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The Patriots DB's can't make great plays like that all day-if the Colts keep exploiting those matchups and Manning puts it on the money like that, the Colts will likely catch 1 or 2 of them before the day is out.

AFC has been far superior to the NFC over the course of the year. Doesn't mean the Bears can't beat either of these teams, but as a whole the AFC has been better. Agreed, the AFC has been much better than the NFC, but that advantage is equalized in the Super Bowl. It's not the entire AFC playing the entire NFC anymore, it's 1 team playing 1 team, and the differences between the 3 teams left are slim.

That's a typical Patriot bounce of the ball.

Agreed-that's a huge break for the Patriots as Addai had plenty of chance to catch that for a huge gain.

He's been complimenting the Bears like crazy ever since about the safety (especially with the Grossman TD drive for example), it was just hard to see it because all of you have been so nervous :D . I know how that feels-my stomach is tightening up for the game here in a few minutes. Congratulations, and I hope that the two teams get to play and have a true Midwestern Super Bowl.

I'm just bumping this thread up-I know what Bears fans meant about being nervous. I can't believe I passed up tickets to this game (although I would have to drive 7 hours to go to it). Oh well, my parents will both be there-the Dome will be as loud as maybe it has ever been, and hopefully that will be in victory!

I would agree with that-I don't think Brees counts for him being down, but Faine certainly does.

Even better, it's Nantz and Simms! Anything's better than Buck. I guess I don't understand the anti-Bears sentiment by Buck. I've heard it for months, so I've been listening hard for it the last two weeks when I've heard him call Bears games, and I simply haven't heard much to call him anti-Bears. I guess every fanbase has their announcers that they simply don't like though.

I looked at it again, obviously it's a terrible angle so I could be wrong, but the original view certainly looked like he was down-a replay may say something different though.

This news is absolutely wonderful. It now sounds as if they are not going to trade Jones, and if Soriano does play center that cuts off people like Finley or Erstad from being signed to play the position. Also, the signing of Floyd gives us another big bat off the bench, and it sounds like he is going to replace both Murton and Jones almost equally, which is better than we here had expected (because we thought that Jones was going to play center, and Soriano was not going to sit out that many games). If this is all really true, the offense just became locked in, and it looks pretty good right now (not great, but pretty good).

Actually, UConn got beat by Marquette in their last game at home, ending a 31-game win streak at home. Still, that's a program defining win. Kelvin Sampson will be in Bloomington for as long as he wants the job. Amazing effort by the boys in red. They got manhandled on the UConn end of the boards, but they hit their free throws. 20-21 from the line, including 6 for 6 down the stretch. UConn was just 17 of 28 from the line, which was the difference. IU did a great job sharing the ball, with 18 assists on 24 baskets. The experienced stars stepped up with White having a monster 1st half and Wilmont doing it in the 2nd. I worry about going back on the road again on Tuesday to face the Illini. U of I hasn't been very good this year, but DJ is gonna be spent having played 38 minutes today and again having to face an athletic front line. I'm worried about the emotion of that game as well. U of I fans don't exactly like IU's program right now, and it will be a really tough enviornment to go in and win. I'd love the win, but I'm not incredibly hopeful. Looking forward, that Wisconsin game at home in a week or two is huge. The only game IU plays them this year at Bloomington-a win there gives us a possible huge tiebreaker advantage while protecting the homecourt.

A Wisconsin player drove in with about 35 seconds left and about the same time he released the ball he crashed into an Illinois player. A classic charge/block situation (and a charge this time) but the referee stepped in, gave the basket to Wisconsin, and called a foul after the shot on Wisconsin's player and gave Illinois 2 free throws. It was actually a charge during the shot though, so it should have been Illinois ball with no basket.

If the Bears win this game and make it to the Super Bowl, think how long that thread will be with 2 weeks off inbetween games. Especially if they play the Colts-with the Patriots, there will just be a great amount of people agreeing with each other :D

NFL scouts were actually disappointed with his weight (for a better word) because he wasn't able to keep his normal summer lifting for football because he was in Boise and Peoria. Shouldn't be a big concern long term. I have no problem with him having a NTC. I think a NTC for Jeff was one of the essential points to the deal in fact. From all of Samardizja's quotes about playing football for the Bears possibly and wanting to stay in his home area with the Cubs, one huge factor in his decision probably was that he was guaranteed to be near home in MLB if he made the majors, while he could be shipped anywhere in the NFL. With that being a big deal, he needed the NTC to make sure that he didn't get traded out of the area, and it's an easy enough concession for the Cubs to make with the much greater windfall of him spurning football.

