jersey cubs fan

Give Rich Rod a couple more years. You'll be sorry you made this comment. He might not have a couple more years if he doesn't improve the team quickly. I'm not saying national title contender, but 8-4 would be a good start. think they'll improve that much next year? Take Graham and Warren off that defense and how much can it reasonably be expected to improve? Seems like it'll be at least 2011 before they're contending for a Big Ten title again, won't it? I don't know. The Big 10 is pretty weak. Teams like Northwestern do relatively well with little or no talent. Being 8-4 and contending for a Big 10 title are 2 different things. As weak as it may be, you aren't going to win the Big 10 as a 4 loss team. You need to get through the schedule with usually no more than 1 Big 10 loss, and even that is no guarantee with Ohio State around, and both Iowa and Penn State going on the occasional run.

I completely disagree with any assertion that Bill Cowher outstrategizes the opposition. He does not. He isn't even really involved in strategy. If there was one knock on Cowher it was that while he often got his team to big games, they were routinely beaten in those big games. You don't bring in Bill Cowher to be your thinker. He's Lovie Smith with a more fiery temper. The only thing that is going to turn this team around is an offensive coach. If Cowher can bring in such a guy, great. But the Bears aren't going to be great simply by going to the tough guy route. They need the next Sean Payton, not the next Mike Ditka. They need to maximize Jay Cutler's value and they aren't going to do that with people who constantly harp about their identity being a running team or being a defense first team. You only win consistently when your offense is rolling behind a top notch QB. Defense first teams fluctuate with the level of talent they have on defense. Chicago had a great influx in talent earlier this decade, but it dried up quickly and that's why they suck. There's no such thing as a QB of the defense. The NFL is all about the passing game. You can complain about it all you want, you can talk about run, but when it comes down to it, you need to be able to move and score through the air. Yes, it helps to be able to do something on the ground. But first and foremost this team needs to learn how to have an effective passing game, and then fill in the rest around that.

Sick to my stomach. He might be all you can get, other than a young unproven guy who is looking for a shot. Or Martz. i'm just saying, it seems to be the general consensus that turner is awfu, while a lot of people still think that weis is a good offensive mind who was just not cut out to lead a college program. I would find it acceptable, although not desirable. I'd much rather they get rid of the whole crew and then let the new HC determine his staph. And if Weis is involved, fine by me. I think the Bears do need somebody who has worked successfully with high caliber NFL QBs, and Weis has done that, Turner has not.

I'm not sure he can be replaced easily. He's still the only guy they have that can do what he does, even though he doesn't do it enough. But I think he has a big roster bonus due in February or March, which would be a major influence if the decision. I also think Tommie would be an impact player if somebody else signed him. It hasn't been good for him to play for Lovie who doesn't really demand anything of his players and doesn't get the most out of the head cases who need pushing.

That's assuming Tommie Harris will be back next yr, which I am convinced he might not be. As for the Adams trade, I think we need to reserve judgement on that for the time being. That trade wasn't made for this yr, but for next yr in preparation of losing one of the FA DE. So again, I think we have to leve the trade blank for the time being. They won't get rid of Harris. They have so many legitimate holes to fill...they can't afford to create new ones. When things looked a little better, I thought this might be his last year because they would decide to move on from his headache. But now there's two ways of thinking of it. They have such a lack of talent that they have to keep their few real players, like Briggs, Urlacher, Harris, maybe Tillman and Afalava, and go from there. On the other hand, they have such a long way to go to improve, they might as well cut their losses. Either way, I think his future remains uncertain.

yeah, it's really not, because only 10 points of it are in OBP and, as stated above, his defense also improves with a shift to 2b. Except when you look at how positions compare to each other on average, it is a big difference. 2B need to be better offensively than shortstop. As Theriot enters his 30's and continues to decline off his modest peak, while at the same time getting paid more and more, his value is going to plummet to the point where it might actually make sense to just get rid of him although it would be preferred to trade him for something if at all possible.

It's actually not common sense at all. It's an assumption made with nothing to support it. It doesnt' make any sense at all to assume one player will play worse, and have worse stats, because Milton Bradley is on his team. It's a really stupid idea actually, with no support.

