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The obvious answer seems to be because that contract won't be as much as Mirotic can make in Europe, and so he will choose to stay there instead.

Wait, so if the Giants and Cowboys tie, the Cowboys knock them out based on division even though the division is not in play? The 3-way tie rules don't apply? Divisional rules are always applied first to eliminate teams even if the thing being decided is a wildcard spot. That's true even if there is a team from another division that is also tied. In this particular case, since the Cowboys and Redskins play, the only way the Giants could end up tied with one of them for a wildcard spot would be at 9-7.

Anibal Sanchez is the "right kind of free agent" when you're a big market team that needs to get better and needs starting pitcher and he's available and it won't cause you any prospects or young players. Which is why the front office has offered Sanchez the best deal on the market. They've already agreed to a big concession that no other team has been so far willing to do.

I would pick Rodgers, but if you want to pick Dalton I don't think you're crazy. Rodgers has averaged about 3 points per game more than Dalton this season. With the vast difference in matchups, it still isn't close enough to seriously consider Dalton. But I do think it's close enough that with you being a Bears fan, if you don't want to play Rodgers against your team that you're not taking a massive downgrade by going Dalton. One last concern-the Cincy game is on Thursday night. Whether coincidence or not that has been a strange night for fantasy, and IIRC that is especially true for QB's.

Awful. Works fine for the opening of the game or the half or something, but what happens when the game is close late and one team is trying to come back. The chances of converting a 4th and 15 would be MUCH better than an onside kick. Here's a post from football outsiders last year analyzing the difference between the two options for the college game. They conclude that 4th and 15 for colleges would actually be too difficult. It should be more like 4th and 12 or 4th and 13 instead. http://www.footballoutsiders.com/varsity-numbers/2011/varsity-numbers-fourth-and-15 In the NFL, the only stat I've seen is for this year, which had 4th and 15 or longer being converted around 19 percent of the time while onside kicks were around 13 percent. But I'd like to see something in the NFL game with a little bit larger of a sample size. That yardage needed to be gained might need a tweak, but it should be fairly close. I do think though that it would create the illusion of being able to come back easier, which would be good for the game IMO. It would take quite a bit of getting used to though.

I disagree. As long as UCLA/Texas end up losing, Kent State would have very likely been 16th if they had won. They didn't really need to gain in the polls, they just needed to make sure they didn't lose a bunch of votes to teams like Northwestern or especially Michigan. And I don't think that would have happened. However, Northern Illinois needs everything to go perfectly right in order to make it. They would need UCLA/Texas to lose. They would need many of the voters to drop UCLA in between where Northern Illinois is and where Michigan is. They would need Boise to likely lose or win in an ugly enough fashion that they can pass them in the polls. It's not impossible for them, but they'll probably finish a spot or two short.

I'd say Gore. Teams have been wanting to attack the Colts through the air recently (their 3 bad run defense games all came in the first 5 games of the season). St. Louis has given up 7 rushing TD's in the last 4 weeks. I can understand why it would be a question though because if both teams get inside the 5, Detroit will probably go to LeShoure first while San Fran seems to want to put it in Kapernick's hands for a run/pass option play.

I think that scenario is pretty unlikely. The Colts are 50/50 at best to get to 10 wins (probably worse than that). And the Steelers or Bengals loser would have to win out to make it to 10-6, which doesn't seem all that likely either. If any of the AFC teams make it to 10-6 or better they have the inside track on the 5 seed IMO. you don't think the colts can win 3 games with buf, @ det, ten, @ hou, @kc and a possibly resting-their-starters hou remaining? i'd say they're 70-30 to win at least 3, with ten and @kc definite wins, and very possible wins vs buf, @ det, and a week 17 game vs. hou. The Colts game with Buffalo was last week and already figures into their record. As Exile said, Ten and @KC are likely wins, but they're hardly definite. The Colts have red zone and turnover issues on both sides of the ball. That's an easy formula to play down to the level of your competition. I think the Colts chance of losing one of those games is roughly equal to their chances of winning at Detroit this weekend. So it comes down to week 17 to see if they can get 10. Houston did rest some starters last year, so if they clinch they probably will do so again. But that is probably dependent on if Houston can beat NE in a couple of weeks. After looking it over, maybe I was a little bearish on their chances of getting to 10. I might be willing to actually call it 50/50, but I wouldn't go any higher than that.

