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I imagine that the "some free agents" is in regards to FA's that are classifed as Type A, B, or C FA's, but the report from the AP is a bit vague. The Cubs better sign Aramis to a new deal now, because it appears now that they won't even get draft picks if he leaves. This is also disapointing now, because it appears they won't even get compensation for Pierre either, who also will probably be testing the FA waters. At this point, this is probably a fine thing for the Cubs for it to go away right now. It saves us from having to even run the risk of offering Pierre arbitration in a year that it sounds like the Cubs will be big free agent spenders-so they would probably lose more than they would gain.

I dunno...individual teams can only appear on prime time 5 times during the season. The Bears will already have 4 (Seattle, Arizona, New York, and St Louis). NBC might want to save that potential 5th game for the last one of the season in case the Bears have a shot at 16-0 or (and probably more importantly in their eyes) Favre retires and it's his last game. I hope they don't. I have tickets to that game, and won't be able to make it if they do. When would that be announced if it were to happen? I think they say that it has to be announced at least 12 days before the game for any week but week 17.

Yes, that was more of the point. Obviously, OSU went undefeated, and that counts for a great deal. Notre Dame might have struggled with more teams this year because they have played more decent to good teams than some of the other schools that are ranked around them. Look at the schedules. Auburn-Good teams they have beat-Florida, Unknowns: LSU (we will know more later in the season about this team-right now their biggest wins are Arizona and Kentucky, and their 2 losses are to the two quality teams they have played so far-similar to Penn State below) Decent Teams: South Carolina, Washington State Bad Teams: Miss State, Buffalo, Tulane Loss to Arkansas Tennessee-Good Teams they have beat-California Decent Teams: Alabama, Georgia, Air Force Bad Teams: Marshall, Memphis Loss to Florida Notre Dame-Good teams they have beat-? Unknowns-Georgia Tech-we'll know more after the Miami game this week, and Penn State-their 3 losses have still come to OSU, Michigan, and ND-which makes them very unknown. Decent Teams: Michigan State, Purdue, UCLA Bad Teams: Stanford The only thing missing from ND's resume so far is that signature win, although the unknowns still have to shake out (Georgia Tech/Miami, LSU/Tennnessee, California/USC in a couple weeks should help to see which wins were better). Other than that, Auburn struggled with one of their unknowns, and one of their decent teams out of two. Tennessee struggled with two of their three decent teams, if you don't count the Georgia comeback as a struggle. ND struggled with one of their unknowns, and two of their 3 decent teams. The point is that each 1 loss team has struggled when playing decent teams. The only three unknown or decent teams on these three teams schedules that the game was not in doubt in the second half was Washington State for Auburn, and Penn State and Purdue for Notre Dame. All of these teams are flawed, and nobody has steamrolled through most of their opponents, and they should be ranked similarly. I have no problem if people want to rank ND behind those other two at this point, but they are not nearly as far behind as some people would have one believe.

True, but what he's saying is that slump was required to make Murton better. Murton was not hitting for much power in the first part of the season. He went through his slump where he swung at everything. He came back, this time looking at the pitches he couldn't handle and actually swinging and driving the pitches he could, and his OBP and SLG shot up.

It's all based on Strength of Schedule. USC has Arkansas and Nebraska helping them out a great deal, plus their worst games are their bottom Pac 10 opponents, which are still usually rated higher than most teams non-conference schedules (their entire non conference schedule is Arkansas, Nebraska, and Notre Dame-of course Notre Dame doesn't factor in to their schedule so far). Ohio State though has one great opponent so far-Texas. Other than that, Penn State, Iowa, and Michigan State all have at least 3 losses, and they have Northern Illinois, Cincinnati, Bowling Green, and Indiana. Ohio State's schedule has not really been all that hard. Michigan is ahead of OSU for one basic reason-they both have played one great opponent (OSU-Texas, Michigan-Notre Dame), they both have several common games (Iowa, PSU, Michigan State), similar other non-conference games (OSU-Cincy, Bowling Green, Northern Illinois, Michigan-Vanderbilt, Central Michigan). So it basically comes down to their other conference games-and Michigan leads by having played Wisconsin. ND shouldn't be considered a great opponent. They are as much as Texas-definitely in the computer's SOS model, ND has 1 loss, Texas has 1 loss, ND has the harder schedule of the two. Plus, just because a team has a great deal of close games where they had to pull it out in the end doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad team. It's a warning sign, but not necessarily true. OSU in 2002 under that definition would be considered a bad team, but they won the national title (they had 6 games decided by 6 points or less, and at least 2 of those probably should have lost, similar to ND). Plus, every 1 loss team has had a scare or two-ND should be put at about the same level as all the other 1 loss teams who have played pretty good schedules.

It's all based on Strength of Schedule. USC has Arkansas and Nebraska helping them out a great deal, plus their worst games are their bottom Pac 10 opponents, which are still usually rated higher than most teams non-conference schedules (their entire non conference schedule is Arkansas, Nebraska, and Notre Dame-of course Notre Dame doesn't factor in to their schedule so far). Ohio State though has one great opponent so far-Texas. Other than that, Penn State, Iowa, and Michigan State all have at least 3 losses, and they have Northern Illinois, Cincinnati, Bowling Green, and Indiana. Ohio State's schedule has not really been all that hard. Michigan is ahead of OSU for one basic reason-they both have played one great opponent (OSU-Texas, Michigan-Notre Dame), they both have several common games (Iowa, PSU, Michigan State), similar other non-conference games (OSU-Cincy, Bowling Green, Northern Illinois, Michigan-Vanderbilt, Central Michigan). So it basically comes down to their other conference games-and Michigan leads by having played Wisconsin.