Real bad. I had given Jerry and Lovie a free pass for a couple years, and after the Cutler trade I extended that for Angelo, but man, that is going to hurt big time in April. Now they'll be picking somewhere around 75, I guess. *cough*itoldyouso*cough* 6 games and he only has 1 more (solo) tackle and 1 more batted pass than the 2010 2nd round pick has for the 2009 Bears. The only way the Bears are competitive next year is if they get huge sophomore seasons from Melton, Gilbert, and probably DJ Moore. Oh and Urlacher and Tommie Harris have to raise their level of play back to what will be 3-4 years ago by next year. The Bears can't possibly patch up enough thru free agency, and odds are they won't get much better thru the draft. Yeah well, you win. Congratulations the Bears are screwed and it's your fault. Jerry really took it to the extreme when he said higher draft slots are overrated.

This kind of quote makes me laugh. When games are won or lost based on which team has a better ops, let me know. Do you think fans care about OPS when Bradley throws the ball into the stands with one out? Do they care about OPS when he turns and throws the ball over the cut off man's head allowing a runner to take an extra base? Does anyone care about OPS when Bradley fails to come through time and time again? There is nothing wrong with looking at stats, but to act like they are the only thing that matters is silly. Bill James himself has said the player's personality and ability to get along with teammates is a very important part of the evaluation process. Sometimes you just have to watch the game and realize the guy is not as good as his numbers might be. Say whatever you want, but in the month of June when Ramirez was out, Bradley had 77 plate appearances and drove in 3 runs. To say he is productive is generous. Stats are how you judge how productive a player is. If we ignore stats, what do we look at to consider a player's production? Simply saying he missed a cutoff man a few times or he made a boneheaded mistake once is not not enough to make the decision that he's not a productive player. I don't have a problem with you saying his inter-clubhouse relationships should be considered, but if you don't take stats very heavily into the equation, you don't have much to go on in evaluating players. It's like looking at Wal-Mart's profits and saying that doesn't show it's a profitable company. He never said to ignore stats. What he said was, to act like stats are the only thing that matters is silly. And he's exactly right. On some level intangible factors like Bradley's personality and clubhouse influence have to enter the equation. You seem to agree with this, but many here apparently do not. He implied it very strongly. He said the better OPS doesn't determine the winner and implied that what fans care about stats matters. Fans are stupid. Fans more concerned with appearances than stats are stupid. Bradley's attitude didn't force Soriano to suck or Ramirez to get injured, and that is why the team struggled. It wasn't chemistry or personality or any such nonsense. There is no argument. The Cubs lost last year because their stats stunks, and their stats stunk mostly because Soriano sucked and Ramirez missed too much time. Scapegoating Bradley's attitude is just ignorant.

Real bad. I had given Jerry and Lovie a free pass for a couple years, and after the Cutler trade I extended that for Angelo, but man, that is going to hurt big time in April. Now they'll be picking somewhere around 75, I guess. The Broncos and TB are gonna get nice picks though. I don't know if having a top 5/6 pick is considered a "nice pick" anymore. When you consider the high bust rate and the even higher contracts demands/possible holdout, I think having a top five pick is more of a curse then a reward. And when you take into consideration that this could be the last year for uncapped rookie salary, I think there is a real possibility that we might see more hardball negotiation by next yr's incoming rookies trying to get the most in their rookie contracts which could lead to perhaps an abnormally high amount of holdouts. I am not saying it will happen, I am saying the condition could be right for perhaps a very rough round of negotiations. Don't you mean more hardball negotiations by the teams? Incoming rookies will be more pressured to take what they can get. Also, I don't think the Bears pick will be top 5 or 6. They probably win 2 more, and are probably going to be anywhere from 8-12, which is a pretty good slot.

I agree, it is. I think it's easy to lose perspective after the 4-0 start to the road trip, but you could really see the difference the long road trip had when they played Anaheim and LA. And trapping teams sometimes give the Hawks trouble. Yeah, if those losses were spread throughout the trip, nobody would be down. But the fact that they happened at the end of a long trip after the team beat last year's playoff opponents and the conference leader makes them more forgiveable if anything. Add to that the fact that they might serve to keep the team grounded and focused and it's really not that bad of a thing.

I agree defensively it makes a lot of sense. However Theriot doesn't have the bat to handle 2b. Theriot's value is that he has a decent bat and decent glove for SS, and is making near the league minimum. While defensively he probably fits better at 2b, offensively the bar is much higher and I personally don't think he can reach it, PLUS he's about to finally start making money in arbitration. I think if/when Castro establishes himself as a major leaguer that's about when we need to start looking to trade Theriot. the mlb average for 2b last year was .271/.336/.414/.750 and at ss was .270/.326/.392/.718. that's really a pretty small difference, and when you factor in that theriot's deficiencies (lack of range, marginal arm) are less important at 2b, he becomes more valuable as a defender at that position. overall his value may decline very slightly at ss but it's really not enough of a difference to run him off the team. Is it really not that big of a difference? 32 points in OPS is a bigger difference than the one between 2B and LF and much greater than the difference between 2B and 3B. It seems to me that 32 points is a fairly big jump between positions and an important factor when determining Theriot's value (which will disappear when he starts making money). Catcher and SS are the only two positions where you can afford a lack of production. The next tier, 3B, 2B, CF all require at least average MLB hitters, whereas LF, RF and 1B require incremental increases up the ladder toward great hitters.

