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The free agent comment is kind of strange. In the last 4 drafts, the Cubs have had 2 extra supplemental picks and have lost 1 second round pick. Their days of giving up draft picks for free agents are long gone.

Death goes a long way for ratings When was the last time there was a death in a major auto race? I don't follow the sport, so maybe it's been more recent than I realize. Earnhardt in 01. There were several deaths in the years right before that but since then there's only been a couple of deaths in practice for any of the major series.

It doesn't mean they have the same popularity. It just means they have the same number of ultra dedicated fans. Obviously golf and tennis have many more fans than track and field or bowling do but most of those fans aren't going to see them as their absolute favorite sport.

Just FYI, The Cubs were above league average at all 3 OF positions last year. The problems last year were in the infield. The OF might be the problem this year (there are certainly plenty of question marks) and the OF is certainly the most overpaid part of the entire team but they'll a decent bet to be average or better.

You can only dress 45 players but the 3rd QB is a special exception who can be the phantom 46th player. They let you put a 3rd stringer in during the 4th quarter to give QB's some experience in blowout games. But if it's not the 4th quarter they penalize you for putting in a guy who's not among the normal dressed players by refusing to let the other QB's come back in. If the Bears had dressed Hanie as one of their 45 players, then Cutler and Collins would be eligible to still come back in. Glad to see the Bears score. It should be an interesting finish.

The fumble rule is because of this play: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Roller_%28American_football%29 It's been on the books for 30+ years but it rarely comes up.

Yeah, the mods have been doing a bang-up job lately keeping things under control. Welcome. Multiple suspensions have already been handed out this week. I'd like there to not be more today.

One site I found had it as the Bears favored by 2.5.

Whoa...that's painting it in a pretty light. Out of 9 playoffs since the reorganization, 5 have included a #2 seed with 11 wins or fewer. True (and I think I was wrong and there have been 6 of them now including the Bears). But if you're an 11-5 team you still have to be in the right conference, in the right division, in the right year. Just like the Cubs can't plan to win 85-88 games and expect to win the division, it's a break when you get a bye going 11-5 because it doesn't happen to most teams that win that many games.

There is nothing unusual about an 11 win team getting a bye. Tell that to the last 11 teams who finished 11-5. None of them received byes. BigBadB does bring up a good point that it is possible the Bears change their gameplan and figure out a way to beat the Packers and go 12-4. And 12-4 teams do more often than not receive byes unlike 11-5 teams. So that's a possibility. And let me reiterate. I am not one who believes the Bears had a lucky regular season. They did catch some breaks but so did most teams. They beat some very good teams and finished 11-5 in a pretty good division. That's a strong regular season. But during the playoffs, they've had a very easy path. They got lucky to get a bye, then got a major break to have one of the weakest playoff teams in history come to their field, and now they get lucky again to have the conference championship on their home field (albeit against a good opponent).

No they have not. They've beaten 2 of the remaining top 4 teams. There is nothing unusual about an 11-5 team getting a bye. 10-6 teams have gotten them. Is everybody going to count Pittsburgh as lucky for getting to host the Jets instead of going to New England? How about for stealing a win against Miami on a crazy call which would have meant they didn't even win their division this year? 5 of the 36 byes since the 2002 reorganization have been given to teams with records of 11-5 or worse. The one for the Bears is the first one since 2006. It doesn't happen very often. It's actually happened more often to have 12 wins or more and not get a bye then 11 wins or less and get a bye. And yes, Pittsburgh caught a break on getting to face the Jets. But they also had to face a 12-4 team in the divisional round while Chicago faced a 7-9 team. That's a huge difference.

Probably the biggest break for the Bears is that as an 11-5 team they got a bye (which is somewhat unusual). They then beat a team with a losing record to get to the conference championship game and now get to host that game. For a team that goes 11-5 you can't draw it up much better than that. That doesn't mean they're a bad team-during the regular season they proved they are a very good team and would be a worthy Super Bowl winner. But they have had a historically easy path.

This might end up being the best thing for both Creek and Indiana long-term. He was still aiming his shots and now he hopefully won't favor one leg over the other when he rehabs this time. And unfortunate as it is to say but Indiana becomes a better team for the rest of the Big 10 season without Creek. They really needed him to be dynamic to be a pretty good team this year and instead he was a liability on the court. It's been a terrible road for him but hopefully this helps him come back stronger next season.