The Colts are favored by 3-the opinion is pretty much split down the middle on this one. It really is because of the Colts variability-nobody really knows what Manning or the Colts defense is going to do on Sunday. If they're both good to great, the Colts blow the Patriots out. If they're both bad, the Colts will almost certainly lose. If one is good and the other is not (or if both are average), it will be a very, very good game (which is the most likely option).

I don't know if they think he was better than Colvin, but they did view him as a 1st round talent. Also remember that Samardzija was rated a great deal higher than Colvin by other analysts, but he slipped only because of the football issue and nothing else.

Excellent. Where did you see/hear that? Bruce Levine called into Dan Patrick's show to report it. I believe he said Samardzija could get up to 7 million. Trying to steal Hendry's thunder is he? I wondered what that horrible sound was coming out of Southbend. South Bend has no problem with him. Both his sports are completely done now, and he was just as important for the baseball team as the football team. Really, the only people who get hurt by this are the people who were looking for a receiver in the NFL draft, as the rest of the receivers just became a little more valuable (because teams are always worried that there will be a run on receivers in the draft, and now there's 1 less of them).

Well, this thread is not getting quite as much attention as the other one-I wonder why :D

Just saw that. The dude on Cold Pizza just said the Bears are the most underrated 14-3 team hes ever seen. I agree. Meanwhile, Skip Bayless picked the Saints. No surprise there. Its gonna be such a gratifying feeling if the Bears can win this game. I think that 16-1 Steelers team was pretty disrespected as well. Even though they had only lost one game all season, nobody gave them much of a chance in the AFC championship (that I remember) even though they had beaten the Patriots earlier that season.

Not much. He doesn't have much velocity, from what I've heard. Everything says he's extremely raw. It's all about the tools. He's going to be quite a project for the developmental people. I should add, yes, he probably could be really good. It'll just take a ton of work, and luck. If 99 isn't good velocity, then we agree. I thought I read he was in the very low 90's. I'd take back my statement if it was 99. I've heard both. He's regularly in the low 90's (93-95), but can get it up to 99.

Unless I write sentences 1000 times, I may never spell his name correctly. Samardzija. Samardzija. Samardzija. You might be right, you just tried 3 times and didn't get it right once :D Well, there you go. I cannot call him "Sammy" or "shark". Samardzija Samardzija Samardzija. Yeah, he went to the football program that I support and I still can't bring myself to call him either of his nicknames, and I still have to look up how to spell his name most of the time. So you definitely are not alone on that point.

Unless I write sentences 1000 times, I may never spell his name correctly. Samardzija. Samardzija. Samardzija. You might be right, you just tried 3 times and didn't get it right once :D

That was the second thought that went through my head after I saw it-my first thought was, I can't believe they've already re-instituted the "Jordan rules" with Dwayne Wade! :D

They don't have him quite hitting his walk rate for next season though so they might be taking that into account a little bit. last year his average was .277 and OBP .351, and they have his average at .287 and OBP at .349. While not a significant difference, that drop in BB's is almost a third of the way from the increase last year back to his career numbers.

I want to preface this by saying that I do not believe this was the difference in the Pacers loss to the Heat tonight. With that said, I was really frustrated with two calls made in the 4th quarter tonight. One was with just over 5 minutes to play. Wade drove left, tripped, and fell out of bounds and the ball got stuck in between the basket and the backboard. The officials called a jump ball, and then Wade was attended to. He got back up, and everybody started positioning themselves for the jump ball. About 3 minutes after the actual play (and I'm serious, 3 minutes on my DVR), another ref comes in and suddenly it is being announced that Jermaine has picked up his 5th foul. Carlisle is furious, but a minute later, Wade is stepping up to hit free throws. It has to be the latest call I have ever seen, and I have no idea how it took 3 minutes for that ref to decide what he saw and come up and change the call. BTW, it certainly appeared that Jermaine stepped out of Wade's way and never even laid a finger on him on the replay. The second call was with 1:30 to go. Daniels was dribbling to the right (and towards the basket) and Mourning stepped out to challenge him. The dribble went right off Mourning's foot and into the backcourt. When Daniels went to retrieve it, the refs called over and back. Two things were really, really bad about this call in a 4 point game. One, it was obvious it went off Mourning's foot both in real time, and in the laws of physics (it would be very hard for someone dribbling in front of them and taking it to the basket to have it hit off their foot and go backwards in that manner). The announcers said that it was obvious it went off Mourning, but that the refs called it off Daniels "because he looked guilty". Uh-huh.