only be called if the ball isn't in the air yet. The refs essentially ruled that the ball was already in the air when the contact occurred and was also uncatchable, which is a questionable but reasonable interpretation of that play. Not according to any rule I've seen But it's not even academic, as he was being bear-hugged before the ball was thrown For illegal contact I bolded the part why it can't be called after the ball is released. Defensive holding is a murkier case where I've seen different opinions on. I wish they had asked the NFL VP of officiating about that when he reviewed the play (I think the VP without saying it essentially admitted that the call was wrong, but they weren't downgrading the officials because it was close enough to make it a very reasonable call to make). They never lined up the timing of Brady throwing and the contact in the end zone, but from looking at it I don't think you're right on the contact occurring before the ball was thrown. Right after contact was made you can see the ball and it already is well on its way. And everybody who may have access to more advanced tape on the play seems to assume that the ball was already out, so I trust their judgement as well.

If the Nets or Knicks don't rebound, I would say this regular season is pretty meaningful. Getting that #1 seed is important so you only have to face one of the Big 3 in the playoffs rather than two. Sure, but they just won 5 in a row. They lost last night largely because Deng was wretched; it happens. Absolutely. I just feel like there is a difference between not writing a team off because of some regular season losses and saying the regular season is meaningless and not very interesting to watch. That's especially true since the top 3 might be somewhat of a triangle. Miami would likely have a harder time with Indiana than with Chicago. Chicago would have a harder time with Miami than Indiana. And I think as an Indiana fan I might rather face Miami than Chicago, although that one is likely the closest of the three.

If the Nets or Knicks don't rebound, I would say this regular season is pretty meaningful. Getting that #1 seed is important so you only have to face one of the Big 3 in the playoffs rather than two.

Ellington is the pick for me. He's getting similar touches to Richardson recently, the Cardinals have a better run defense than the Colts, and Ellington has been much better with his touches than Richardson has. I'd go Douglas at flex.

I'd play Douglas tonight but not Stills. Randle and Dobson are close. Unless Welker is ruled out, I'd be willing to go with Dobson because Welker is so valuable to you in PPR if he plays, and holding on to Dobson allows you to go all the way until gametime for Welker.

Yeah, maybe it can't be called "pass interference" if you carry a player out of the area, but it's an absurdly easy holding and/or illegal contact call. Refs should be fired in a few hours. Will keep their jobs for the next few decades. The union works! Holding and illegal contact can only be called if the ball isn't in the air yet. The refs essentially ruled that the ball was already in the air when the contact occurred and was also uncatchable, which is a questionable but reasonable interpretation of that play.

Agreed. I think people can safely say that Cutler has had a big part of the Bears winning. It's not like they had the 2000 Ravens defense for those seasons, so acting like Chicago would be doomed by paying him is way off the mark. At some point, a team is going to have to pay its quarterback, even if that guy is second-tier, a lot of money. As more new rookie scale QB's come into the league, I'm not sure that's true anymore. Look at many of the QB's that would fit Cutler's general profile of non-elite productive QB who's now getting paid: Eli, Matt Ryan, Flacco, Roethlisberger, Rivers. None of those teams have a winning record, and I would argue that's partially because in just about every one of those cases their QB is getting overpaid. Romo is another example and has the best record, but it's still a 5-5 team, and they've been playing with fire with their future cap to get that good. If you look at the teams with winning records, you can sort of divide them into two tiers. The ones with elite QB's: Denver, New Orleans, New England, Green Bay. And then the ones with cheap QB's: Seattle, San Francisco, Indianapolis, Carolina, Cincinnati. Right now there are only three teams who don't fit that mold. Kansas City, where Alex Smith makes less than the QB's named above and the Chiefs have lots of advantages elsewhere. Detroit, where Stafford becomes elite only because of his super elite receiver. And then Chicago, who is 5-4 with Cutler sort of getting paid. I think you'll see that trend continuing unless the contracts for the mid-tier QB's become more reasonable. Right now agents are able to play off the fear that comes with QB uncertainty to get big contracts for all these guys, and it's just not the same anymore now that the market has changed. The rookies are making so much less now that their teams have a huge advantage in roster construction until they get paid.

Not really. Their schedule has been cake so undefeated is an overly simplistic way of evaluating their strength and when you play their kind of defense you slow the game down, reduce possessions and thus reduce your own scoring chances. Yeah, I get that. It's really just a statistical quirk. They're 14th in offensive rating so far, and even though they are 29th in pace they are still averaging almost 95 points a game. 95 points a game isn't that much, but it's a tightrope to keep that kind of average and not get to 100 sooner or later. Their schedule has been cake, but I don't expect it to get much harder through the season either. That's just going to happen for stretches when you're an elite team in the weak East. They have gotten lucky to have had several games against teams who are under performing so far this year (Chicago, Brooklyn, Memphis). Their schedule doesn't really get any tougher until the beginning of December when they have a brutal 6 game stretch (at Clippers, at Portland, at Utah, At San Antonio, At Oklahoma City, home Miami). But I fully expect them to have one of the easiest 7 schedules in the league once again.

The only team to have not scored 100 points in any game this season? The Pacers. That's a strange distinction for an undefeated team to have.