jersey cubs fan

I hope he's concerned about this. It's his job to be and to get the team ready to play come Opening Day. Derrek Lee will hit, and likely as soon as he needs to. Risking overextending anyone, especially him, is the opposite of smart. This whole idea of "overextending" someone is a construct of this thread and has nothing to do with anything. Are you suggesting it's impossible to use a guy too much in the spring? That there is no need for off days or rest, or easing into the everyday grind of the season?

It's actually quite true. Hendry has put together a highly flawed expensive team. With the resources he's had, there's no reason why this team should have ever finished below .500 once in his tenure, let alone be under .500 for most of it. And not one 90 win season is just despicable. Hendry sucks.

Houston is definitely not in the southwest. Well not technically, but close enough for me. I find Texas as a whole to be closer to Southwestern in nature (if not geography) than anything else. But isn't he in Florida now anyway?

Too old for training he is.

But they do like Woodson. I didn't like him in the 1st, but if the Bears can get him later, I'd be fine with it.

While Lee got his power back in the second half, I think it's still fair to say it didn't return all the way to where it was at its peak. Slugging a high number for a half a season is not the same as repeating what you did in your carer year. It's still very much in doubt how much power Lee will have going forward. It's almost certainly not going to compare to 2005.

Yeah, I have mixed feelings on this. If he follows through on the threat, it's stupid. If he's really upset that guys aren't hitting well, it's stupid. But if these are just words, and lighting fires under asses a bit, fine by me. It's a nice change of pace to see a Cubs manager actually hold veterans to some sort of standard and not use all their critical words on the kids.

They probably should. They aren't going to be good for several years, wasting his best, and most cost effective years, and he's bound to be hurt by then anyway.

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.