I think that scenario is pretty unlikely. The Colts are 50/50 at best to get to 10 wins (probably worse than that). And the Steelers or Bengals loser would have to win out to make it to 10-6, which doesn't seem all that likely either. If any of the AFC teams make it to 10-6 or better they have the inside track on the 5 seed IMO.

He's not taunting Kobe there. He was just way, way overemphasizing his motion of a blocking foul on the play (which was probably the wrong call to begin with). He was being typical Crawford last night and had already T'd up multiple people earlier in the game for arguing.

Won't it be 14 on 14 then? I wouldn't think the ACC would end it out of spite. And the ACC will be in stronger position to win the Challenge at that point than they are now.

I'm sure Orange Bowl officials would be THRILLED with that development. Rutgers vs. Kent State would be the lowest rated Orange Bowl in history. The ACC winner is the one tied in to the Orange Bowl. Also, Rutgers vs Kent State would have been somewhat unlikely anyway since Kent State already beat them this season.

I'm sure Orange Bowl officials would be THRILLED with that development. I actually think the Orange Bowl wouldn't care much. Florida State will be the draw for them. The dropoff from Louisville or Rutgers to Kent State isn't that large because none of those teams have great football fanbases. I also think Kent State would get better television ratings than either of the Big East winners. The Sugar Bowl is probably sweating this out though. If Kent State gets in, they suddenly go from having Florida versus Oklahoma to Florida versus Louisville/Rutgers/Kent State. That's a much bigger dropoff.

Thank God, the Bears have played in primetime enough this year. This likely means that the Bears won't be playing at night the rest of the season unless Detroit inexplicably turns their season around and is guaranteed a playoff spot with a victory in week 17. The NFL likes to schedule games like that in week 17, ere none of the day's action matters except for whether that team wins or loses. I figured one of those games would be 4:25 (3:25) at the least. Didn't expect either to be flexed to Sunday night. The Green Bay week is a mess TV wise. The Thursday night game and Monday night games are both awful. Two of the better games of the week are 1:00 Fox games (Giants at Atlanta, Green Bay at Chicago). Even Tampa Bay at New Orleans is interesting. But with CBS having the doubleheader that week and the Sunday Night game already being a great one, those games have nowhere to move. Instead, Pittsburgh and Dallas might stay in that prime 4:25 slot, or it might be changed to Denver and Baltimore (which is probably as good as those Fox games). Unlike the GB game, the Minnesota game had a chance of moving, but it wasn't clearly better than either of the slots it could have moved to (Saints at Giants, Lions at Packers). So no reason to bump either of those games back to 1:00 just to replace it with a roughly comparable game.

It's always fun to me to watch the 4th at-large spot unfold. Stanford with their upset last week has a pretty good grip on the 3rd spot (unless UCLA wins the conference championship game, in which case it would be UCLA and Oregon). Oklahoma or Clemson would have the 4th spot if either win, but what happens if they both lose? Texas is likely out after their loss this week (although possibly not with an upset of Kansas State next week). Michigan is out. Rutgers and Louisville both lost. So does Oklahoma State climb all the way to 14? Does Clemson or Oklahoma stay in the top 14? Do Boise State or Kent State have any chance of getting up to 16 and getting the minor conference automatic bid? Does Nebraska stay in the top 14 if Wisconsin upsets them? There are still quite a few scenarios left for how late it is in the season.

Here are a couple different attempts at ranking programs all-time. One averages out AP polls while the other one uses a variety of things in its formula. Oklahoma was #1 in both while Tennessee was 9th and 12th. I also saw a couple subjective rankings while I was taking a quick look. One had Oklahoma #1 and the other one had them #5, while Tennessee was in the back end of the top 10 each time. http://cfn.scout.com/2/1097657.html http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=3849468

Same here. I knew the rule existed, as McCarthy was flagged for it in the preseason and then Arians was flagged for it earlier this year as well. How it cancels out a review is absolutely beyond me, especially when its been beaten to death that 'all scoring plays are reviewable.' This article explains why it came into being: http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/story/21107400/nfl-to-examine-replay-rule-that-hurt-lions-may-make-change-this-year So basically they created a rule for a good purpose and by adding this to the list of penalties it would be enforced on created a huge unintended side effect. They must have felt originally that throwing the challenge flag would be one way to purposely delay the game in order to give the booth more time to review, but they didn't anticipate how many coaches would forget which plays are automatically reviewed and which plays aren't. They also say in the article that they are considering changing the rule before the season ends.

