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Considering that Garcia has had 1 season out of 8 where he played worse than Rex this year (and that year he only played 6 games behind one of the worst offensive lines I've seen with a huge deficit most of the time-otherwise known as the Lions :D )-I'm not sure how you can make such a definitive claim. Grossman is far more likely to improve than Garcia. That's true-of course, that's also a big gamble to bet on his improvement IMO.

Considering that Garcia has had 1 season out of 8 where he played worse than Rex this year (and that year he only played 6 games behind one of the worst offensive lines I've seen with a huge deficit most of the time-otherwise known as the Lions :D )-I'm not sure how you can make such a definitive claim.

Who are you playing? Well, I'll answer for Cuse here-they play Illinois and Iowa-Illinois at home and Iowa on the road.

what a d-bag. That sounds awfully hollow after ND just took two recruits who had previously committed to Iowa and Louisville. Different situations. The Iowa recruit consisted pretty much of ND offering and him changing his mind due to the offer. The Louisville recruit was a coaching change, i.e. the coaching change that cost ND a bunch of recruits in 2004-05. However, ND's far from innocent of this. There's a Washington Post article today in which former QB coach Peter Vaas was pursuing Arrelious Benn pretty aggressively after he was committed to Illinois. Funny how it's almost always a different situation when ND is involved. Smith had been committed for almost 6 months and taken multiple visits. He helped recruit others to Iowa. The point is Charlie puts on a face for the cameras that he's all about committment and being honorable about them. He's upset that someone would back out of a committment to him. Yet he has no dilemna's when it comes to trying to snatch away commits from other schools, the very week before signing day. What a man of principle. I don't think many if any in the ND fanbase would consider Weis a "true man of principle". He is from the Belicheck school, that is for sure-and unfortunately, that means they cut certain corners to win. I think he is a great coach, but I'm not sure I like the man. Oh no, what did they do hire a bunch of guys as assistant coaches who are friends with a previously committed to another school's recruit? Now that would be a corner cut. You mean hiring a qualified assistant who happens to know the primary area to recruit very well, and so would be a big help to the program's stated desire (and the fanbase's biggest wish) to get in-state recruiting back to what it used to be? I was very happy with the hire, and didn't even know he was friends with that particular recruit until weeks later. Oh can't you read? I mean it was all over the news that he was best friends with IDKWTI's daddy? All of these coaches cut corners. Some are just better at it. I wish it were a level playing field. Yes, I can read-it probably just wasn't reported on the immediate hiring news, and being an Illinois fan, you didn't pay attention to an Indiana assistant coach being hired (why should you?) until the friendship came out.

what a d-bag. That sounds awfully hollow after ND just took two recruits who had previously committed to Iowa and Louisville. Different situations. The Iowa recruit consisted pretty much of ND offering and him changing his mind due to the offer. The Louisville recruit was a coaching change, i.e. the coaching change that cost ND a bunch of recruits in 2004-05. However, ND's far from innocent of this. There's a Washington Post article today in which former QB coach Peter Vaas was pursuing Arrelious Benn pretty aggressively after he was committed to Illinois. Funny how it's almost always a different situation when ND is involved. Smith had been committed for almost 6 months and taken multiple visits. He helped recruit others to Iowa. The point is Charlie puts on a face for the cameras that he's all about committment and being honorable about them. He's upset that someone would back out of a committment to him. Yet he has no dilemna's when it comes to trying to snatch away commits from other schools, the very week before signing day. What a man of principle. I don't think many if any in the ND fanbase would consider Weis a "true man of principle". He is from the Belicheck school, that is for sure-and unfortunately, that means they cut certain corners to win. I think he is a great coach, but I'm not sure I like the man. Oh no, what did they do hire a bunch of guys as assistant coaches who are friends with a previously committed to another school's recruit? Now that would be a corner cut. You mean hiring a qualified assistant who happens to know the primary area to recruit very well, and so would be a big help to the program's stated desire (and the fanbase's biggest wish) to get in-state recruiting back to what it used to be? I was very happy with the hire, and didn't even know he was friends with that particular recruit until weeks later.

