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Maybe he's not talking about taking Russell over Quinn, but rather, teams like Detroit who have Jon Kitna at QB and are years away from contending, but going for something other than QB. There are teams between Oakland and Miami that need QB's, but from all accounts aren't looking to draft one. A lot of people believe a franchise QB is absolutely vital, and should be selected above anything else. If I were Detroit, I'd take the fatty from Wisconsin. The Lions' offensive line has been brutal for years. Kitna isn't great but he'd be serviceable if anybody could protect him. If they draft Quinn or whoever, he'll just be a bust because he'll be constantly under pressure, and no quarterback can succeed like that. I definitely agree with this.

I like Quinn and think he's the most sure thing of the QBs, but that blanket statement is a little too much in my opinion. I fully expect Quinn to have the better career. But he can't touch Russell talent wise. I see this as a situation similar to last year's with Leinart and Vince. Leinart was more of a sure thing, Vince had far more upside (but was less likely to be good). Except Young's upside came from unbelievable athleticism that Russel doesn't have at all. Size, strength, arm strength. And I do think Russell is a better athlete. I think Quinn is as polished as it gets as a college QB. How much better can he get in the NFL? Russell put up great numbers against better competition than Quinn and still has some development left. Quinn against defenses ranked top-35 in 2005-06: 2,301 yards, 18 TDs, 6 INTs in 9 games Russell against ranked teams for his career: 15 TDs, 17 INTs Russell against ranked teams last year: 8 TDs, 7 INTs That's what I don't understand, not to mention that ND's schedule strength was a little better than LSU's was last year.

Is Rocky a given name on his birth certificate or is a nickname from another name? I always wonder how people get named Rocky. I'm not sure about Mr. Cherry, but I know that parents can be very cruel in naming children. I heard of a family where I lived with the last name of Road who named their two sons Rocky and Dusty. I also went to school with Sunshine Monday and Mary Christmas.

If the Bears stay close to the cap limit and pay their coaches well, what more can they do? Major market doesn't mean nearly as much in football because every team spends about the same-about the only difference is that owners with more money can sometimes come up with multiple big signing bonuses in one year, but that money still has to be managed under the cap-it's more of an actual payroll thing of when the cash is paid than anything. I don't wish to belabor this any longer, but 20 mill under is the near the cap, in your opinion? Again, let's wait and see what happens. I'll be happy to be proven wrong in this case. They were 20 million under during last season?

If the Bears stay close to the cap limit and pay their coaches well, what more can they do? Major market doesn't mean nearly as much in football because every team spends about the same-about the only difference is that owners with more money can sometimes come up with multiple big signing bonuses in one year, but that money still has to be managed under the cap-it's more of an actual payroll thing of when the cash is paid than anything.

They aren't 20 under the cap every year, and the McGinnis thing was the straw that broke the camels back. I'm talking about the Phillips/Angelo Bears. There is no reason why this had to get done earlier. There were people who got freaked out by it and those who didn't. Instead of blaming the Bears for freaking people out, I put the onus on the freakers. All of the evidence point to this team being run much differently than it was when free agency first started. People who work in pro sports do honor contracts. If you fire a guy, you still have to pay him everything that is guaranteed. It does not make an organization cheap when they sign a guy to a contract and pay him what that contract stipulates. Some organizations like to throw money at all of their problems. I don't think it's done a whole lot for Snyder, nor has it helped Jerry Jones. Other organizations are more pragmatic when it comes to expenditures, like Philly, New England and the Bears. People will scoff at comparing the Bears with those organizations, but the fact is the current regime has ammassed the most talented team in their conference and have set-up the team for lasting success. They have a president who hired his current GM who hired his current head coach, and a head coach who is being allowed to have the coaching staff he wants to keep. I'm not sure I would want to be compared to the Patriots anymore-the Patriots being so cheap and being 20 million under the cap probably cost them the Super Bowl last year. Now, I do understand what you're saying, and the Bears the last few years have done a really good job of prioritizing who to throw money at and who not to. It should set them up well for the future.

