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And it's probably because of quotes like these that the Raiders lose. Lane Kiffin on if he's going to kick it to Hester or not: Why don't you try a double reverse pass on every play Lane. That sounds fun too :D

Really? The game on Sunday showed how close the two teams are. The Colts probably got the benefit of some calls and they had the home field advantage. The Pats had the big advantage of injuries. Harrison and Ugoh's replacements went a long way towards costing the Colts the game on Sunday (Johnson and Moorehead were absolutely awful). Keiaho, Hagler, and Gonzalez were missed, and the Colts didn't even really have enough linebackers to play a base defense at any point during the game in addition to only having 2 healthy receivers. I didn't see anything on Sunday that could lead you to believe that one team is better than the other. The Patriots will have home field in the playoffs, and the Colts should be a lot more healthy. Should be a fun matchup as long as they can take care of business until then.

CR, Just a guess on my part: if he signs Wood, he won't look at a closer. If he doesn't sign Wood, all bets are off. I agree with this. Hendry will sign one free agent reliever this winter. I think it will be Kerry Wood. If it isn't him, I don't know who it will be.

I was talking about when the Cubs traded Moore, that Moore in late 2007 and Harben in late 2006 were comparable prospects, and Harben was probably seen as slightly better.

11th best Twins prospect in 2005 and 2006. Can top out at 97, above average slider, decent change with good mechanics. His numbers had some shaky indicators in it, but he still projected well with his stuff. He was at least of good as a prospect as Moore was at the times each were traded.

Marshall's big thing has been durability. Can he stay healthy, and can he stay effective beyond the 100-110 inning mark? They showed signs of him having a tired arm last year (the biggest sign that they simply weren't losing faith in him was them pulling him earlier and earlier in games that he was effective in). If he can't put 150 innings on his arm, he isn't much use as a starter that you pencil in to the rotation.

According to reports I read over the years, the Cubs recommended surgery on a couple of occasions. Prior was the one who chose to try to go the non-surgical route in hopes of getting back faster. I dont remember that at all. And even so, thats fine after the first 6 months go by, but after that the Cubs could have, and should have said surgery time, no more wasting time. The Cubs don't have the right to say that. They can't force the player to have surgery. If they want to cut him because he refuses to have surgery, that's their right, but a club cannot do more than recommend that a player goes under the knife. Should the Cubs have told Prior that he was either going to have surgery or they were releasing him? IMO, no. That would have been way too drastic, and there would be some legal issues I think even with a threat like that.

I would say right now Zambrano and Lilly are the only ones that you can say are sure will be in the rotation next year. Hill or Marquis could easily still be traded. Marshall might be replaced or traded. I wonder if this means the end of going after Kuroda.

According to reports I read over the years, the Cubs recommended surgery on a couple of occasions. Prior was the one who chose to try to go the non-surgical route in hopes of getting back faster.

So now Pie is a guy who needs platooned? Come on, how is a kid supposed to learn to hit lefties, when he never faces them? Let Felix play, and lets see if he makes his normal adjustments like he has at every level so far. he hit 190/254/547 in AAA against lefties last year in Iowa and that's not even bringing up his struggles at the majors vs. lefties in 2006 256/322/649 in Iowa in 2005 he hit 253/295/743 in West Tenn If the cubs were not contenders I would be okay with him learning on the job. However, they are not and you can't have a guy in the lineup who hasn't shown he can at least hit somewhat marginally vs. southpaws. You do realize that hitting .253 and .256 would mean he can hit them somewhat marginally, right? .253 and .256 is not very good when combined with a below average walk rate and horrible power against left-handers. I'll combine some of the stats he posted above. Between the majors and AAA, Pie batted .159/.225/.223 against LHP in 102 plate appearances. He had over a 400 point split between right-handers and left-handers in the majors, and had almost a 600 point split in AAA. That's after Pie had a horrible winter ball season (.216/.263/.296) specifically because he was mainly put in against left-handers at the Cubs request. The Cubs did that because of his .256/.322/.327 effort the year before against left-handers, which is pretty close to what Jacque Jones has done in his career against left-handers. Could Pie get better against left-handers? Possibly, he's still very young. At the same time, it's about as automatic of an automatic out as you can get when he does start against a left-hander. He did hit them a little better at lower levels, but even though he made the adjustment to right-handed pitching very well at AAA he still hasn't figured out left-handers at AAA in 2 years. Considering the Cubs have some troubles against left-handers already, putting Pie in there against left-handers pretty much makes sure that the Cubs will be terrible against them for another year. Those ISOP's especially are horrifying for a player of his type.

The only thing I can possibly think of is to clear 40 man space from players they didn't want anymore anyway and didn't have much trade value (Moore had some, Cherry probably didn't have much at all) but throwing Renshaw in even hurts that argument. It was a bad deal no matter what, and it's hard to say if it was a bad deal or an absolutely horrific deal. I would lean towards bad because I don't think the players the Cubs gave up are going to turn out to be much in the major leagues, and the 40 man space did help a little bit. Renshaw does start to push it towards absolutely horrific though.

The 3 million for Prior is much better spent looking at 2009 and beyond for him. You're not likely to get 3 million of production out of him next year, but if he comes back and re-signs he'll make up for that in the years following. At the same time, that means the club has to be reasonably certain that he'll re-sign with the team. Obviously, a club option is the best way to do that. If a club option isn't possible, the team has to figure out why Prior does not want to sign that option. If he's refusing because of a low money figure, that's one thing. If he's refusing because he doesn't want to re-sign with the Cubs after 2008, then the club cannot waste the money and sign him. If the Cubs cut him loose, I'm not sure we'll ever know if it was a mistake or not, because Prior isn't likely to come out publicly and say that he didn't want to sign with the Cubs again even if that's what he thinks.

