CubColtPacer

Nice call. Won by 15 despite an insane difference in FTs. What was it like 34-18, with 10 of those coming in game lengthening time for IU? I would have been disappointed with anything other than a double digit win at home, against a weak UM team. That's now 11 in a row for the RED over the Blue. The Wisconsin game will be interesting. UW hasn't dominated recently, and they haven't dominated at all on the road this year. The game is actually on Wednesday, which is great for IU. UW plays tomorrow on the road at Iowa, has to travel back, before travelling again to Bloomington, and IU has an extra day of rest. Indiana is 11-0 at home, scoring almost 20 more points per game in Bloomington. The key is who dictates the matchups. UW is much bigger than IU. If IU gets beat up inside by the bigger Badgers, UW will win. IF IU can shoot and drive around the slower Badgers, Hoosiers will win. Not a good matchup for Lance Stemler defensively. But I think IU can take advantage and make Tucker work on D against a quick guard that will take it off the dribble like Shaw or Ratliff. I agree with those keys to the game. It's really too bad that this is the one game out of the last 6 that isn't being shown nationally-and then the next one that isn't is the next Purdue game! I just don't understand the TV coverage sometimes-I can't wait to get back up to Indiana next year.

Yeah, it's simply a mammoth game. Lose, and the best IU can really hope for this season is 3rd. Win, and they are right back in the chase for one of the top 2 spots. It will be interesting to see if IU can contain Wisconsin's size. It's just my opinion, but I think OSU and Wisconsin are on another level than Indiana (or anyone else in the B10, for that matter). Hoping for a 1 or 2 finish is being very optimistic. I don't disagree that they are better teams than IU, but IU has a distinct schedule advantage. If the Hoosiers win Wednesday (and I'll conceed that is far from a lock), they will be 1 loss behind UW and OSU, and they are done with both teams. UW and the Buckeyes still play in Columbus, so that will be a second loss for one of them, tying IU. IU has the following road games left: at Iowa, at Purdue, at Michigan, at NU, and at MSU. Other than MSU there is nothing too scary there. IU still has a long way to go, and they'll need some help, but it is quite possible they make a run at the UW-OSU loser for 2nd in the Big Ten. Exactly. IMO, after Wednesday the Hoosiers will have played their 3 hardest games of the conference season (OSU at OSU, Wisconsin at home, at Illinois). After Wednesday, IU has Illinois, Minnesota, and Penn State at home-with the only realistic loss possibility coming to Illinois, and I see IU getting up for that game. On the road, they should hopefully beat Northwestern at NU, which leaves Michigan, Purdue, Iowa, and Michigan State. Beat Wisconsin on Wednesday, and the Hoosiers have a great shot at 12-4 with a decent possibility of being 13-3 in conference. I think 13-3 in that scenario would get the Hoosiers the 2 seed in the Big 10 tourney.

Yeah, it's simply a mammoth game. Lose, and the best IU can really hope for this season is 3rd. Win, and they are right back in the chase for one of the top 2 spots. It will be interesting to see if IU can contain Wisconsin's size.

The Colts won't really be "away" and remember, this team has traditionally been incredible on the road. In fact, I'm pretty sure under Dungy, the Colts home and road record is almost identical. I don't know what happened to make us lose 4 in a row like that (and btw, you forgot the Giants game), but it certainly seems to be corrected now, and the Ravens game didn't look anything like the Jags or Texans games, which were simply embarrassing. Just pointing out that this year, they haven't been as good away from the dome as they are in it. That is a very valid point-I was just pointing out that they historically have been very good on the road, and this year they were very good on the road (winning at NYG, NYJ, Denver, and NE-all quality teams) before suddenly forgetting how to play on the road for a little while-it seems like just an aberration now though.

The Colts won't really be "away" and remember, this team has traditionally been incredible on the road. In fact, I'm pretty sure under Dungy, the Colts home and road record is almost identical. I don't know what happened to make us lose 4 in a row like that (and btw, you forgot the Giants game), but it certainly seems to be corrected now, and the Ravens game didn't look anything like the Jags or Texans games, which were simply embarrassing.