They already extended Jay and in a way put themselves in position to have to commit $100+ milion to him in a couple years. Plus, the reason it's going to cost to make a change is because they weren't cheap enough when it came time to extend Jerry and Lovie in the first place. And I'm always skeptical of the savior proven head coach. Parcells made a killing going from desperate team to desperate team but hasn't come close to recreating the results with the Jets, Dallas or Miami. Belichek was a joke before going to New England. Tomlin was a nobody before going to Pittsburgh. Two of the most succesful teams in the league this year employ the much maligned "hot coordinator in first head coaching job" at the helm, while the third, Indy, has a guy who was a college coach and NFL position coach. The most recent "savior coach" story I can think of had Holmgren in Seattle where he turned a mediocre franchise into an up and down contender, but not an elite team. Most of the successful teams this year are employing the "young coordinator type" (Harbaugh, McDaniels, McCarthy) or a journeyman head coach type (Turner, Phillips). At the same time, there's a whole bunch of Super Bowl coaches leading relatively disappointing seasons (Lovie, Fox, Tomlin, Fisher, Coughlin). I think coaching in the NFL makes more of a difference than anywhere in sports, however, I think what's most important is having the right OC/QB coach working with the right QB, and not just relying on a fomerly successful head coach to come in and turn things around.

Real bad. I had given Jerry and Lovie a free pass for a couple years, and after the Cutler trade I extended that for Angelo, but man, that is going to hurt big time in April. Now they'll be picking somewhere around 75, I guess.

Are you a season ticket holder and or sponsor of the team? If not, you aren't giving them any money. Not a season ticket holder but I spend money on tickets, and I spend money on this team in other ways, such as merchandise, concessions at the games I go to. I'm not a "big spender" on the Bears but I still contribute. My point is based on what I believe is a near certainty that nothing will be done. If the McCaskeys actually do something, then obviously I was wrong and I will applaud their efforts. If you spend money on tickets you are probably giving that money to 2nd party vendors, not the Bears. I'll give you the concession angle, but merchandise is split among the league. Anyway, I just don't like how whenever things go wrong fan bases inevitably whine about cheapass ownership tightwads and all that. Spending is not the problem. The Bears spend. And teams like Washington, that spend like mad, are not better off. Chicago pays a head coach and GM relatively handsomely. They make money available for free agents every year, spending money to keep all their bigger players and in short, do not hold back this team from succeeding. If they watch this team fall apart and do nothing about it, yes, they will be screwing the fan. But right now, they are the ones being screwed by a bunch of people they paid handsomely after the Super Bowl run. Lovie, Angelo, Harris, Brown, Ogunleye, Vasher, Kreutz, Pace, Williams, Hester and Cutler are all highly compensated employees struggling mightily in one way shape or form. Forte isn't all that highly compensated, but he's been paid and relied upon and has been worthless. Given the uncertain economy, and the coming labor problems involving the CBA, it would not be unreasonable for ownership to give this same group one last year (since they'll all be getting paid and/or counting against the cap anyway) to fix things, even though I do think it would be the wrong decision.

lol...Urlacher was making fun of Lovie in that article for wearing a jacket too.... I disagree still about Hillenmeyer. He did exactly what he was supposed to do according to the scheme that Lovie had drawn up. I'm specifically thinking about a play right up the middle...I think it was to Harvin...where Hillenmeyer was there and the ball just got by his outstretched hand... Like you said, Lovie keeps making the linebackers play from the line of scrimmage, which is just killing in the middle of the field. But I still think Hillenmeyer has been an admirable fill-in. He's no Urlacher, but I think he's still been valuable to this team this year. I think he's the best middle linebacker on the roster...though I suppose that's not saying a lot. It's been an admirable effort and he is the best healthy MLB on the roster, but that doesn't mean he was good. They had no best player on defense yesterday. They all failed miserably, although Tillman was the closest. Cutler was the best Bear on the field, but he had as little of a chance as ever to do anything. And my lord, Chris Williams is useless. He might be another complete waste of a pick.