No it isn't. Fair market value is based on what the market is willing to give you. If you don't hit the market, there's no judging of what that market is. Coaches hit free agency all the time. College coaches are virtual free agents at all times, as are most coordinators. Then you have your steady supply of former head coaches not under contract. Yes, it is-and Lovie would have been paid by a team. Just as we know what Z's approximate value by looking at similar players even though he has not hit the market yet, so we can know Lovie's market value by looking at what similar successful coaches have received. simply looking at and citing what other coaches have gotten is not what fair market value means, though. we have no idea what the market would have been for lovie, maybe mike holmgren money, who knows? lovie may have gotten his money but he would have had to wait to receive "fair market value". this point has been driven home lately by chicago radio personalities, so if you want to debate "fair market value" with someone, call boers and bernsy today at the score between 2 and 6, dan bernsetin will be more than willing to share with you what the term means. This is all about wording? Ok, he got a salary that is comparable to other coaches with some success on their resumes. Being that it was comparable, his deal was a "fair" deal, and all the talk about the Bears underpaying him can end. Is that better?

No it isn't. Fair market value is based on what the market is willing to give you. If you don't hit the market, there's no judging of what that market is. Coaches hit free agency all the time. College coaches are virtual free agents at all times, as are most coordinators. Then you have your steady supply of former head coaches not under contract. Yes, it is-and Lovie would have been paid by a team. Just as we know what Z's approximate value by looking at similar players even though he has not hit the market yet, so we can know Lovie's market value by looking at what similar successful coaches have received.

102 RBI for Soriano in the leadoff spot? with Izturis in the 8-hole? I don't know, that's crazy talk if I ever heard it. Not really-Soriano had 95 RBI's last year getting a .244/.318/.326 out of the 8 spot, and a .183/.243/.269 out of the 9 spot. That should be able to be at least duplicated by Cub hitters, and quite possibly exceeded-also considering the Cubs will likely score more runs than the Nationals did, so Soriano will get more AB's and more RBI chances-I don't see how 102 is crazy at all if he hits 40 HR again. plate appearances, plate appearances. He'll get more of both :D

the thing that gets me is that they didn't even need to give him "fair market value" as he was never on the market. they had a closed negotiation going on, lovie was never a free agent. the bears proved to be more than fair. Fair market value is based on what other coaches have received with extensions. Coaches don't go on the FA market very often, as teams give their coaches about what other similar coaches have gotten. Lovie's deal is very fair-in fact, it's very similar to the deal Dungy got a couple of years ago.

102 RBI for Soriano in the leadoff spot? with Izturis in the 8-hole? I don't know, that's crazy talk if I ever heard it. Not really-Soriano had 95 RBI's last year getting a .244/.318/.326 out of the 8 spot, and a .183/.243/.269 out of the 9 spot. That should be able to be at least duplicated by Cub hitters, and quite possibly exceeded-also considering the Cubs will likely score more runs than the Nationals did, so Soriano will get more AB's and more RBI chances-I don't see how 102 is crazy at all if he hits 40 HR again.

Didn't Manning give the Colts a little salary relief too or was that another QB? Yeah, although it really was an accounting move that was expected since the day that he signed the contract. Basically, he had a 10 million dollar signing (roster) bonus, which was going to count all against the cap, and they converted it to a signing bonus, and now only 2 million of it will count against this year's cap. Thanks for the help-guess I started thinking faster than I typed. I have edited it now.

I think Norm Charlton, Randy Myers, and Rob Dibble might disagree with you. Those 3 did have somewhat of a closer by committee, but except for 1 year, there was a clear preference on closer-it just changed from year to year. 1990 Myers-31 saves Dibble-11 Charlton-2 Layana-2 1991 Dibble-31 Myers-6 Power-3 2 others with 1 1992 Charlton-26 Dibble-25 Bankhead-1 By 1993, Charlton and Myers were gone. The Reds never really had a 3 way closer by committee-1 year they went with a true 2-headed closer by committee, but the other years they had a clear closer and went to another option not nearly as often.

Didn't Manning give the Colts a little salary relief too or was that another QB? Yeah, although it really was an accounting move that was expected since the day that he signed the contract. Basically, he had a 10 million dollar roster bonus, which was going to count all against the cap, and they converted it to a signing bonus, and now only 2 million of it will count against this year's cap.

The Colts are expected to release Brandon Stokley-he's been speculated to be one of the top FA wide receivers because the FA receiving class is so weak. The Colts would have been paying him a whole lot of money in the next 3 years, and with the Colts liking to go with 2 tight ends and Stokely being injured a pretty good amount, it just came down to him not being really worth it.