Meanwhile, if the Steelers win in the AFC they will only have been 4 AFC champions during that time and only 3 since 2003.

You can now. You couldn't originally, but after that debacle in the Cleveland game a couple of years ago where the ball hit the post right behind the crossbar and there was confusion if it was good or not they changed the rule.

? It was 3rd and 7 at the time so it would either be 3rd and 2 or 1st and 10.

Exactly. That's why 1) you can't challenge 10-15 yards of field position on the opening kickoff and 2) why the challenge rules need to change. Tomlin lost only one challenge on a call that possibly could have been overturned and now he's out of challenges in a game that seems rife with potential for close/challengable calls.

This doesn't look anything like that. They just signed their preferred backup catcher. Agreed. I don't think the backup catcher is set in stone yet, but Hill seems to have the edge headed into spring training. One of the others will have to tear the cover off of the ball during ST to have a decent shot.

Hill has thrown out 28% of baseruners in his career despite playing more good running teams than a normal catcher would. That's pretty solid. Is it enough to make up for his putrid hitting? Absolutely not. But there's no reason to denigrate the one thing he actually does reasonably well.

I am not sure exactly how he fits on a 5 man bench. He would fit perfectly on a 6 man bench (but that era in MLB is pretty much gone and the Cubs are not exactly the type to have 1 less pitcher than everyone else). If he is willing to play in the minors he would be good insurance as well.

Atlanta is 2.5 point favorites. I didn't mean in Vegas. I meant in everyone I hear predict the game. I just don't see how you can say everybody is picking GB and they are the overwhelming favorite. Because every website I've seen so far that picks the games has picked GB and every radio show I've heard is picking GB too. I cannot honestly remember one person picking ATL that I've heard/seen. That is what I meant by everybody. I'm sure lots of gamblers are picking Atlanta, as the line has gone up since it opened. I'm not interested in a semantics discussion beyond that. Even if that were true (which I'm not sure it is) it's easy to see why the Packers are being picked. If people think it's a close game, you pick the road team because it looks better for you if you pick an upset than just picking the #1 seed. There are more Packer fans out there so they could be placating those fans. And many people also look ahead and see that Packers-Bears is the most scintillating championship matchup and that could also be their tiebreaker on who to pick between the Packers-Falcons because they want to see that game next week.

There's potential there for him to but I'd have a hard time seeing a scenario where he would prove himself enough to give him the job barring a major injury to Pena or Soto this year.

What stat do you prefer? I personally like HR/FB ratio. Colvin's is completely unsustainable unless he's on par with the Adam Dunns and Albert Pujols' of the world. Combine that with one of the worst zone recognitions in the league and I think there's a very high likely hood of regression. Colvin's HR/FB will probably go down. If he played 10 years, he probably would have a couple that were up that high but most will be lower. He also does need to improve his BB/K ratio. His BB ratio is poor but not absurdly poor (Corey Hart, Aramis Ramirez, Carl Crawford, Adrian Beltre are just some examples of guys who have survived with worse BB ratios in their careers than Colvin has had). The strikeouts have to come down though. His strikeouts were better after the All-Star break than before. If he can continue to lower that into the 23-25 percent range which would be more in range with his minor league numbers than he can be successful even when his home runs/FB drop. It's not absurd to put Colvin in as a starter. He's not a great choice for starter because he's probably going to be around league average with more chance of a downside than upside. But it's not like corner OF has been that big of a premium offensive position lately. If he did put up an .800+ OPS, that would be just fine at any of the OF spots even as a starter and even with a relatively low OBP. It would be a position the Cubs would have to upgrade if he didn't get any better as he got expensive but to get cheap league average production is fine for one spot.

I would be stunned. The Colts are typically not reactionary like that no matter how much it might be deserved.

Just curious, out of all the people that were traded how many were his picks? Only Guyer. Wilken's department did have significant input into the other three (Lee was signed under Wilken, Archer was traded to the Cubs under Wilken's watch, and Chirinos was switched to catcher after Wilken took over)