Two things about the domestic violence angle. People defending the "it's a private matter" story would never say that if it was a female that was smashed up after her husband used a golf club to "get her out of the driver seat via the rear window". And this morning's metro paper had a little blurb recommending which golf club a woman should use to beat her husband if she thought he was cheating. That goes beyond tasteless to pretty disgusting double standard about domestic violence.

Are you a season ticket holder and or sponsor of the team? If not, you aren't giving them any money. And they aren't asking you to give them money. They aren't coming to you about anything. The meltdown is in the process of happening, a little more than a month ago this was a team with relatively high hopes with few signs that they would truly suck. We don't know what's going to happen. Instead of going with the knee jerk reaction of "ownership is out to screw the fan" try being a little reasonable. Ownership got into this situation because of undue pressure to extend Angelo and Smith a couple years ago when they would have been much better off being a little more cheap and seeing if those two guys could sustain their success and/or build an all-around team (instead of a defense, first, second and always team). The fact is it was probably always going to take a 10 loss team to get any turnover in management. 7, 8 and 9 win seasons were just good enough to offer up hope that they were close to reestablishing their role among the contenders. But that's out the window now. They will be very lucky to win 7 games this year. They will only favored to win 2 more games, and even those games are no sure thing, especially the last game of the year in Detroit. Nobody thought they would make a Lovie/Jerry change when everybody thought they'd still win 8 games. But that's not even realistic anymore. A month ago half the media was offering up the "2nd winningest coach in the NFC since 2005" defense for Lovie. But where is that now? Change could be coming.

Probably because Boston and New York actually acquire big names, whereas the Cubs twiddle their thumbs and end up with the second tier when all is said and done. If you are going to make up rumors about big deals, throwing Boston around makes it look valid. Putting the Cubs name in there makes it look silly.

Not the fans' fault the McCaskeys spent their money in the wrong place. They wanted to own an NFL team. Now deal with the problems. You realize they inherited the team from Halas a couple decades ago right? It's not like they just went out and bought them. Hey, if they can't take the heat, stay out of the kitchen. They could sell at any time. My point stands. They want to own an NFL team? Deal with the problems. Don't come to me, the fan, and say "I don't want to have to eat money so you should just keep giving us cash for a bad team." They're not coming to you.

Not the fans' fault the McCaskeys spent their money in the wrong place. They wanted to own an NFL team. Now deal with the problems. You realize they inherited the team from Halas a couple decades ago right? It's not like they just went out and bought them.

Angelo can be retained in a scouting capacity, sort of like Ed Lynch but with a more respectable position. Angelo should be in charge of the draft, and since they don't have first or second rounders, that's all the best. But they can bring in a new coach and give him personel power over Angelo if they want. If Angelo doesn't like, he can quit and lose his contract. Angelo needs to be held accountable for the decline in talent, but much of that decline is related to the post Super Bowl increase in Lovie's influence on personel decisions. Lovie was given way too much power after that failed run. Angelo has given Lovie and his coaches some talented players that the staff completely failed to use properly. Can somebody explain why Lovie was dressed like the game was played in freezing rain? And when did the Metrodome become the Mall of America Field? Oh, and Hillenmeyer was not good. He got around on some run plays but was horrible on pass coverage, in part because Lovie's uncreative defensive effort demands Hunter stands on the line every single freaking snap. But Hunter is nothing out there.

It has nothing to do with being a celebrity. It's a minor traffic violation so it's not like he's under any obligation to talk to them. There's no way this was a minor traffic accident. What most likely happened was they received preferential treatment early on, and now it's too late for the cops to do much.

The only justification is the cheapass ways of the McCaskey family. They won't pay to buy him out and hire a Cowher. Its not cheapass. It's a huge amount of money to eat in an uncertain market and a "proven coach" doesn't guarantee anything. The problem is he never deserved that extension he got. The media uproar for that contract was ridiculous. The shame is they weren't cheap enough when that was going down. I'm pretty sure you just said the Bears can't afford to hire a new coach. They are a money printing machine. Good organizations, you know, the ones that care about winning, don't make such excuses. I didn't say they can't afford it, I said it's not cheapass. Lovie is one of the most highly paid coaches in the league. And the Bears don't print money like Dallas or Washington does, and both of those organizations have poor coaches. Chicago overpaid for Lovie's extension, and now they are paying for it.

Lovie, you freaking moron, quit having your LB playing tight.