I would take that also. I figured they could get a second rounder from some team. I don't know how reputable KNBR is as far as reporting rumors but they are the major sports radio station out here. Why not go after Carr and use the 1st pick on Johnson? That's what I would do. David Carr might retire, that's why-he went from one of the worst lines in history to go to another of the worst lines in history-that would be some of the worst luck for him I've ever seen if that happened :D

So a team desperate for a second baseman can't go out and pick one up off free agency in May? It seems like that rule has many exceptions. Besides, I don't understand the spirit of the rule in the first place. Why exactly does Clemens have to play the whole year anyway? I mean, I'm not happy whatsoever what he's doing either, but it's just as much the fault of all the teams interested for letting him do whatever he wants.

Thanks for posting this Raisin-little things like this make me turn on the game just in time to see the series of timeouts and than Law's shot. It's always nice to see the end of a great game.

This is why I think having "power" at "traditional power position", is sometimes overrated. I agree, it's definitely overrated. You need power hitters on your team, that's certain, but what position it comes from is really irrelevant. I think that old baseball rule comes from the fact that there are more power hitting corner outfielders than shortstops and second basemen. However, that is itself a result of the emphasis of defense at other positions, so guys that are below average defensively but great hitters seem to invariably get moved to LF, RF, or if they're relatively surehanded and/or morbidly slow, 1B. That's what it really is-Murton happens to play a position where the offensive standards are much higher because all the top offensive people who struggle defensively get moved there. Normally you have to get a power threat from the corners because there is so few possible power threats from the middle. The Cubs though happen to have a couple of them, and that really allows them to have sufficient power without the need to replace Murton. It usually though is easier to find both a Murton type player up the middle and a power option in the corners then to try to procure power up the middle-the Cubs are fortunate to be in a situation where they can have flexibility at some of their other positions with their needs because of people like Barrett and Soriano.

http://www.profootballtalk.com/rumormill.htm PFT nails another one. Well, I did say that it wasn't that trustworthy, cut me some slack here :D That's great news to hear about Lovie's extension-he's a great coach, and he will continue to serve you well. I'm very happy for all of you.

Can someone (CCP or someone else) explain why the gap would be getting wider? Why would OBP be getting less predictive and OPS more predictive over the years? I can explain this. There are several reasons. The chart you guys looked at should be thrown down the drain. It's only four seasons looking at fourteen teams each season. To jump to any correlation conclusions with n=14 for 4 sets is a bit premature. Of course you guys are right, the relative correlation coefficients have indeed been spacing out a bit. There are reasons for this, but here's the graph since 1900 which each season (both leagues, with the exception of 1900). Generally speaking the standard deviation for the league in OBP and OPS have both gone down over the last one hundred years, but it's been more vital for OBP as it has gone down quicker. The standard deviation is included in the correlation coefficient. Secondly, comparing the change in this to the change in the standard deviation of OPS isn't smart. You should use SLG, because slugging has a much higher rate and over the last thirty seasons it has obviously had a greater impact on scoring runs. So it's driven out some of the correlation so to speak for OBP. eh i dont mean SLG as much as I mean IsoP. http://img410.imageshack.us/img410/6530/charts1yx2.gif Thanks for the explanation. I actually used more stats that were in the chart (that was Tim's work) but my research had only gone back about 10 years or so over all of the major leagues-so I'm very happy that you posted that, because it was much more succinct that anything I would have done.

http://www.profootballtalk.com/rumormill.htm The bolded isn't even close to true. I'm not exactly sure how you can be sure of that-there has been no report that says that the Bears are likely to pay Lovie what his value is. That doesn't mean it still won't happen, but it's certainly not a sure thing that they are willing to pay him 5 million.

I know PFT is not the most reliable of places, so this could be completely false. However, they do break things from time to time, so I just thought that I'd throw this out there: http://www.profootballtalk.com/rumormill.htm

Thank you, and thanks for the correction. Since OBP is more predictive than SLG, it would suggest that some OPS formula that somehow places more value on OBP would possibly be even better. That's true, and is the weight that Sully is saying-it's not nearly as large as is sometimes reported (3 to 1, 4 to 1?-that's just crazy-the numbers do not indicate that OBP is nearly that important) but there should be a small weight added to OBP to make OPS even more predictive.

Ok, here is Tim's article on it from a couple years back: http://www.northsidebaseball.com/Articles/ArticleText.php?ArticleID=47 OPS was easily the most predictive, and from my looks at the last couple years of statistics, that gap is just getting wider.