We've gotten one or two before. Adam Harben is somebody who springs to mind from a minor August deal.

Aside from complete homerism, what is the justification for having Florida #7? And ahead of Georgia and Auburn, for that matter. http://www.usatoday.com/sports/sagarin/fbt07.htm Far right column. You don't seem to put much faith in the far right column otherwise. West Virginia is 2 spots ahead of LSU in that far right column, but you have LSU 6 spots ahead of WV. Michigan is only 21st in that far right column, but you have them 10th. The far right column has Boston College at 24th, but you have them 9th. Why are you willing to trust the far right column when it gives Florida a good ranking, but not when it is so far off for half of the other teams in your top 10?

Yeah, Hendry is well known for that. hello? soriano? As far as I remember, Hendry never came out and said that he wanted Soriano in public before he signed him. Maybe I'm wrong, but I certainly don't remember it.

I agree with that sentiment. At the same time, the second one looked legit to me. The guy pushed the reciever out of the back of the end zone. If the receiver had caught it, the refs would have had to throw the flag.

BTW, I've just re-watched that penalty about 10 times, and I don't see the complaints about it. From the back angle (they only showed that angle once) you can clearly see that the Navy player has his left hand on the ND player's back as he jumps in and bats the ball away. That's what both back judges saw, and that's why they both threw flags. Anytime you have one hand on the back and one hand tipping the ball away, they are going to call you for interference.

You know, I wanted Notre Dame to win today, but I don't feel bad at all that they lost because of what it did for Navy. Navy comes out every year and plays their heart out against Notre Dame, and they should have won 2 or 3 times in the last 12 years. They deserved this one so much, and I am too happy for them to be upset at all that ND lost. I don't know if that makes me a bad sports fan, but in this case I don't care. The postgame ceremony was touching as well. So congratulations to Navy, this day is yours and celebrate it.

Ok, now I'm confused. Walker has kicked a 40+ yard field goal against UCLA, so why not try him there? Now it looks like OT.

Because they get tired of losing to Michigan year in and year out so they come up with crazy theories about how the referees are biased for Michigan and that allows the fans of the other teams to sleep at night without thinking their team sucks. Rather than "You know, maybe our team just isn't that good." it's "We're better than Michigan but they just get all the calls and the referees favor them." ah good to see that our california friend follows the big ten closely and sees most of the conferences games. Bitching and moaning about penalties is a cop out. There are instances for both teams in which penalties could be called but don't. It's just convenient that every fan of another Big 10 team ONLY remembers the penalties that went against their team and don't remember a single instance in which a penalty called hurt Michigan. And they have happened. I guarantee it and don't need to have watched every Big 10 game to know it. I know you watch college basketball, would you say Duke gets a pretty good advantage from the referees? No more or less than any other team. People just remember the calls that favor Duke because they hate Duke. Explain to me how a jump shooting team shoots more free throws than anyone else. Specifically one that shoots mainly threes. Duke is one of the better teams in the nation and generally has a lot of good players. They play a lot of teams, especially out of conference, that aren't very good. Those teams generally don't have very good players. Good players are going to draw fouls against not very good players because those other players, you know, aren't very good. Right, so how come they still shoot more free throws when they play the just as talented teams in the ACC? Even though they shoot a majority of their shots from behind the three point line and play the most in your face defense of any team in that conference? Yeah, plus I just looked at their non-conference schedule and picked out 3 good teams who were better at getting the ball inside than Duke was last year. Georgetown, Indiana, and Gonzaga. You would expect those teams to dominate Duke on the free throw line. Here are the final totals combined for those 3 games: Duke-76 attempts, Opposition-38.

Notre Dame's defense hasn't stopped Navy all day long. They had to go for it otherwise Navy would run the clock out. I was surprised Weis actually did it, but I think it was the right move even when it was called. Wasn't that Notre Dame's first completion all half? I'd say the odds were better that they'd cost themselves the game with over 5 minutes to go thanks to the great field position they'd give up than to do what they did. Yeah, it was their first completion of the half, but it was also only their their 4th attempt of the half. They haven't had to pass at all because they have been running the ball right at Navy. It was certainly very risky, but when neither team had punted all game long, it didn't seem promising to punt it away. At best, you get the ball back with 4 minutes left and you cannot run the ball down the field like they just did. Plus, it's not like Navy can kick field goals (as shown in this game), so giving it to them on the 30 wasn't as risky because of that.

Notre Dame's defense hasn't stopped Navy all day long. They had to go for it otherwise Navy would run the clock out. I was surprised Weis actually did it, but I think it was the right move even when it was called.

I think Hill is actually in his best situation. He will be the first guy from the minor leagues called up if there is an injury, and Blanco is 38 and had a major injury last year. I doubt he'd get that much chance to be a backup anywhere else right now.

For a team that was supposed to finish 12th or lower in the Eastern Conference, I've been pleasantly surprised by the Pacers start. Their competition hasn't been the best (Washington and Miami without Wade) but that's not the worst competition you can have either. They've played really hard, and their running offense is the such a contrast from the Carlisle walk it up the floor and call a play offense. Two close wins is nice to see, even though there probably will be tough times ahead.

I thought Reyes swung at everything? He did when he came into the league. His walks have jumped from 27 in 2005 to 53 in 2006 to 77 in 2007.