I'm probably more disappointed that these kids still have to pay back part of the benefits than the suspensions. These kids had no reasonable reason to expect the benefits they were receiving were impermissible. While the suspension hurts both the kids and the institution (and indirectly the "booster"), paying back the benefits only hurts the kids.

I'd say Oregon, but it will be pretty close. The majority of voters have Oregon ahead right now, and I don't see them changing their mind if that scenario happens. I also think there will be some push to not have another all SEC title game if the teams are close. The majority of computers will likely have Florida ahead. The thing to watch out for in that scenario is if Notre Dame ends up between Florida and Oregon in some of the computers. That may be enough for Florida to overcome the voter advantage. But I input some of those results into Colley's formula, and it looks likely that he would have Oregon having a slim margin over ND in that scenario.

If the games hold as they are now, obviously ND would be in the title game. KState would probably drop to 6. And when looking at who's going to get BCS at-larges, I'm starting to think a 3 loss Michigan team is only one win against Ohio State away from making it into the BCS once again. Unless there is an upset in a conference title game or the SEC/ACC matchups, there doesn't seem to be another good team to take that last at-large.

Sagarin predictor ratings for those four (and also Western Carolina playing Alabama) Georgia Southern 87 Maryland 106 Wofford 121 Jacksonville State 156 Western Carolina 206 Georgia Southern and Wofford are FCS teams, but they are good FCS teams. Still not good for top 10 teams to be hanging around with them, but they're probably more dangerous then a decent amount of FBS teams. I'm not sure why these SEC teams continue to play them for exactly that reason. It has more potential to hurt then help.

A likely .650 OPS from the backup catcher is pretty solid. 1.75 million is somewhat steep for the marginal upgrade he's going to provide, but he's at least a quality player for his role. That's assuming a normal BABIP, which as normal for backup catchers has bounced around wildly for Navarro throughout his career. So he could easily be 100 points over or 100 points under that projection largely because of sample size.

This is also hilarious: Indiana has 16 commits for next season. Serious question on that, I understood the Big Ten rule to be you could only oversign by 1? I'm pretty sure Creek doesn't count because a medical redshirt isn't officially approved until it is needed, and so right now his eligibility runs out at the end of this year. But that would still leave IU over by two, and I'm not sure what else they could do to comply with that rule.

There's like 4 or 5 guys who have been doing a better job than him. He's not going to put up the numbers that a QB from an offensively focused dome team will be able to but he's much better than mediocre. You aren't paying attention if you think he's mediocre. You're not paying attention to the NFL if you don't think his decision making and throwing accuracy leave A LOT to be desired. I think there's plenty of room for improvement, no doubt. But every QB makes bad decisions/throws, and most of them are much worse than Cutler. 23rd in completion percentage, 21st in yards per attempt, tied for 16th in TD's, tied for 7th most in INT. 24th in QB rating, 30th in Dyar, 30th in DVOA, 19th in QBR. His offense around him is below average but not horrible, and some of those metrics account for that anyway. I don't see any evidence to support him as a top 5-6 QB.

And yet here we are. Notre Dame is 2 wins away from potentially being the first team in college football history to get shut out of the title picture for not going unbeaten against an objectively superior schedule impressively enough. You act as if this should just be accepted fact rather than debated. But it's not objectively superior. By Sagarin, KSU and ND's schedule's are basically identical. Oregon is 16/17 spots worse but they have the current No. 11, No. 12 and either No. 13 or 18 left on the schedule, so theirs will get significantly better. To add on to that since one data point is frequently flawed: Colley has ND's schedule 26th, KState 44, Oregon 63rd Anderson/Hester has KState 31, ND 32, Oregon 50. I think we can put to bed the theory that pollsters inherently favor ND. It might have been true in the past (although I don't think so) but it certainly isn't anymore. Even as an ND fan though, I can understand why pollsters have the other two ahead. Having too many close wins has always mattered in the polls, and their schedules are close enough that voters can use that to put ND behind. Hopefully one of those two lose with ND winning out to make it academic.