I'd like to say that I completely approve of all of that. I'd like to say it's totally classless... so is hiring a lowlife like thuggins to lead a basketball program. When you hire someone like him, people are going to make jokes about it. LMAO! Like he's any more of a low life than half of the coaches out there. Give me a break. So, the guy got a DUI? So did I years ago, but does that make me a lowlife? It's all preception, but it's very classless of a university newspaper to print something like that. KU cheats and is sanctioned by the NCAA for it, but Huggins is a lowlife... hahahaha! Pot- Kettle! While there are plenty of coaches out there who have made a mistake or two, I'm not sure how many are out there that have the long record Huggins has. 1. His players get arrested many, many times during his tenure, some for serious charges. 2. He gets the school put on decently serious probation for a "lack of institutional control" of the program. 3. His graduation rates were awful. 4. The DUI That doesn't even mention the coaching fact that his teams under-achieved in Marchh consistently, which of course didn't make him popular to Cincy fans who could get past everything else. I don't think he's a terrible hire for a program wanting to go on the way up. However, he has had some sort of controversy around him for the last 15 years, and because of that his reputation is probably the second worst in the country behind Knight. Like I said, some coaches have made some of those mistakes, but not many had such little control of their program as Huggins did in Cincy.

I call that smart coaching. That's why the Devils clutched and grabbed their way to three Stanley Cup titles. If the game isn't being called the way it's supposed to be called, you use that to your advantage. I'm not saying you play dirty and try to hurt other people, but if it involves committing pass interference that the refs aren't calling - that's what you should do. I never said it wasn't smart coaching, but can you imagine coaches like Dungy or any of his tree telling their players to purposely break the rules because the refs aren't calling it? That was my original point-BB is a great coach who wins a great amount of the time, just like Weis. To do that, they are willing to cut a few corners from time to time, including stretching the rules as far as they can go from time to time. Based on what they do on the field occasionally and even more what they have done off the field (BB especially is famous for his violations of "class" behavior), I don't really like either of the men themselves.

They make you file the report on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Under your example, everybody would be probable-people are only supposed to be on the injury report if they actually have some sort of injury right then. Questionable means they are supposed to be 50/50 to play that Sunday-for BB to put Harrison as questionable when he should put him as out instead basically feeds misinformation to the opponent, which is precisely why the NFL cracked down on injury reports in the first place.

what a d-bag. That sounds awfully hollow after ND just took two recruits who had previously committed to Iowa and Louisville. Different situations. The Iowa recruit consisted pretty much of ND offering and him changing his mind due to the offer. The Louisville recruit was a coaching change, i.e. the coaching change that cost ND a bunch of recruits in 2004-05. However, ND's far from innocent of this. There's a Washington Post article today in which former QB coach Peter Vaas was pursuing Arrelious Benn pretty aggressively after he was committed to Illinois. Funny how it's almost always a different situation when ND is involved. Smith had been committed for almost 6 months and taken multiple visits. He helped recruit others to Iowa. The point is Charlie puts on a face for the cameras that he's all about committment and being honorable about them. He's upset that someone would back out of a committment to him. Yet he has no dilemna's when it comes to trying to snatch away commits from other schools, the very week before signing day. What a man of principle. I don't think many if any in the ND fanbase would consider Weis a "true man of principle". He is from the Belicheck school, that is for sure-and unfortunately, that means they cut certain corners to win. I think he is a great coach, but I'm not sure I like the man. When has Belicheck ever cut corners to win? He drafts intelligent players with character because that is the program he wants in place. He certainly doesn't cut corners with the salary cap as the Pats are well under. He even provoked a feud with Mangini because he broke an "unwritten rule" among coaches of the Parcells tree. I would love a couple of instances where Belichek "cut corners" just to win. And to defend Weis, can a kid not decommit after a head coach leaves? The coach wasn't loyal to the kid yet the kid is supposed to be loyal to the program? And is offering a life-long fan of the program whos father actually played at the school considered cutting corners? Peter Vaas did still contact Benn and sent some pretty weird text messages to the kid as the report said. Peter Vaas is no longer with the program, and Weis offered recruiting practices as reason for his dismissal. Number one: Belicheck basically laughs in the face of the NFL's insistence on a proper injury report. He puts players like Rodney Harrison as questionable even when he knows they are going to be out for the next several weeks. He put Brady as probable on the injury report the entire season even though Brady really admits there's no injury (although that's of course a less severe instance than the first one). Second, it is pretty well known that BB instructs his players to go as far as they can as much as the refs will allow that day, even if it's technically against the rules. For example, the Patriots-Colts game of 2003 showed that BB's game plan was to keep committing penalties on the Colts receivers down the field and to challenge the referees to keep calling it on the Patriots. When they did not in that game, their team kept doing it, and would have continued to that degree if the NFL didn't make sure the referees enforced the rule after the season. Also, BB physically blocked Marvin Harrison from getting back unto the field of play to make a tackle after an INT (it probably hasn't been seen by most people, but I can completely verify that it is true, and it is not likely whatsoever that it was an accident). You are right-the Patriots players as a whole are honorable people who play the game the right way-BB is a coach who knows how to get them to win, and does not encourage his team to play dirty (as it seems certain coaches do by the way they respond to their team's dirty play, and I'm thinking of one coach in particular in the NFL :D)-however, BB has never been known as a coach who completely plays by the rules, but tries to stretch certain things as much as he can get away with for his team's advantage. I gotta ask, should I be bothered by this? No-it is a team in the Colts division, but it is certainly not Jeff Fisher.

