scarey

Is Monta Ellis the dumbest player in the NBA? Strike that. Is Monta Ellis the dumbest player to ever play the sport professionally?

What does this mean? Is he saying he can hit for power in his first AB, but nothing after that? If that's the case... I'm not sure how to take that evaluation.

Spilborghs is a name that stood out to me. Could be a great Reed Johnson type that seems to thrive as a pinch hitter. I'm concerned about his defense though. Haven't seen him much personally, but fangraphs has him as largely average outside of his 2010 where he was absolutely brutal.

Yes and no. Supposedly in January, the Angels will have a better idea of where Morales stands in terms of health. If he gets a clean bill of health and a major player for Fielder, say the Cubs, deals for Morales, that cuts out a bidder. Still, even in that scenario it seems there will still be plenty of bidders to drive the market for him. So, it's pretty safe to say he's best sitting back and waiting for someone to wow him.

What do people feel would be a realistic contract that Fielder would sign with the Cubs for? If you're Fielder, you want to get as much money as you can out of this. I've not heard of any other huge factors on how he's making a decision other than money. Generally speaking, the longer the contract, the more money he makes. Epstein seems comfortable contracting Fielder for his prime years, but does not want to hamstring the team with what could be a quickly declining, 33/34/35 year old hitter. The way I see it, if the Cubs could manage to offer a large per year salary over 5 years (think $27 million), that could keep them in the running. If they were to offer a mutual option for a 6th year that included a large buyout for the Cubs ($10 million), that could make the Cubs' offer stand out from the crowd. It would essencially be either 5 years $135 mill (Fielder opts out), 5 years $145 mill (Cubs buy out Fielder for 6th year), or 6 years $162 (both sides agree on option year). Those all seem palatable to me, and Fielder would get a chance at another pay day before the end of his career.

I liked at the end of the fight, how Guyn gets loose and runs for the smallest white boy he can get his hands on. Mbodj probably gets a pretty healthy suspension after trying to stomp on Frease after he went down.

Is he having another aneurysm?

You can really tell the disdain they have for him as they burn that $12 t-shirt.

Pretty disappointed about Flaherty. I hope we end up snagging somebody worth while for 3rd, because I had him pegged as a possible platoon partner with Baker there if not.

This site has become little more than a string of 5-10 repeated jokes...

If the Cubs acquired him, I personally would hope he would keep his approach if his increased LD% has anything to do with his change. I was looking at his BABIP stats from 2009 and 2010 and he had LD% of 16.5% and 17.9% respectively. He had a 21.9% LD% last year. What concerns me in general with Headley is he had around 40% more PAs in each season of 2009/2010 compared to 2011. I'm starting to wonder if the near 1300 PAs in 2009/2010 is a better indicator of what he is than the 439 PAs from last year. Or maybe he did take more of a line drive approach?

It's interesting to me that you're extrapolating a poor season from Stewart into the opinion that Stewart has been an awful MLB player. I didn't say "awful," I said "bad." I know, I know, but the connotations are different. He doesn't really have any good seasons to balance out the bad one. He's better than DeWitt though. I think that's all that needs to be said.

Do you really think there's that much difference between the 2-3 in the NBA? Maybe he just had a bad year. There's not too much of a difference, but there are definitely some very quick 2 guards that I wouldn't be thrilled having Butler guard. Guys like Eric Gordon and OJ Mayo would run circles around him.

As much as I'll defend that misdirection screen, I wouldn't shed a tear if Martz moved on.

He'll be stuck in China for the next 6 months. http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=aw-wojnarowski_china_nba_players_112811 sounds like wilson chandler should just stay and be a superstar there. I was actually thinking that... for real. I have no idea what the earnings potential actually is in China as a pro athlete, but I have to think if they are willing to pamper him and treat him like royalty, it could be a pretty sweet gig.

Raw is killing it. BTW, I've been sullying Edwin Williams good name. I've been calling him out for missing the block on Curry when it was actually Webb.

That's my point.

I obviously agree with all of this. Also, it seems Curry did his homework and recognized the play. You have to give him credit for making a great play. http://espn.go.com/chicago/nfl/story/_/id/7292054/mike-ditka-disappointed-chicago-bears-call-goal-line

A run, or preferably a safer pass over the middle and/or in a only we can catch it spot. Basically nothing risky. You settle for the FG at that point and go into the half ecstatic. It was an idiotic play call and it's really stupid to pretend that it monday morning quarterbacking. It was exactly the type of thing I didn't want them doing at the time of the play, not the next day. Also, according to the video of this play the Bears had a timeout available. There was no need to spike it. But if they end up 1st and goal from the 4 there's still plenty of time to try and throw 2 relatively safe pass plays and then kick. You have to save the timeout for the absolute last seconds to ensure you can stop the clock to kick a field goal. They run the ball and call a timeout then get sacked trying to score, then no FG. what the hell are you talking about? Hanie threw an INT and Oakland still had time for 2 plays and a FG try. there was PLENTY of time for a run play, possibly 2. The Raiders also had two timeouts, one of which they also saved just in case Bush wasn't able to get out of bounds on that last play before they kicked the FG.

