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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.

Maybe the general feeling around the league is that Castro is still a very good asset/will be a very good to elite player and Theo/Jed are gauging the interest just to see what they could get. Maybe they feel Castro is trending downward and no longer a very good asset/the chances of him becoming very good or elite aren't all that great and they would be willing to sell him off high while some teams still really value him. If I'm a GM anywhere other than the north side, then I'm looking to buy low. It's a no-brainer to check in and gauge interest after 2013 if you think you can acquire him at a huge discount. Most teams won't get very far in the 2014 off-season if he has a bounce back 3 or 4 WAR season in 2014. It has to be in the Cubs best interest to see if he can restore value especially since 2014 isn't a special year in the Cubs timeline. I don't want to imagine what Cubs fans will do if he is traded at depressed value for non-elite minor league talent and then Castro remembers he can be a stud, but for a different team. I think that assumes front offices are acting more on emotion than reason. Castro still has value around the league. Some teams probably think his chances for a bounceback are less than the Cubs do. The Cubs are looking around for the reasonable chance that some teams think more of him than the Cubs do. Or consider this way. Let's say the Cubs think his chances of bouncing back are 50/50, and are looking for a price that would reflect more like a 60% chance of bouncing back. A team out there is high on Castro and thinks the percentages are more like 80/20. Sure, they may try to lowball the Cubs initially because of a perceived thought that the Cubs might just be through with him. But if the Cubs won't budge, teams will jump on the price because it's still a good deal for them. And I definitely don't agree with the thought that Castro's value is low enough that another bad season wouldn't lower it further. Right now there is that hope as you said that 2014 will be a better year. Another bad year, and that hope diminishes and so does his value.

you damn idea stealer http://northsidebaseball.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=47724&p=1722101&hilit=modified#p1722101 http://northsidebaseball.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=60288&p=2717422&hilit=modified#p2717422 http://northsidebaseball.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=60383&hilit=i+trust+i+can+rely+on+your+vote&start=1425#p2753526 Haha and I even commented on two of those! Well, I support "your" idea. Even what Jersey brings up about the home team being slightly disadvantaged is fine with me.

A Pacers/Bulls matchup in the playoffs would be really tough to forecast. They could legitimately be seen as clones at least in results and personnel if not in philosophy. And we don't have many games played between them to have any kind of idea how they match up. The best examples are probably the two games in Chicago from two years ago which they split. Even those games are really ancient history though especially on the Pacers side (although the Bulls have some new parts too like Butler). The Bulls are almost certainly going to be better than the Pacers in the regular season unless Vogel changes his philosophy. For example, he played Hibbert 28.7 minutes per game last year in the regular season and then 36.5 minutes per game in the playoffs. Hibbert is the most important player for the Pacers to have on the floor as he's the linchpin to the defense, and that was a massive difference for them. Also I'm guessing they are going to nurse Granger along all season. I'd probably give the edge to the Bulls because of a likely homecourt advantage, but that's how close it is. I think the Pacers match up better with the Heat than the Bulls do, but the Bulls match up better with the Nets. It should be a fun playoffs with four teams legitimately thinking that anything less than the conference finals is a disappointment.

He got suspended 1 game for the Charlotte one. Neither of the Pacer ones even got a flagrant 2. The Collison hip check was called a flagrant 1 during play and not upgraded after the game. The elbow to Stephenson was not called on the floor at all, and was upgraded to a flagrant 1 after the game.

I've been thinking about the DH rule. What about a compromise? Allow a DH for the starting pitcher only. Once the starting pitcher leaves, the DH or some other player has to leave the game and that becomes the pitcher's spot. The DH can replace a position player when the starting pitcher leaves, or the DH can also replace a position player earlier with the loss of the DH spot being the only penalty. That preserves the vast majority of the NL strategy while making sure that pitchers rarely bat. It also allows for teams to hide players defensively for most of the game while at least forcing tough choices if their defense is atrocious. It doesn't feel too gimmicky or complicated, at least not more than the current rules surrounding the DH or double switches. It still allows for professional DH's or players returning from injury although it of course doesn't offer all the benefits that it does now. Thoughts? I of course know I'm not the first one to come up with this idea, but I haven't heard it discussed much at all.

I would argue that the Phillies didn't go into hyper win now mode until Amaro took over. At the time, the Phillies had just won the World Series with a young roster, plenty of talent in the farm system, and a rapidly expanding payroll (the 2008 WS team had a 98 million dollar payroll, by 2011 it was already at 165 million). Out of any team in baseball, they were the one who had the ability to go on a long run of dominance. Instead, they only had 3 more years of great teams with one WS appearance before falling apart. They managed to squander every advantage they had in pursuit of a marginal win here or there. It wasn't even injuries that derailed them. They managed to derail themselves through horrific mismanagement. So if you want to be the Phillies during the 2000's, I'm completely on board. The Amaro strategy IMO even though exciting hurt them tons more than it ever helped.

Manning's season has been so good that his 7 TD game is actually listed as his worst game of the season by QBR! That's incredible.