Why wouldn't he develop? I don't see why he wouldn't. Many great QBs didn't take their teams anywhere near the Super Bowl in their first full years. I won't bother naming names because I'm not going to try to compare Grossman to great QBs, but it's true nonetheless. And "he had a great defense" excuse just doesn't cut it. The Bears defense was quite mediocre throughout the entire 2nd half of the season, and in the playoffs. Grossman should develop, so long as he doesn't let the hack job artists into his head. Those who said Grossman would never take this team to the Super Bowl are desperate for him to fail now that they've been shown to be wrong. Even if it hurts the Bears, many in Chicago will try their hardest to unseat this player. The question is-is he developing fast enough? He might have been in his first full season last year, but he also will be 27 before the start of the year next year. While that's certainly not old for a QB, he's certainly at a cross-roads in his career-most QB's don't start developing that late, even those who haven't had the starting experience. He really has to show that development next season, or he'll be written off like some of the other QB's of his draft class have already (Boller, Leftwich). He could develop and be a very good player, or he could fail to take the next step as those two QB's did and settle for being a backup most of his career-only time will tell I guess. Doesnt it seem that franchise quarterbacks (im not saying grossman is....yet) either start right away or sit for two or more years? For every brady, manning who started immediately there was mcnair, pennington, hasselbeck, bulger who spent two or more years sitting. Well, technically Brady didn't start right away-he didn't come on for relief of Bledsoe until Bledsoe got hurt during Brady's second year. You are right though that there are a significant number of QB's who have sat the bench a couple of years before starting-the key is those QB's usually get a lot less latitude then somebody who starts from his rookie year. If they didn't put up a good season in the 1st two seasons that they started, they probably would never have gotten a job again, and many of them did well their first season starting.

