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It will be week 8 before we finally have our 3rd noon Sunday start of the year. So far we've had 2 Noon Sundays (Colts, Rams), a noon 3PM (Jags), 2 MNF (Cowboys, Lions), a Thursday night game (Packers) and a bye. Then after 2 noon games we have 2 more primetime games in a row. The good news is that 5 of our last 6 games will be noon games with the other being a 3pm Until 1 of them gets flexed out and another moved to the late game. I was gonna say, I'm almost sure we'll get a game or two flexed (can they do more than one for a given team?)... Could definitely see the Minnesota game being one of those. The Green Bay game is absolutely getting flexed. The Green Bay game isn't likely to go anywhere. CBS has the doubleheader that week so it won't move to the 4:00 slot, and SNF has the 49ers at the Patriots so there will be no need for a replacement game there. My guess is that the week 12 Bears-Minnesota game stays where it is (although if New Orleans still has a bad record it could easily move into the 4:00 slot) and the week 14 Minnesota game has a decent possibly of moving to either 4:00 or the night game depending on how Detroit and New Orleans play up until then.

Obviously from an author who is high on him, but here is a report from middle of this year: http://motorcitybengals.com/2012/07/05/tigers-mid-season-top-30-prospects-15-11/ Looks like Sickels had him as one of the players receiving consideration for his top 20 at the end of last year, and obviously this year was a better year for him overall (with the only big blemish repeating the level). I've looked at 3 other smaller scouting reports, and they all say a fastball in the low 90's. I saw another scouting report that said his breaking ball is poor but that his change was good. Seems like a prospect between 15-30, basically another pitcher with a chance.

The thing I couldn't hear on the replay was if a whistle blew. But if you watch the referee's movements, they're already acting like the play is over before he scores. The side judge has already run way onto the field when he reaches the ball across. I would have thought they would have had to rule whistle/forward progress stopped based on that reason, but once it went to replay it easily could have been overturned.

Samardzija's NTC should be over with now. It was tied to the old contract, and the Cubs declined Samardzija's option last year for that contract.

No its not that crazy. I'm not sure they actually do that, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least considering the somewhat strong play, and the weak schedule. Plus you factor in Luck probably improving as the season progresses. Looking at the AFC, the teams that I think have no chance at the playoffs are Cleveland, Kansas City, Tennessee and Jacksonville. That leaves 9 teams to fight for 3 spots (assuming NE, BAL, HOU are locks). Those 9 teams are SD (3-2), CIN (3-2), PIT (2-2), IND (2-2), NYJ (2-3), BUF (2-3), MIA (2-3), DEN (2-3) and OAK (1-3). What a pack of mediocre to bad teams. I guess with a gun to my head I'd go SD (west), DEN and PIT. And the thing is, I don't like any of those 3 teams that much...they just aren't that good. It might not be crazy, but I'm still not expecting any more than five or six wins from the Colts. They lost at home to one of the worst teams in the NFL (Jacksonville). They've only played one road game and were dominated (though against a good team). Sure, they beat Green Bay but that was an emotional aberration, in my opinion, from Pagano's absence (don't think that can really be carried over week to week). The schedue isn't exactly murderer's row though, that's for sure. I wasn't surprised by the Jacksonville loss. The Colts still have in many parts the same defensive personnel that Jacksonville has run over for years, which is what has led to the endless number of close games with them. I'm not projecting 9. I'd guess 7 right now (2-3 against the rest of the division, 2-2 against the AFC East, 1-1 against Cleveland/Kansas City, 0-1 against Detroit). I could see 6 (with only 1 win against the East being the most likely scenario) but I don't think 5 is particularly likely at this point. There are too many teams left on the schedule who are on or maybe even below the Colts level to have a good chance of going 3-9 the rest of the way. They only have 3 likely playoff teams left on the schedule at this point.

I've been telling people all offseason not to expect more than 5 wins out of this Colts team, and now the horribleness of the AFC is making me wonder if they could be in contention for a playoff spot. They have played 3 home games already, which is a problem (and didn't play particularly well in their one road game). But they have already played three of the four NFC teams, their non-common games with the division are Cleveland and Kansas City, and one of their Houston games is week 17 when Houston might be resting starters. Am I crazy to think they could get to 9 with some average to good luck in close games?