You don't have to save the time out. You have 25 seconds and 2-3 plays where you throw it into the end zone, so it's either TD or incomplete and the clock stops. Regardless, stop pretending it wasn't an idiotic play call on a tight field with 30 seconds remaining and a careless QB at the helm. You call that play on the 50, not the 6. There's no pretending. I genuinely think it was a decent play call to sneak a TD in, just that it was poorly executed. I also genuinely think it was going to be very difficult to get the ball in the endzone given the time constraints and ability of the QB. It was also a great play by Curry.

A run, or preferably a safer pass over the middle and/or in a only we can catch it spot. Basically nothing risky. You settle for the FG at that point and go into the half ecstatic. It was an idiotic play call and it's really stupid to pretend that it monday morning quarterbacking. It was exactly the type of thing I didn't want them doing at the time of the play, not the next day. Also, according to the video of this play the Bears had a timeout available. There was no need to spike it. But if they end up 1st and goal from the 4 there's still plenty of time to try and throw 2 relatively safe pass plays and then kick. You have to save the timeout for the absolute last seconds to ensure you can stop the clock to kick a field goal. They run the ball and call a timeout then get sacked trying to score, then no FG.

Ok, so I assume you were a person that was in favor of a run there? Assume they pick up 3 or 4 yards and 1st down. They have to spike the ball and there's about 25 seconds left on the clock and second down. At this point, everone knows the Bears have to try and throw it to try and score. You want a QB that was playing poorly and throwing the ball to the oposition to try and throw for a TD on the 8 yard line? Or do you want to try and sneak in an easy opportunity on a high percentage screen play? This video sucks, but this is exactly how that play is supposed to work... and it's Brandon freaking Manumaleuna doing it. Do you see how easy that is? I could have made that throw. Heck, Todd Collins could have even made that throw. You have to tip your cap to the Raiders for being in a good position, be disappointed in the lack of execution, and yes second guess the play call. Just don't forget the first two and totally emphasize the play call.

That doesn't matter though. If two people do their jobs correctly (Hanie throwing the ball on a line and Williams blocking the linebacker) then that play works. This is Monday morning QBing. The only reason the play call sucks is because it was not executed well. Your claim that you don't put your QB in that difficult position can be dispelled by the first Hanie TD. They are in an obvious blitzing down (3rd and 8 in the redzone) and the Bears go 4 WR. Forte is the only extra blocker left in to block for basically a rookie QB. If Hanie doesn't make the hot read and hits Knox for a TD, he likely gets sacked and everyone makes a big deal about how it was a bad play call and that Martz needs to put extra blockers in for Hanie. As it turned out, nobody mentions the play selection. Hanie was expected to perform and he did. Again, if Hanie and Williams execute that play well, Davis gets the ball with two blockers in front of him and a good chance to score. We wouldn't hear anything about the play call. Martz probably even gets credit for a good play call if they score. EDIT: Actually, I'm wrong, you do need to take into account that the Raiders were doing well against the screen when you make the play call. However, I'm not sure that was the case at this point in the game and also, the play is designed to misdirect the defense. And it did.

I was starting to think I was the only one with this opinion and thus, crazy. I'm glad that at the very least, I have one other crazy person to be crazy with.

If the throws it on a line it's a tackle for a loss. I think Davis may have had enough time to catch the ball and make a move, definitely not a certainty though. I get what you mean though, there was a linebacker sniffing out the play. Edwin Williams should have been on that. That doesn't mean it was an Earth-shatteringly horrible call. Again, I have no problems with people questioning the call. But calling Martz a complete moron and blaming him completely is just not fair. Martz has deserved plenty of blame for a lot of things that have gone wrong over the last two years. He deserves his share of the blame on that play. Making him the scapegoat for the whole game based on that one play doesn't make sense to me though. To me, execution by Hanie and Williams has more to do with why it unfolded as it did than Martz's play call. Yes, they are two players with limited playing time, but I know for a fact they ran that play in practice and made it part of the game plan. They are professional football players and they should be expected to make the play. I think people are reacting to the outcome of the play and playing a little bit of Monday morning QB. I don't see any other play from yesterday that people are claiming was too difficult to ask Hanie to do.