With the NBA's soft cap, it doesn't matter as much. If the Bulls had made Boozer their amnesty player this year, they would have still been over the cap. All it affected was that instead of a mid-level exception of just over 5 million they could offer, they instead only had the mini mid level of just over 3 million (and certain rules on trades that the Bulls weren't likely to take advantage of anyway). It cost ownership quite a bit of money to keep him as the Bulls appear to be paying in the neighborhood of 12 million in luxury taxes this year, but that's it. Next year they could open up some salary cap room by amnestying Boozer and renouncing Deng, but probably not enough to make it worth it to do.

Houston-SF is the Sunday night game, NYJ vs. ATL is the Monday night game. Also, while its not a national TV game, SD-Oakland was moved to AFTER Sunday Night Football because of the A's playoff game. It will be aired on the NFL Network. San Diego-Oakland will be nationally available now as well. Because of the time change, it will be shown on NFL network. It could be argued that the four best games of the weekend are on at 1 PM.

I'd lean towards Atlanta. I completely agree that they aren't that great, and the Jets are ok. But that's a Monday night game for Atlanta at home that they have to have. The crowd is going to be really going, and you have a rookie QB on the other side. Geno has turned it over 7 times in his two road games. St. Louis is a close 2nd, but that's strictly anti-Jaguars. I don't trust the Rams one bit. I don't know if it will make any difference, but you should remember that the Jaguars get Blackmon back from suspension this week. So it's possible their offense is a little better than how anemic they've been.

13 teams in the AFC .500 or better (with 4 undefeated) compared to only 7 teams .500 or better in the NFC (with 2 undefeated).

For some reason I decided 5 minutes before MNF to put in Moreno in at starting RB and bench McFadden using some insane logic that the Broncos would have a big lead and run the ball more while the Raiders would be passing and not use McFadden enough. Of course I lost because of it. Easily my dumbest fantasy move in awhile. Not just because it didn't work out but looking back on it, it made no sense to bench the Raiders feature back for 1/3 of Denver's RB committee, even if Moreno had 2 good weeks in a row. Ugh. If it makes you feel any better, 3 of the 4 rankers on ESPN had Moreno ahead of McFadden last week, and all four of them had Moreno in the top 15 running backs. It was a defensible move either way.

Unless they change the standard for what an overturn is, I don't agree with this thought. There are too many plays where there isn't enough visual evidence to not even attempt to call it right on the field. If they changed it to where things could be overturned on a preponderance of the evidence I would be supportive of that.

George definitely has to get better to be a top 15 player IMO. He seems likely to get there though. He's already there defensively as he is one of the 3 best perimeter defenders in the league, and is a very good rebounder for his position. Offensively, he has all the natural tools. He can explode to the rim, he has great length, and he can shoot. The things he struggles at are things like dribbling through traffic and drawing contact when he gets in close. He has already been getting better at those, and I expect him to continue that. He is a player who has not gotten very great coaching before the pros. Didn't start playing organized basketball until high school, and then played college in a very loose atmosphere at Fresno State. The thing Pacer fans are waiting on with his contract details is if he got the possibility of the Rose rule or not. He made All-NBA 3rd team last year, and if he does it again this year he's eligible for the higher max. The contract estimate that was reported could reflect either max, and that's a big deal for the Pacers as they try to keep Lance Stephenson after the season (Granger is as good as gone).

wow. Miami, Pats, Colts, Browns, Bengals, Chiefs. Aside from the Seahawks and potentially the Bears, slaughter. 49ers, Falcons, Packers, Vikings all NFC playoff teams to lose. I'm shocked at how well the AFC is doing so far. I don't expect them to keep dominating all year (in fact I still think the NFC is a little better), but it looks probable they'll at least finish .500 against the NFC now, and even that would have been a big surprise before the season. To look at it division by division (assuming the Bears win tonight): AFC East 4 NFC South 0 AFC North 2 NFC North 2 AFC South 1 NFC West 1 AFC West 4 NFC East 0

Which team in the AFC North or NFC East gets their division's first non-divisional win of the season? And does either division remain winless in that respect after this weekend?

The financial situation should get quite a bit better after just 1 more year. Let's say the worst case scenario happens and the payroll goes down to 75 million next year (presumably to pay for the renovations). In 2015 the new WGN contract kicks in, and the construction on some of the revenue generating things should be done. Plus the Cubs won't have nearly the dead money they have just in Soriano after next year. That's a lot of extra potential payroll that should be available after just 1 more year. Will the Cubs be able to truly explode the payroll until the CSN contract is up and the renovations are done? Probably not, and that's not good. But things will start getting a lot better than they are currently pretty soon.

They traded a first round pick for a running back? That's my one big trepidation about the deal. But if you are going to deal a first round pick, Richardson probably has as much future value as any RB in the league. Just turned 23, was the 3rd overall pick last year, and other than the Y/C (which I attribute to him being the only option in Cleveland last year) didn't really disappoint. His cap hits should be pretty small the next couple years as well. Base salaries of 2.25 million next year and 3.18 million the year after that. I'm mixed on the deal, but it certainly should be an interesting transition. It certainly cements the Colts offense as very, very good this year even after the injuries.

There was/is a rule in the NFL against excessive crowd noise, although they have understandably stopped enforcing it. In other news, the Colts have lost 3 offensive starters for the season in the last week after they announced Dwayne Allen is done. Hopefully this stops soon or it could get ugly in Indy.