jersey cubs fan

Following 6 straight playoff appearances...come on...you understand how that's different right? Of course I do. But I was asked yesterday "how much mediocrity must we endure before we stop living in the past?" The fans calling for Smith's head would very likely, imo, be calling for Cowher's after the first two non-playoff seasons. You are ignoring the very different scenarios of sustained success followed by a set-back and what Lovie's team did, which was very short-lived success.

No, it's completely arbitrary and nonsensical. There's some sense to it. It takes time to implement a new system and draft the players you want for that system. Even with the first season, Smith's got a .563 winning percentage with three playoff victories. To throw out a coach like that after a winning season is asinine. You don't know the definition of asinine. Nor can you count. Where was the third playoff victory?

He was there a heck of a lot longer and accomplished more. He deserved time. I don't just want to fire Smith. I said repeatedly that I'd be fine with Lovie if he had the balls to replace his coaching staff. There is a coaching problem on this team. They are all college coaches. There is not enough NFL experience with this group. The most experienced NFL coach is a guy whose only experience is coaching mediocre offenses for the Chicago Bears. Lovie gets his players motivated, but he is a poor Sunday coach. If he wants to take the Paterno approach, and let his coaches do the coaching, great. But Lovie can't make good decisions on Sunday and his coaches are not up to snuff. Get an offensive guru in here who can, and preferably has, develop QB's. Get something other than Yes men and BFFs to run a defense with some outside perspective. Sticking with what they have now is almost assuring mediocrity continues followed closely by decline.

No, it's completely arbitrary and nonsensical.

I'm close friends with a Steelers fan and his complaint is that Cowher didn't have the players focused enough for the playoff games they lost. It's nonsense. This is the type of thing The Sports Guy would always say about Peyton and Eli until they each beat his team in the playoffs.

That's a good cheerleader. Lovie has matched that pace the last four seasons, and Cowher had a three-year stretch where he averaged 7-9 at one point. I don't think we need to be in such a hurry to change. Shirley, you must be joking. First of all, Lovie has been here 5 years, not 4. Second of all, Cowher made the postseason in 2 of every 3 season, Lovie has just 2 of 5, and if you arbitrarily just talk about his past 4 years, it's still a worse pace. Cowher won 8 of 15 division crowns, Lovie has 2 in 5, or again, if you arbitrarily choose only his past 4 years, it's 2 of 4, a lesser pace. 6 AFC Championship games in 15 years is a much better pace than 1 in 5, and again, if you arbitrarily lower it to 4 years, it's still a better pace. Lovie has won 56% of his games, if you arbitrarily lower it to 4 years, it's on pace with Cowher's, but again, there's no justification for doing that.

Soriano was on pace to drive in more than 100 RBI in 2008 (75 RBI in 109 games). That's great production for a top of the order hitter. Not all of Soriano's hits are HR's. He's typically right around 40 doubles a year also, which allows the other guys to drive him in. Derrek Lee had too many GIDP's, but that's because Theriot is too one dimensional. Theriot would be the ideal #8 hitter in the Cubs line up. He can draw the walk or stroke a base hit, steal 2nd or get to second on the sacrifice by the pitcher and be in scoring position for Soriano. I think Soriano's stolen base rate would actually improve from that lower spot in the order. Soriano was also on pace to score 100 runs, something he's done several times in his career. Keeping him healthy is what the Cubs need from Soriano more than anything. A switch to another spot in the order isn't necessary at all. Necessary? No. Preferable? Clearly.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/12302008/img/back123008.jpg

yeah, he wants to be a Cub, but the Cubs apparently have shown little interest How on Earth did you come to that conclusion on the basis of the blurb you quoted? Honestly, man.... I'm guessing he didn't base every word he wrote in that post on that single source of information.

One year deal, and I have big doubts he'll be any good next year.

Isn't it more or less a foregone conclusion that Lovie Smith = Cover 2? The Bears don't always play cover 2. I'm still holding out hope that they replace the defensive staff, and that the scheme continues to evolve. Stagnation should not be an option.

The Bears sure haven't done a good job finding them. It's not hard to find corners, but it will be hard to find a corner better than Tillman, which would be necessary before moving him.

Tillman would be in the middle of a lot more plays as a safety to help create turnovers, which he has always done really well. What do you guys think? Interesting idea and one I like mainly because I think Tillman is greatly overrated as a cornerback. His cover skills just arent very good. It will be hard to find another corner, but if they can, I'd be all for it. Depends on the scheme though.

I haven't been able to find it online, but the cover of the NY Post cracked me up this morning: Woody For Brett It's got a picture of the owner, Woody Johnson, and Brett Favre inside a cartoon heart.

It was there for the first 1.5 - 2.0 seconds of nearly every pass play, but that's about it. Orton made bad decisions and throws, I'm not claiming otherwise. He was never as bad as Grossman was at his worst, but he threw some doozies nonetheless. Those problems were exacerbated by the line, and they could see significant improvment in the passing game with better protection.

