jersey cubs fan

I don't believe I would consider including Donaldson in a deal for Crisp. If he was the cost of doing business by getting rid of Marquis and his entire deal, and getting back something decent, then perhaps. Otherwise, no way.

People who were paying attention knew it was a horrible decision before it was made.

Who knows if Lou is still mad at Fox though. Fox got yanked out of the game immediately after one of his at-bats last August and never got another at-bat for the rest of the season. I'm not sure that he is going to get many chances with the team. Why, what happened to set Lou off? No one knows for sure, but the speculation was that Fox wasn't being as patient as Lou liked. Lou started him one day against the Giants. Fox saw a total of 5 pitches in 3 at-bats. After the end of the 3rd at-bat, Lou was visibly upset and pulled him from the game. The next day, it was reported he would be sent back to the minors, and he ended up not getting back in a game in the majors the rest of the year. You spend years being led to believe swing early and swing often is the only way to make it and then a Cubs manager actually punishes you for impatience. Must be confusing.

I've been thinking about this a bit this offseason. We haven't heard about him at all. Was he on the roster but inactive all year, or was there any injury issue? I feel like it's almost inevitable that he will have to play a lot this year. If he is decent, that would be a significant boost.

best player available is far too subjective a concept, and positional need is far too real a concept in football that it's impossible to simply take the best player available.

I have the same opinion. Going into this past season I thought Henne had a chance to be a futrue Bear, and I watched him from time to time. He is such an idiot. Holding onto the ball and taking sacks that move his team out of scoring position. Not throwing the ball away. Forcing passes into coverage. It's hard to quantify, but I remember watching multiple games and thinking the guy is just a moron. I'm not opposed to getting him in the middle of the draft as a project, but all this hype that has him moving up draft boards makes me even less interested. If they take him in the 2nd I think I'll be upset.

You need to drop players that do not fit under the 1800 point cap. I don't supposed I could find somebody who would let me know who is exempt? When is everything going down? I will work on it tonight. The keeper cut off was supposed to be 2/24 but obviously it has been extended. The draft is going to be on some Saturday or Sunday in this month. My guess at this point it will be 22/23 or 29/30. BTW, what's your team name? I believe I settled on gutless choking dogs last summer. Goony? Mooch! Is that you? Oh my god how long has it been! Uh yeah, had to change my login last year.

You need to drop players that do not fit under the 1800 point cap. I don't supposed I could find somebody who would let me know who is exempt? When is everything going down? I will work on it tonight. The keeper cut off was supposed to be 2/24 but obviously it has been extended. The draft is going to be on some Saturday or Sunday in this month. My guess at this point it will be 22/23 or 29/30. BTW, what's your team name? I believe I settled on gutless choking dogs last summer.

I couldn't disagree more. You can't take deep routes out of the play book and turn Grossman into and dinker and dunker. Grossman's biggest strength is the 15-20 yard pass. And he needs to throw the occasional deep ball as well. What they need is to do a better job blocking. I think the problem is the Bears idea of a passing game was often either throw a bomb or dump it off. They need to work on that intermediate game, but keep the deep game as a threat as well. Yea, I was scratching my head on that one too. Take out the deep routes with Grossman in? Huh? I love how when we can't protect the passer, somehow everyone decides it should reflect back on the QB in some way rather than just fixing the actual problem, which is........we can't protect the passer. When the line can't protect the quarterback, it's time to look for plays that give the QB shorter periods of time holding the ball. The line problems didn't just develop overnight. It's been a continuous problem. And Rex plays the QB position like a deer caught in the headlights. I like Rex to a degree. He just needs time to throw and he needs to feel like he has time to throw, and until he has time to throw, he's just not going to be a good quarterback. That's an adjustment you make mid-game, or maybe mid-season, not in the offseason. The goal should be to develop an offense that allows Rex to throw deep, intermediate and short routes, and to provide the necessary blocking. This is one potential benefit of more 2 TE sets. It allows you to keep in a 6th lineman at times, or set up situations where the TE chips and gets into the route a little late.

You need to drop players that do not fit under the 1800 point cap. I don't supposed I could find somebody who would let me know who is exempt? When is everything going down?

I agree he was bad (although I was slow to come around on this one), but I'm not shocked he wasn't fired. The Bears never do everything I wish they'd do in the offseason, and other than replacing Turner, they've done most of what I wished so far. I'm not shocked, because they wanted Grossman back, so that meant Turner coming back. They aren't gonna try to have Grossman learn a whole new system. If the Grossman-Turner combo crashes and burns this season, and they have a newly drafted QB waiting in the wings, I wouldn't be surprised if they sent them both packing after this season. But that's getting way ahead of ourselves. But then that rookie QB has to relearn a whole new NFL system, delaying his development...... It's a vicious cycle.

I agree he was bad (although I was slow to come around on this one), but I'm not shocked he wasn't fired. The Bears never do everything I wish they'd do in the offseason, and other than replacing Turner, they've done most of what I wished so far.