what a d-bag. That sounds awfully hollow after ND just took two recruits who had previously committed to Iowa and Louisville. Different situations. The Iowa recruit consisted pretty much of ND offering and him changing his mind due to the offer. The Louisville recruit was a coaching change, i.e. the coaching change that cost ND a bunch of recruits in 2004-05. However, ND's far from innocent of this. There's a Washington Post article today in which former QB coach Peter Vaas was pursuing Arrelious Benn pretty aggressively after he was committed to Illinois. Funny how it's almost always a different situation when ND is involved. Smith had been committed for almost 6 months and taken multiple visits. He helped recruit others to Iowa. The point is Charlie puts on a face for the cameras that he's all about committment and being honorable about them. He's upset that someone would back out of a committment to him. Yet he has no dilemna's when it comes to trying to snatch away commits from other schools, the very week before signing day. What a man of principle. I don't think many if any in the ND fanbase would consider Weis a "true man of principle". He is from the Belicheck school, that is for sure-and unfortunately, that means they cut certain corners to win. I think he is a great coach, but I'm not sure I like the man. When has Belicheck ever cut corners to win? He drafts intelligent players with character because that is the program he wants in place. He certainly doesn't cut corners with the salary cap as the Pats are well under. He even provoked a feud with Mangini because he broke an "unwritten rule" among coaches of the Parcells tree. I would love a couple of instances where Belichek "cut corners" just to win. And to defend Weis, can a kid not decommit after a head coach leaves? The coach wasn't loyal to the kid yet the kid is supposed to be loyal to the program? And is offering a life-long fan of the program whos father actually played at the school considered cutting corners? Peter Vaas did still contact Benn and sent some pretty weird text messages to the kid as the report said. Peter Vaas is no longer with the program, and Weis offered recruiting practices as reason for his dismissal. Number one: Belicheck basically laughs in the face of the NFL's insistence on a proper injury report. He puts players like Rodney Harrison as questionable even when he knows they are going to be out for the next several weeks. He put Brady as probable on the injury report the entire season even though Brady really admits there's no injury (although that's of course a less severe instance than the first one). Second, it is pretty well known that BB instructs his players to go as far as they can as much as the refs will allow that day, even if it's technically against the rules. For example, the Patriots-Colts game of 2003 showed that BB's game plan was to keep committing penalties on the Colts receivers down the field and to challenge the referees to keep calling it on the Patriots. When they did not in that game, their team kept doing it, and would have continued to that degree if the NFL didn't make sure the referees enforced the rule after the season. Also, BB physically blocked Marvin Harrison from getting back unto the field of play to make a tackle after an INT (it probably hasn't been seen by most people, but I can completely verify that it is true, and it is not likely whatsoever that it was an accident). You are right-the Patriots players as a whole are honorable people who play the game the right way-BB is a coach who knows how to get them to win, and does not encourage his team to play dirty (as it seems certain coaches do by the way they respond to their team's dirty play, and I'm thinking of one coach in particular in the NFL :D)-however, BB has never been known as a coach who completely plays by the rules, but tries to stretch certain things as much as he can get away with for his team's advantage.

Why wouldn't he develop? I don't see why he wouldn't. Many great QBs didn't take their teams anywhere near the Super Bowl in their first full years. I won't bother naming names because I'm not going to try to compare Grossman to great QBs, but it's true nonetheless. And "he had a great defense" excuse just doesn't cut it. The Bears defense was quite mediocre throughout the entire 2nd half of the season, and in the playoffs. Grossman should develop, so long as he doesn't let the hack job artists into his head. Those who said Grossman would never take this team to the Super Bowl are desperate for him to fail now that they've been shown to be wrong. Even if it hurts the Bears, many in Chicago will try their hardest to unseat this player. The question is-is he developing fast enough? He might have been in his first full season last year, but he also will be 27 before the start of the year next year. While that's certainly not old for a QB, he's certainly at a cross-roads in his career-most QB's don't start developing that late, even those who haven't had the starting experience. He really has to show that development next season, or he'll be written off like some of the other QB's of his draft class have already (Boller, Leftwich). He could develop and be a very good player, or he could fail to take the next step as those two QB's did and settle for being a backup most of his career-only time will tell I guess.

what a d-bag. That sounds awfully hollow after ND just took two recruits who had previously committed to Iowa and Louisville. Different situations. The Iowa recruit consisted pretty much of ND offering and him changing his mind due to the offer. The Louisville recruit was a coaching change, i.e. the coaching change that cost ND a bunch of recruits in 2004-05. However, ND's far from innocent of this. There's a Washington Post article today in which former QB coach Peter Vaas was pursuing Arrelious Benn pretty aggressively after he was committed to Illinois. Funny how it's almost always a different situation when ND is involved. Smith had been committed for almost 6 months and taken multiple visits. He helped recruit others to Iowa. The point is Charlie puts on a face for the cameras that he's all about committment and being honorable about them. He's upset that someone would back out of a committment to him. Yet he has no dilemna's when it comes to trying to snatch away commits from other schools, the very week before signing day. What a man of principle. I don't think many if any in the ND fanbase would consider Weis a "true man of principle". He is from the Belicheck school, that is for sure-and unfortunately, that means they cut certain corners to win. I think he is a great coach, but I'm not sure I like the man.