I wouldn't have a problem with worst to first, but how often does it happen? I'll go into it with an open mind because he did do some good this offseason, but something does need to happen this year for him to retain his job. I have a feeling if they are at least in contention for most of the year Hendry will keep his job. Remember that he has a contract through 2008, and if the team shows that improvement they'll let him have his last year of the deal to see if he can get the team into the playoffs.

It's also mind numbingly boring to not compete against an opponent all year. That's what I was thinking-roto more accurately displays your skill, but head to head is more fun, and for a newbie who might take a month or two to get acclimated head to head is much better, because a new person could make a comeback in a head to head league, while some roto leagues if you don't get out to a good start you're just about finished for the entire year.

I hate hate hate hate hate hate this argument. The taking their record and projecting additions? So do I-especially considering 2 things. 1) The Cubs tanked most of the end of the season in order to do their more valuable thing of figuring out who could contribute in 2007, and 2) Sometimes even one change can turn a losing team into a winning team, or vice versa. I'd rather just throw out the 2006 record almost entirely and just compare the team directly to the other teams in the league and division-if they are better, then they are better.

Of course, Peyton IS prominently on the cover of SI. :twisted: Plus, he posted these in the Saints thread and it didn't seem to hurt too much. Well there is another SI that will come out before the Super Bowl is played. The question I have is, if the Bears are featured on the cover for next week, will neither team win? Will anarchy ensue? Maybe the world will end. Who knows. The SI cover has been denied so many times the past few years that now it is pretty much agreed that curse has moved on, and the curse already hit the Madden cover winner this year. Thankfully, Madden has never chosen Peyton to grace its cover, and hopefully never will.

I would agree with that. One thing to add to that is that he is still going to get a little more respect from pitchers because of 2005. He did at the beginning of last year, and I expect that to continue this year. With Lee's good eye, that should at least result in a high OBP, even if his SLG does not come all the way back (and at least at the start of the year last year before the injury, Lee was starting just as he left off with a 1.062 OPS in April). I see somewhere about halfway in between 2005 and his normal year overall.

A couple decent points in that article, but mostly simply awful. I wonder if he wrote the things like the X factor and so on at the bottom-from those, it seems like that person gives the Bears more of a chance. I wonder if he completely believes what he's writing, or is trying to be sensational.

He is being highly critical of the Bears near loss to Arizona. Yet Indy did lose 4 times, to teams that were anywhere from mediocre to bad. This guy has been wrong so often on SI for as long as I can remember. I actually think he has made a name for himself by being so inapt. Bears as the worst team last year was just beyond absurd. I thought they were a lock for about a 9-7 season. That team stood no chance of being worst in the league. he has admitted in the past that he has had problems with people in the organization, both past and present. Picking them to lose to Indy is perfectly reasonable. They should be the underdog, and I don't even think 7 points is absurd. But Z is acting as if the Bears stand no chance. He's such an NFC east homer it's shocking when he's able to talk about any team outside the area. This is one thing that Colts fans and Bears fans can agree on-most Colts fans take absolutely no stock in any of his predictions whatsoever-he could flip a coin and probably get better results than he does.

That really doesn't make any sense to me. Haddad tried to file civil charges, and the case got dismissed halfway through the trial because Haddad was lying about just about everything :D. What's next? Are those two guys who attacked the Royals first base coach going to sue the Royals for beating on them after they entered the field? I never understood why Jermaine was involved in the first place (and believe me, I was very critical of the other two players at the time, especially Stephen Jackson). Isn't what JO did about the same as what the Royals players did-simply beat on a guy who came on to the court looking for trouble, even after the initial danger was over with?

Reported by Bill Polian on a radio show, Nick Harper "worked out today and looked good". He didn't specify what type of workouts, but that's still encouraging news.

