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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.

Diogu is the key in this trade long-term, not Murphy or Dunleavy. I can't see the Pacers being much worse, but they simply might not be much better either. BTW, Murphy or Dunleavy do offer a better complementary option to JO than Harrington in that they can fill the corners when JO wants to post up at the elbow.

Also, the rumors are flying right now. Some are saying that the Pacers are trying to spin Dunleavy off for Magette, and others are saying that the Pacers are trying to make a run after Jason Kidd. Believe them at your own risk, as they are just rumors, but this should be interesting. Something has to move, as the Pacers have about 4 or 5 PF's who need playing time now.

I'm not sure Patterson would be better than Pie. Also, everything I've heard has said that DeRosa would be terrible in center. He can play the corners, but not center field.

Have fun with Dunmurphy on your team. My editor is a Warriors fan and that's how he refers to those two because they are both basically the same player. I know he'll be happy to be rid of them. Yeah, I can't believe the Pacers had to take on both of them. The key is Diogu-if Diogu makes his potential, the Pacers win this deal. If he doesn't, the Pacers lose in the deal. Al wasn't working out very well anyway though, Jackson is playing better this year but will never win back the fans, Sarunas is up and down anyway, and Powell never played. So it's not like the Pacers gave up talent that they can't replace anyway, I'm just wondering who the Pacers are planning to start at SG since there is a big gaping hole there now.

Well, my Pacers just completed a mammoth trade with the Warriors-thoughts about if this is a good deal or not? I cannot decide for sure: Pacers give up: Al Harrington, Stephen Jackson, Sarunas Jasikavecius, Josh Powell Warriors give up: Troy Murphy, Mike Dunleavy, Ike Diogu, Keith McLeod

I just wanted to let you know, we learned from the Colts board who the referees are going to be for each of the 2 championship games. The Bears/Saints game has drawn Terry McAulay. If you want to check his stats, look at the link I will provide. It definitely is true that different crews look at the rules a little differently, so this might give you some early insight on to how the game is going to be called on Sunday. http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/sortableStatsOfficials?statTable=breakdownOne&stat=games

If Prior went to free agency, he probably would certainly make more. Most analysts thought that the Wood contract was a hometown discount that the Cubs got, and Prior would certainly get more than Wood because he has spent less time injured over the last couple of years. Even though he didn't put up the same numbers for the same length of time, I could easily see Prior making a Mark Mulder contract in FA.

Now that was an amazing finish to the Texas-OK State game. I wish I hadn't tuned in so late (I only saw the last 4 minutes of triple OT) but a 3 point play answered by a game winning 3, simply awesome.

That's their normal routine for months now (I think from Halloween on every year, but maybe even further back then that), so it just makes sense now to try to keep as close to normal of a routine as possible rather than trying to decide what to do with an extra day of practice.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/statistics?stat=team&sort=pts&pos=off&league=nfl&season=2&year=2006 Chicago - 427 New Orleans - 413 Not a huge difference, but it's still a difference. Yes, but as I said, the Bears scored a lot of points on defense and special teams. Not really the offense's doing. According to ESPN, that is offensive scoring. I might be mistaken, but that's what I'm finding on ESPN and NFL.com. EDIT: Actually, you might be right. That might be overall scoring, but if that's the case, then I need to search a little harder next time. :lol: That is also their total number of points. I looked at the standings, and they officially have the Bears as scoring 427 points, so those offensive rankings must count both defense and special teams TD's as well, which are at least 10 TD's I think for the Bears, if not more.

I thought it was 2/12M with this year being the last. Was it 3/18M. If he really has 2 years at 6M per left we should be able to trade him easily and get plenty back given the market this year, though we still probably shouldn't. He signed either a 3/15 or 3/16 deal, and if I remember right the contract works out that he has something like 2/11 left.

I understand that sentiment. With the Cubs, it can be a different story for a lot of people. Many kids without local teams latch on to the Cubs because they are the ones that they can follow on TV. My parents were Cubs fans when they lived in southern Michigan, and growing up in Indy without a local team made it easy for me to become a Cubs fan as well from a very young age. Of course, I wasn't going to go away from the two teams that were 20 minutes away either, so I became a Colts and Pacers fan and have remained those even though I've lived somewhere else for the last few years. I think that could be a big reason why there are Cubs fans though that are all sorts of fans in other sports because of the teams visibility with the lack of a local team.

It is the easiest position to play, but a great defender can certainly make a difference there. I think there is less variance in first baseman defensively in that below average to average is not as large of a difference at first base than other positions. When you start to get towards good to great though where a person starts picking many more balls out of the dirt, stretching that extra bit to get the out, and having the range to turn some doubles down the line into outs, that's where the difference really starts to come in. In short, at a position like shortstop or center field the first key for defense has to be somebody who can make the routine plays. If they can't make the routine plays consistently, they can hurt you defensively. At first base, just about anyone can make the routine plays, so the focus shifts to who can make the non-routine plays. I think there is more opportunity to make non-routine plays at first than many other positions because of the frequency of chances. I agree with you that Pujols is the best player in baseball.