I'm sure they'll flex some of the Bears games in the last few weeks. Unless the rule has changed this year because of the increased number of primetime slots, the Bears can only have 1 game flexed to Sunday night this year. A team gets a max of 6 primtetime games a year. And the only rule I've heard implemented this year was that every team has to be on primetime at least once. So they can flex one game, which they'll most likely do if the Bears are even close to a playoff spot. Maybe, although the Sunday night schedule is pretty strong this year. Only games I could see them replacing right now are week 14 and week 16. The Bears could fill one of those spots if they do end up getting flexed, but there are some other juicy games as well. It looks like week 12 and 14 are the only two weeks the Bears might move to 4:25, although neither week is really likely. And of course week 17 is completely up in the air as it usually is, but since the Bears play a likely non-playoff team in Detroit the odds are poorer for them to get a late slot.

I'm sure they'll flex some of the Bears games in the last few weeks. Unless the rule has changed this year because of the increased number of primetime slots, the Bears can only have 1 game flexed to Sunday night this year. A team gets a max of 6 primtetime games a year. And the only rule I've heard implemented this year was that every team has to be on primetime at least once.

Jags came into this game 30th against the run, 20th against the pass, no sacks since the opener, don't cause turnovers. They aren't very good. The Bears should be better than this. I'm not sure how healthy they are now, but the Jags defense has been really banged up since the start of the year. They were supposed to be very good when healthy.

Unless he gets hurt in the next season or so he'll get into the top 10 of receiving yards all time (after today should be 17th alltime at the moment), and has a decent shot of cracking the top 5. I'm not sure if he'll make the Hall of Fame because he had Peyton Manning for most of his career and a good Harrison for just over half of his career, but he's got a decently strong case.

I agree with you other than the replay decision. That was an easy overturn. The PI was either offensive or neither because of an uncatchable ball (not defensive like it was called), and the unnecessary roughness has a chance of being the right call, but very likely wasn't. The ball can touch the ground if the player has control and keeps control. He did. I completely disagree that he had any control at all on that play (as did the announcers and the ref). I agree the ball can touch the ground, but he used the ground to help him secure it which is not allowed. If I can find the replay after the game I'll take another look though. Wayne has completely obliterated the theory that he was old and in severe decline.

I agree with you other than the replay decision. That was an easy overturn. The PI was either offensive or neither because of an uncatchable ball (not defensive like it was called), and the unnecessary roughness has a chance of being the right call, but very likely wasn't.

Have the Bears received the ball first yet this year? Not sure how to look that up, but seems like we've kicked most of the time. The Bears received the ball first in the Colts and Rams games. Interestingly, in all four Bears games so far the team who has won the toss has chosen to defer.

Strength of Victory is not margin of victory. It's calculated by taking the records of all the teams a team has beaten and putting them together.

I don't see what is nice about that. It might make Garza a little more amenable to signing an extension early instead of holding out for free agency unless he gets the perfect deal, for example. There are some benefits to a happy clubhouse, especially when the team isn't winning which would naturally cover up most of the potential problems. It's way down the list of important things, but it's nice to have.

The way the league does schedules makes your record almost irrelevant when it comes to difficulty. Hell, New England went to the Super Bowl and they got one of the easiest schedules in the league. It's not irrelevant. Having bad teams in your division is one help, and the division rotation schedule is helpful too. But you do still face teams that finished in the same "spot" as you did in other divisions. Next season, the Saints get the NFC West and the AFC East. With the exception of the Pats and Niners, there's some very beatable teams in there. So the Saints schedule is likely easy next year, but it had very little to do with how they played this season. The two games that are variable will be against an NFC East team and an NFC North team. The East is so balanced that there really isn't a team that will be quite a bit easier than the others. The North is a little more unbalanced, but has no team that is likely to be bad both this year and next year. So the Saints struggles will not affect their schedule much at all next year. If they were in the AFC, it would be a little bit of a different story, but the NFC is so balanced right now.