Three interesting quotes from the Colts-Redskins post-game: Manning on the big hit where Daniels snapped his head back: On talking about his possible injury: Here is possibly the funniest quote of the day for Bears fans, this one comes from Washington's Phillip Daniels: Sound close to something else anybody heard's recently? :D Here are the sources on that, this time actually two Washington Post articles: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/22/AR2006102201162_2.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/22/AR2006102201142_2.html

I am not completely BCS literate so I was looking at the BCS poll and is Mchigan and USC tied for number 1 in the computer rankings? Basically, yes-they are not necessarily #1 in any individual poll, but they are completely tied right now overall in the computers.

Yeah, Addai has looked really, really good all season long. Even before today, he has had a 4.6 yard average on 59 carries. The Colts continue to go with the tandem to try to limit his carries so hopefully he will be fresh for the playoffs-at least I hope they give him the full-time job here in a few weeks, because he's clearly better than Rhodes.

It's some sort of leg injury, but he's trying to work it out and get back into the game, so it's not that serious, I would hope.

I'm not sure how Seattle is going to win now. Hasselbeck's knee injury means that Seattle is going with Seneca Wallace and Maurice Morris as its quarterback and runningback, and that's just not a good team in the making most of the time.

Why does Washington get to free kick here? That's only after a safety-you can't free kick just because you had a penalty-they need to get the tee out here and kick it like normal.

grr..that wasn't even a great runback either. The Colts just opened up the entire middle of the field to Randle El..all he had to do was basically run straight. At least 2 people missed their gaps there, just very disappointing.

3 quick reactions from the Colts board that I'm on. First was stunned silence. Then, a quick reaction screaming how that wasn't roughing the passer for going up around the neck after the play, when Freeney just got called for roughing the passer for hitting the QB in the face while tackling him before he threw the ball. Finally, some relief when he came on to the field, although them running the ball on 3rd and 8 was not a great sign.

Yup-if Troy P. hadn't been out there, Vick might have been able to take that one in for a TD.

Was it to Gates? Gamecast has it to Manumaleuna.

The only thing you cannot do down a field goal, less than 4 minutes to play, 3rd and goal, and what does Jake Delhomme do? Throw an easy INT in the back of the end zone.

BTW, Monte Reagor, the Colts starting DT, was in a major car accident on the way into the game today with also a lady in the car. They were both taken to the hospital. I doubt it is life-threatening, but I'm not sure since I'm hearing it secondhand (it was on the Indy local news apparently). Remember both of them today, I heard his SUV flipped.

BTW, Ronde Barber has 2 INT's now and 2 TD's-Mcnabb has thrown 3 INT's overall, and it's 17-0 TB over Philly. Wow.

If they play a good game today, I think that they will take over the Bears for consensus best team in football again I'm not sure. There are a great deal of misconceptions about the Colts this year. The Fox pre-game show started off by telling its audience that the Colts have absolutely no running game this year. They backed it up by saying that Edge was 5th in running at this time of the year, and Rhodes is only 30th this year. Of course, the Colts use 2 RB's-and the tandem has had a better YPC average and a better YPG average than Edge did in the first 5 games last year. I don't know if that type of misconception will die easily.

I would say that Indianapolis already had their tough week(s) with the Jets and Titans in weeks 4 and 5 respectively. The Colts have struggled though coming out of their bye weeks (until last year when their bye week was right before New England, and they destroyed NE-but last year was just a special year, nobody could hang close with us at that point in the season). I expect a tough game with Washington this week-I hope the Colts can get a win, because their next 2 weeks are at Denver and at NE.

No, the coaches poll had Georgia as 24 last week. I was looking at the polls during the game yesterday, and I couldn't believe they were still in the coaches poll after the 2 losses-so they actually dropped a spot after yesterday. It's not like the teams that are just out of the polls are usually pretty good anyway this year. The first 5 teams out of the AP poll-Georgia, Tulsa, BYU, Va Tech, Miami-anybody want to put any of those 5 in the top 25?

I wouldnt worry about the Irish next year, im not. Those are most definetly tough games. That's actually probably quite accurate. The Irish youngsters are going to have to learn very fast to have a good team next year-right now it looks like a 6 or a 7 win team though for next year. Who's their quarterback going to be next year? Some of my friends who are ND fans are saying Claussen. Not sure if that's a great idea. Good to see Mizzou finally get the KSU monkey off their backs. There was a bunch of good recruits in the next two classes at the game. Hopefully they liked what they saw. If I had to guess today, I would say Clausen would be the favorite. Is it optimal? No-but the only other options would be sophmores who don't have any game experience either. Even if they start the season, Clausen will probably end up coming in by 4-5 games in anyway, so I'm guessing they just skip that and go with him to start. I'm not expecting big things out of him next year, but I hope it'll be a learning experience for him.

It's stupid. Hypothetically even if we go 11-1 and win the Big Ten in either of the next two years, people will say it's just because we didn't play UM or OSU. You're really in a no-win situation as far as major achievements. Plus the Michigan and Ohio State games are the ones you look forward to and get excited about. I can understand what you mean there about not being able to prove yourselves. The funny thing is that Indiana, the other team who will not play Michigan or OSU the next two years, their fans are ecstatic about it. They think it will be a good way to build their program, because now they have a better chance to go to a bowl game the next two years, which will increase visibility for recruits. Iowa though is definitely in a different position, and Michigan and OSU being gone will have to make Iowa for the most part go out and prove themselves outside of the conference.

I wouldnt worry about the Irish next year, im not. Those are most definetly tough games. That's actually probably quite accurate. The Irish youngsters are going to have to learn very fast to have a good team next year-right now it looks like a 6 or a 7 win team though for next year.