What kind of leverage does he have? How about a 8 to 9 million dollar initial football contract-that sounds like pretty good leverage to me. (that's about what Santonio Holmes signed for-which sounds about right for Samardzija's draft status if he concentrated on football).

I see an obvious way around it. Addai and Rhodes have the benefit of playing with the Indy passing game. Benson and Jones do much of their work on their own. I think the Bears have a clear RB advantage, while Indy has a clear passing game advantage. The Bears line is also much better run blockers, while the Indy line, while getting better, is still primarily a pass blocking line. It's hard to tell if that would completely eliminate the QB advantage though or just eliminate some of it.

Push. Yeah, I tend to agree. If someone has a edge here, it's probably pretty slight. I would have to agree-the RB's are dead even. Maybe I'm being a homer, but I think the Bears RBs are better...but thats not taking a lot away from the Colts RBs who I think are good. I think Jones and Addai are about a push, but I think Benson is better then Rhodes Everyone is certainly entitled to their opinion, but there's no way IMHO to definitively judge the RB duos of the game, especially since Addai was used progressively through the season. Both duos had a great regular season and have been solid in the postseason. As big of a fan of Addai as I am right now, I'd say the RB matchup is as even of any matchup in the SB. Addai was a really good pickup for you guys. YOu guys didn't lose much getting rid of Edge. They gained by it. Edge was hitting the wall, and Indy wisely saw it. True-there was a lot of criticism for the Colts signing Reggie Wayne to the big deal and not signing Edgerrin. It reminded me of the Manning vs. Leaf debate, and then the why Edgerrin over Ricky Williams crowd. Polian has proved himself to be smarter than the fans so many times. What I find amazing is the Colts first picks in the draft. I'm not sure a team has ever been this great in the first round (and first pick one time when the Colts traded down) in the history of the game. Here are the Colts first picks since 1996. 1996-Marvin Harrison, WR (4th receiver taken) 1997-Tarik Glenn, OT 1998-Peyton Manning, QB 1999-Edgerrin James, RB 2000-Rob Morris, LB 2001-Reggie Wayne, WR 2002-Dwight Freeney, DE 2003-Dallas Clark, TE 2004-Bob Sanders, S (taken in the second round with the Colts first pick after they traded down) 2005-Marlin Jackson, CB 2006-Joseph Addai, RB Look at that list-there are only 3 people taken in the top half of the first round (Manning, James, Freeney). Freeney, Harrison, Wayne, Clark, and Sanders were widely criticized as being reaches. All of them with the exception of Edgerrin were key factors in beating the Patriots last week. They haven't had a single true bust in over a decade, and have built their unbelievable offense and defensive playmakers out of basically their first round picks. That is simply amazing to me.

Push. Yeah, I tend to agree. If someone has a edge here, it's probably pretty slight. I would have to agree-the RB's are dead even. Maybe I'm being a homer, but I think the Bears RBs are better...but thats not taking a lot away from the Colts RBs who I think are good. I think Jones and Addai are about a push, but I think Benson is better then Rhodes Everyone is certainly entitled to their opinion, but there's no way IMHO to definitively judge the RB duos of the game, especially since Addai was used progressively through the season. Both duos had a great regular season and have been solid in the postseason. As big of a fan of Addai as I am right now, I'd say the RB matchup is as even of any matchup in the SB. I would agree with that. If you look at their averages during the regular season, both the Bears RB's were at 4.1. The Colts RB's? 4.8 for Addai, 3.4 for Rhodes, which just happens to average out at 4.1 YPC. That position is as even as it can possibly get, and is the only one besides possibly kickers with the way Gould is kicking that can really be called that way

Well, not to nit-pick, but there are 6 or 7 teams in the NFL without a #3 QB (at least there were the last time I heard the stat, either last year or this year), including the Colts. In fact, the Colts #3 is their punter, Hunter Smith.

Push. Yeah, I tend to agree. If someone has a edge here, it's probably pretty slight. I would have to agree-the RB's are dead even.