I couldn't disagree more. You can't take deep routes out of the play book and turn Grossman into and dinker and dunker. Grossman's biggest strength is the 15-20 yard pass. And he needs to throw the occasional deep ball as well. What they need is to do a better job blocking. I think the problem is the Bears idea of a passing game was often either throw a bomb or dump it off. They need to work on that intermediate game, but keep the deep game as a threat as well.

I completely forgot about this league. What's going on? When is the draft. I have no idea what I need to do to my roster, and I'm going to be away for a while.

While I agree there should be no need to label him the #1 (writers have already referred to him as such), I don't really think that matters. This isn't like picking your opening day starter, or who pitches the first playoff game. The Bears were hurt by Muhammed constantly getting away with drops and other things no young player would ever get away with. You want your best players to lead and Muhammed was not the best player, and I don't think much of a leader (at least this past year). Booker should just be an option in the passing game. Whether he starts or not doesn't matter. He can be the primary target on certain passing plays, but he should be just another receiver. Bradley, Hester and Olsen should be the most prominent big play threats, but Booker should emerge as a go-to guy when you need a first down.

I think you are grossly exaggerating what people are saying about Booker. Nobody is talking about a 1000 yard season. I think it's fair to expect a 50-60 reception, 600-700 yard season. I think he's more than capable of replacing what Muhammed gave the Bears, which, admittedly, wasn't much. However, it's a stable presence in the passing game who can catch some passes in traffic, at a reasonable salary. The key is still the offensive line.

I hate that their announcers used to applaud Cubs fans for showing up and filling their stadium and now they whine about it. They actually promoted future Cubs/Brewers games to Cubs fans, so they could bring much needed revenue into Milwaukee, and now they act like ungrateful babies that people actually care enough to show up to games. I don't hate Milwaukee, but I hate them being in front of the Cubs in the standings. And really, I kind of love them for collapsing so bad last year and giving the Cubs a chance. Cardinals and Astros are atop that list. The Reds aren't too far behind, along with the Mets. The Yankees are up there as are the Padres and Marlins. I hate the Brewers about as much as I hate the Pirates, which is, only when they are on the schedule or an obstacle to the postseason.

4 goals, that's a season high right? Nah, they scored 6 once. But 4 is still shocking. I thought we'd just win every game 2-1. Have you been to the Prudential Center yet? Or did Barry Melrose scare you away? I'm like 15 minutes away from it and I might be going soon. Freaking Blackhawks are doing just enough to keep faint hopes alive without actually making up any ground. But I think it can be good for a young team like this to play well down the stretch, even if all it does is mess up their draft status.

I agree it is not exciting, but in terms of production, he might not be that far behind Berrian and will cost something like a third as much. Booker could easily have 70 catches for something like 800-ish yards. Berrian won't be that much better, and Booker is a better blocker in the running game (an underrated ability, IMO). EDIT: Those nos. I predicted are a bit inflated. More realistic is the notion that he'll have 60-65 catches and 700-750 yards. Again, you get what you pay for. I was going to reply to the original, but your edit took care of that. I think this is a smart sign. It's financially wise and cap friendly. Booker is more likely replacing Moose than Berrian, but either way, he's going to get a fair amount of catches. I think 2008 Bradley, Booker, Hester, Draft Pick, Olsen, Clark should have no problem being as productive as 2007 Berrian, Moose, Davis, Hester, Bradley, Olsen, Clark. Hester and Bradley are going to fight for deep opportunities, Booker is going to be a possession receiver who can get a few yards, and a draft pick should be able to do something out there. The key to the passing game is Olsen, followed closely by Hester emerging. And there's no reason why Hester can't improve this year. A lot of people pointed out that 2007 was going to be a learning experience for Hester the WR, and I think he showed more than enough to believe he learned on the job and will get better.

http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=147165&src=152 This is just silly. Why does Lou think he'd have to hit Soto, Theriot, CF 6, 7, 8 with Fukudome 2? Why can't Theriot hit 8? Why is this a problem? Why must the CF hit 8th?

http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=147166&src=152 I could be wrong, but I believe Wuertz has started each of the past 3 springs with issues that held him back at the beginning. He seems to take a long time to get ready, to the point that the managers always wonder if he's really going to be able to help the big club - yet he always ends up helping the big club.

I'm going Saturday night and Sunday afternoon. I think I'm also going to all three Philly games two weeks earlier.

http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=145622

Oh you lucky devil, you got the Grossly Awesome bleacher seats. Man, you're in for a treat. The Cubs will actually send a limo with a fully stocked bar to your house to pick you up and take you to the game. You get your pick of seat as well. So whenever you show up, just tell the usher you have the GA seats and, if somebody is sitting in your preferred seats, he'll make them move for you. It can get a little complicated to fill out some of the additional paperwork needed for the transportation and what not. And some people have complained the front office will make things a little difficult on opposing fans, because these GA seats are supposed to be held for the diehardest of the diehard Cubs fans - the John McClanes if you will. Anyway, if you'd like, you can send me your tickets and I'll take care of all that extra paperwork so you can just relax and wait for that limo. You're going to have a blast.

basically, he said what everybody has said for 3 months now, nothing.