That wasn't in free agency though-big difference. True. But not a 4 year and $102 million difference. :cry: Apparently this year's market says differently-the Soriano contract was apparently not like the A-Rod contract where the Rangers bid much higher than anyone else was going to go-someone was going to pay Soriano 120+ million this year. Soriano got what is market value in his market-so did Hall. They just happen to be in completely different markets. Obviously, I'd rather have Hall at his salary-but he wasn't available for us to sign.

Well, I guess once again this proves that Bears fans are full of passion-this one thought so much that his team was going to win that now he has to change his name-to Peyton Manning :D http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,250652,00.html

That wasn't in free agency though-big difference.

Why are the backups even being compared here? Even so, I'd much rather have Blanco, so that point's null. That's my only complaint. The rest is at least semi-debatable. I read the rest, but I had a hard time after that first one-to give the catcher edge to the Brewers, which is one of the positions that the Cubs have the biggest edges at made it extremely hard to put value on the rest of it, although I do agree with many of the other positions (although certainly not all of them).

Sorry for the little OT (especially ND OT) but they were interviewing one of the recruits who signed today, Kerry Neal, and he said "I'll be looking forward to playing in ND's new 3-4 defense, and I guess I'll be one of those DE/OLB types"-I didn't even know the team had switched defenses like that! I guess some news just flies on by-I was just surprised.

I guess USC is trying out the fantasy draft strategy-if they get all the RB's, they'll win for sure-they had 3 backs last year, and now they've added 2 more stars? I don't quite get why every back wants to go and get 5 carries maybe, but I guess we'll have to see how it all works out.

How many players did you guys get from Jersey? I'd have to look. First time in forever that we got none from Maryland (got 6 from there last year) EDIT: According to rivals.com, we have 7 from PA, 2 from MI, 2 from NC, 1 from CA, 2 from DE, 1 from OH, 3 from NY, 1 from IL and 1 from VA. Shocked that there are none from NJ or MD. Those are usually "pipeline" states for us Wow...none? I didn't expect that, I thought a couple but none is surprising. I wonder how many ND got? We have 6 possibly 7 from NJ this year but no 4 or more star guys. I see 2 from NJ for ND so far (at least 1 is an impact player)-I'm not sure if there will be any more.

It really is-all you can do is build a consistently successful team, and hope they can find a way to win 1 or 2 championships-if they win more, that's of course a huge bonus.

The Bus finally got a ring, that's the last Super Bowl I remember. All of that has been blocked from my memory. I don't see why you'd have to block anything from memory, that makes it all the sweeter. I agree to an extent, but that one really really hurt. I did my best to forget that game as soon as "he missed it". Yeah, that 2005 Colts team was the best Colts team I have ever seen-great offense, good defense, good special teams. They just had the tragedy and then too much rest for the key people, and they took 3 quarters off and it was 1 quarter too much. That was a tough one to swallow for sure-in the playoffs, the 2006 team finally started looking somewhat like the 2005 version again.

He didn't say that someone should be put on the roster only as an emergency catcher-he just asked if anybody currently on the roster could serve as an emergency catcher. While it may not come up during the season, it's still a good thing to know.

If he gets traded, does he still have the option to opt-out? If you trade for A-Rod, and then use 2007 to rebuild, he'll just opt out rather than stay with a losing team-and then you lose Z for nothing. Per Cots Interesting on that second one... And the MLBPA wouldn't approve of him just giving up his opt-outs for nothing. And I don't think theres any way to get around the fact that he can opt to become a FA the offseason after a mid-contract trade. But of course he has a no trade clause so he'd have to approve coming here in the first place. That's true-which means that frost's scenario probably wouldn't work. I can't see any way that A-Rod would approve a trade to a team that was in rebuilding mode.

When I saw the replay, I thought his leg bent back right before he actually was down (he landed on somebody else first, so he wasn't actually down at the beginning). Maybe I'm wrong though-I'm sure it wasn't intentional either way though.