That's just silly. You can't expect the media to miss a day of hype. Plus, with an 8:30 pm interview session they might miss dinner. :lol: It's still silly. If I were the Colts, I'd arrive an extra day late just to make 'em more mad. What's the penalty for showing up late I wonder? Penalty is forfeiture of the game. BEARS win the Super Bowl! I don't think that Bears fans would be very happy about that either-there's simply no satisfaction ain a win by forfeit.

That might be mitigated by 55+ starts of Zambrano and Marquis though. zambrano's home runs are nice, but somewhat mitigated by the fact that he hit .151 and drew one walk last season. plus marquis hit 179/210/256 last year. i dont think they're mitigating much. Based on their careers, both of them should be significantly better at the plate next year than they were last year. career lines z=212/223/355 marquis marq= 223/241/316 which is a decent jump, and when you consider that last year affected both of their career lines (and while small, a decent percentage of their total at bats for their career), their lines before last year were even better than that, and much better than an average pitcher.

Proof that the media is trying to take over everything, even though the Colts are following the rules: http://cbs.sportsline.com/nfl/story/9954505

There are two big problems with your graph. One is that you are calling 2002 a "Hendry year" and its totally not. He was signed as GM in July of that year and had little time to alter the make up of the team for the 2nd half of the season. It is really unfair to hold Hendry responsible for any of the team's results in '02. That roster was fully set before he took control. The first chance he really had to put his stamp on the team was the '02-'03 off season, and we all know what happened the following year. But I don't hold him solely responsible for getting the Cubs in the playoffs that year. A lot of things went right that he couldn't possibly have been directly responsible for. Which brings us to the second problem with your graph. It uses the win/loss record as the sole judge of a GM. So many other factors go into whether a team wins or not than just the make up of the 40-man roster. A GM could put together the greatest roster ever and if enough season-ending injuries happen to enough great players, that team will also finish with 66 wins. Extenuating circumstances must be factored in. Last season was a disaster, not so much because of the decisions Hendry made, (the Pierre trade wasn't good) but because of the onslaught of major injuries to the team's best players and some really poor performances by others who had previously performed much better. It's wrong to blame him for everything that happened in '06. Just like it would be wrong to fully credit him for getting the Cubs into the playoffs in '03. The Cubs got on a roll, got some good luck, had guys stay healthy all year. Hendry helped bring about the result in '03, but I think he actually did more in '04 with the additions of Lee and Garciaparra along with a full season from Ramirez. Those moves allowed the Cubs to stay in contention even with Sosa declining sharply in the middle of their line-up. To be fair and accurate, Hendry's win/loss record looks more like this: 4 years prior to Hendry: 67 wins in '99 65 wins in '00 88 wins in '01 67 wins in '02 4 years with Hendry: 88 wins in '03 89 wins in '04 79 wins in '05 66 wins in '06 And to better understand those win totals, one must also include the extenuating factors each year, both the good (like career years) and the bad (like major injuries to major players). Agreed completely. Hendry has built 1 good team and 3 average teams during his tenure here. The 1 good team underachieved and won 89 games. 1 of the average teams did much better than expected and went to the NLCS, 1 of them remained a perfectly average team, and 1 of them had big struggles including problems with injuries, gave up on the season in August, and were a bad team that gave up and lost games down the stretch with a makeshift lineup (if that team had tried, they could have won 70-75 games-I'm glad they sacrificed the wins for the extra experience they gave to the young players, but that team was not quite a 66 win team). The question is-can Hendry build a more consistent good team, instead of a .500 team that requires luck to make the playoffs? That remains to be seen-if not, then he needs to go, because .500 is not a goal. Hopefully he has learned from his most major mistake (trusting in Prior and Wood) and can have teams that are expected to win consistently.

I disagree only because the Cardinals really don't have enough decent pitchers right now. Which 5 pitchers are they going to start that's going to be better than Weaver, even if you don't consider Weaver to be very good?