The Baylor-WV game has three 200 yard receivers and two other 100 yard receivers and there's still 13 minutes left.

There was an oddsmaker on one of the behind the bets podcasts that ESPN has that I caught a little bit of. It was interesting to hear him say that oddsmakers aren't hoping to make the bets even (which he said wasn't really possible even if they wanted to). He said even if they could do that, there wouldn't be enough profit involved to make it worth it. They're trying to make money by getting the public to bet one side and the sharps to bet the other. Since there is much more public money than sharp money, they tend to win whenever the sharps do. He said they know they've really messed up the line when the public and the sharps bet the same side.

I'm not a fan of the deal. How many keepers do you have? Green is a great keeper option for multiple keeper leagues so I would have been hesitant to get rid of him. Sproles is a big step downward as a replacement for Green since there are huge usage question marks with him. Johnson and Smith are comparable. Johnson is consistent, and Smith is going to have some huge weeks and some poor ones. Leshoure should be a steady back without a large amount of upside, and Tate is a lottery ticket with huge upside if Foster went down. I see those two as pretty comparable as well overall, but obviously your situations would make him want Tate more and you to want Leshoure more. I would have kept mixing and matching and working the waiver wire, or maybe tried to find a better RB straight up for Green.

Probably based on respect from last year, and their close win over Lousiana-Monroe is discounted since it was Monroe's 3rd straight quality game against a BCS opponent. The computer rankings that are up would support they are pretty close as well (although they are pretty unreliable themselves at this point of the season due to lack of data). 34th in Sagarin ELO, 28th in Sagarin predictor, 28th in Colley. It's essentially picking out of a hat at this point of the season between the undefeated teams with weak schedules and the teams with stronger schedules who have a loss already.

If you mean kick the ball sky high and have a defender challenge the receiver for the kick, doesn't the halo still apply if the kick hasn't touched the ground? Does the halo apply to kickoffs or only punts? I've never seen a kickoff return man challenged for the catch, so I don't know. I don't think there's a halo, but I'm pretty sure that in both college and the pros that you can call for a fair catch on a kickoff. That's why kickers make sure on onside kicks to have the ball hit the ground immediately so that the fair catch possibility is gone. But even if they didn't want to kick an onside kick, Michigan still should have treated it more like a punt and have a high kick short of the goal line. They would have had a good shot at trapping ND inside the 15 in that scenario if not inside the 10.

The only thing off the top of my head that I'd add to the expenses for this year are the salaries for Hendry, Quade, and anybody else fired before the end of their contract. That adds a couple million more to the total.

Obviously we don't know what was said so we don't know how far Cutler went, but Manning has had his share of confrontations. In 2004 for example, Wayne shoved him at the end of a close game after a shouting match between the two. The next year they were playing the Rams on MNF and Manning went on a tirade against Jeff Saturday (Tarik Glenn had to step in and tell Manning to go sit down) and he forgot until after that he was wearing a microphone for the whole world to hear. He also screamed at Donald Brown loud enough one time that the overhead microphone picked it up during a play. Manning was always a perfectionist who expected everyone else to be to. It's laughable to put him as an example like that.

Looking at the play by play, this didn't really start happening until the second half. The Bears had 9 first down plays in the first half. 6 of them they dropped back to pass, while 3 of them were run plays. The 3 run plays were all on the same drive in the second quarter that was derailed by the Carimi unnecessary roughness penalty. The 6 pass plays resulted in 3 incompletions, 2 sacks, and a defensive pass interference penalty. Now in the first 2 drives of the 2nd half, they did try to run it quite a bit before abandoning it late. But I don't see the overall run heavy emphasis in the playcalling. In fact, even disregarding the sacks, they gained 4.1 yards a carry on the ground while only gaining 4.6 Y/A through the air. It's possible they should have run it more than they did.

I'd imagine most of the top 10 leaks out reports that they wanted their guy #1 overall. Usually that kind of report doesn't leak out before the draft though. Did the Cubs also say something to that effect as well? The original pre-draft report was that some other clubs believed that the Cubs loved Almora so much that they would take him at #1.