Part of the problem is management has always fed the fan's desire to be a defense first type team. Pass happy = pansy football to some. But this isn't going to change until they bring in a guy who can develop a QB. Their most "brilliant" offensive mind since I was born was Ditka. Ron Turner has had 3 big time jobs, twice as Bears OC and once as Illinois HC. He's never once developed a legit QB. They need to bring in a guy who has done it before, or find a guy who can legitimately do it now. And they need more coaches with NFL experience. Lovie's first group of coaches was almost exclusively from the college ranks, with Rivera one of the few exceptions.

I think it's clearly an issue, but part of the reason is he has no time to look through his reads.

Huh? 2 years in a row, big deal.

have you paid attention to the way the nfl works? nobody loses 5-10 years in a row unless they are completely dysfunctional in the front office (cardinals, raiders). hell even the raiders were in a super bowl not that long ago. people were saying the falcons were going to be a disaster for years after their star qb ended up in jail and their head coach ran out on them, and they're back in the playoffs a year later. Teams with at least 5 consecutive losing seasons since 2000: Lions 49ers Cardinals Raiders Texans Buffalo could be added to this list next year. Cincinnati had was in the middle fo a 5 season losing streak when 2000's started. This list gets much larger if I either: Cut the criteria down to 4 consecutive seasons, or Count 8-8 seasons So it's rare, but 5-6 losing seasons in a row is gonna be on the long side. I don't think above 6 is probably realistic. Plus, we're talking about the Jets, one of the worst run franchises in the NFL for decades. They have as many 10 loss seasons as 10 win seasons this decade, and spent almost the entire 90's under .500. If anybody can sustain losing, it's the Jets. The NFL is set up so it's possible for teams to recover quickly, and difficult to sustain success. But just as Philly, Indy, New England and Pittsburgh have found ways to generally outperform the norm over an extended period, there are plenty of teams that have underformed and failed to win for extended periods.

It's possible. I think he's got a better arm than pennington, for one, but he's got to get use to his limitations. I don't think he ever had a receiver like Hester before, and learning to lead that type of speed can be difficult for all but the very best QB talents. I think Orton tried to do too much late in the season. For what I assume were physical reasons, Forte missed extended sequences in several recent games. And when Forte was out, the running game was putrid. He never had time to sit and look through his reads, so it was just a matter of dropping back throwing to your best early option and hoping for the best.

So glad I have some sports team to enjoy after the Bears mediocrity and during the incredibly boring Cubs offseason.

He also dealt with some horrible drops by Booker and Davis, and in that Caroline game, Olsen more or less lost the game on his own. As you said, he is servicable. He's not a franchise QB. But he's going to be as reliable as most veterans out there. He's about 30 games into his pro career, and has done about as well as Drew Brees did in his first couple years worth of games. I don't see him ever doing as well as Brees, but if he played in a dome or southern california, who knows? I'd stick with Orton for now, draft a QB in the top 4 rounds, and look for young waiver wire types. It would be nice if these QBs had a better coach to develop them, somebody who has actually developed an NFL QB at one point in his career.

Ideally, yes, teams could and should fix their lines by signing FA (and not 34-36 year olds) every couple years, and maybe taking a mid round guard here and there. But the Bears ignored their line for far too long to be that patient. We don't even know if Williams is going to work out. At this point, is there any reason to assume he'll be better than Robert Gallery was for Oakland? He couldn't beat out JSC even late in the season? Sure, this staff is generally overly patient with incumbents, but Williams' best attribute was that he was supposed to be the closest to starter caliber of the second tier of lineman. He was never the most highly regarded, and he was not thought of as a stud by any stretch. He was going to be a servicable immediate fill-in. But that's what JSC ("turnstile" with the Dolphins) was this year. And it doesn't help when you cut your 7th round project so you can bring back the worthless Fred Miller. That was a bad personel decision prompted by unwise coaching demands.

Pennington had success with his original team, at least as much as he's had so far this year.

Frankly, Tommie pisses me the hell off. He takes a lot of plays/games off. I don't know if he's a lazy person overall, but I think he's a lazy football player a lot of the time. He has his moments without a doubt. This is one of those "perception" things, and completely not proveable, and maybe way off base, but that's the impression I'm getting. Last year and this year, he just seems disinterested. obviously i haven't gotten to see him play much since his OU days, but that was the knock against him when he was here too. I never knew how much of it was just old white guys complaining about a young black guy at a position where effort can be hard to quantify. It seems like there was a lot of that early in his Bears career, but there was a couple year span there where he just got it, and was a monster. Then these last couple years, partly due to injury probably, it's just...meh. A couple of shining moments, but nothing that makes opponents fear lining up against him. Again...completely speculative. I don't even know if effort has anything to do with it, but the injuries have clearly taken him down a notch or three. There's also a fairly strong chance he's mentally unstable.