UMFan83

You guys remember individual games from last year? All I remember is a blur of bullpen blowups and Castro groundouts.

yeah, pretty much they missed a kick ball for [expletive]'s sake Wouldn't it have been a blocking foul if it wasn't a charge? I'm at the game and they didn't show a good replay.

Big Z held my favorite Cub belt for several years his downfall was spectacular. Circa 2006 him and Andres Nocioni were my 2 favorite Chicago athletes. I need to make better choices in life.

Pretty good WR out there: Weird because reportedly there was interest from other teams in trading for him but the Eagles decided to cut him outright and take on his $6m cap hit. There's something missing here...

Apparently he talked with Chip Kelly and all is well now. http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap2000000336591/article/desean-jackson-tweets-he-spoke-with-chip-kelly Guess that has changed...

Man, I don't think I have a clear favorite. If there was WAR like statistic that measured my cumulative like of a player over a period of time, Sosa would win for his performance from 1996-2003. But I don't think he'd be in my top 3 anymore. Grace was awesome, but I was an innocent early teenager during his main years as a Cub so I didn't appreciate his partying and slump busting ways, and when I was old enough to Sosa overshadowed him. Loved Ryno, he is a contender but not quite. 11 year old umfan was pissed he retired, and then he sucked when i was more impressionable. Plus he didnt have the personality. Kerry Wood might be a my choice. Obviously never lived up to the potential but his 1998 season was the stuff of legends for a 15 year old, the love was cemented for his performance down the stretch of 2003 and the NLDS that year, and then it grew when he kept coming back from stupid injuries and kept finding new roles to help the team, then retired in a classy way. He's always seemed like a cool dude and has embraced Chicago as his home and has been active in the community. Aramis was just consistently awesome, and a sort of overshadowed star during his peak years. Quiet dude, but he had some clutch hits for us and was the centerpiece of 2 of my 3 favorite Cubs memories since 2000, the Grand Slam in the NLCS and the GW HR against the Brewers in 2007. Choosing between Kerry and Aramis. I'll choose Aramis because it would piss Kaplan off and that's always fun.

Strange, I am not amused at all.

Hawks are 13-10-7 in their last 30 games. Yeesh

No doubt, I've been watching Dayton all year. I'm just saying their runs are similar

They're going to need that confidence if they have any shot of beating Florida/UCLA Dayton's run is a lot like George Mason's in 2006. Both 11 seeds. Both beat a Big Ten powerhouse in the first round (MSU vs. OSU), both beat a basketball blue blood in the 2nd round (UNC vs. Syracuse), both beat a lower seeded team fellow cinderella (sort of) in the 3rd round (7 seed Wichita St vs. 10 Stanford). If Florida wins, both would face the top overall seed in the tournament that no one thinks will lose to an inferior team (UConn vs. Florida - fake edit UConn was #2 overall seed).

We need Kane back

See I told you our chemistry equation works, we said the Cubs have the worst chemistry in baseball and they finished in last.

Article was posted 4 days early...

Well that wasn't a fun thing to open at work

Doesn't mean much if you know he is comparing Cutler to whatever QB will start for the Raiders. But in all seriousness, I'm sure Emery did he 45 minute explanation of the Bears offseason why all his moves fit perfectly with what the Bears are trying to do, etc. I bet there was advanced stats in there too.

Listening to Mac and spiegs earlier? Yep.

Am I the only one that recently discovered that Olt's last name is pronounced "Alt"?

also opens up a 40 spot

Not sure what we got back. Probably a PTBNL?

Wonder how much this has to do with most of Allen's dome games being home games.

I think you can draft a TE that would be able to play a ton, a WR that can easily move to 3rd on the depth chart that often uses 3 or 4 WR and 3 OL positions that can change hands this year with the right draftee. True enough. I just think there are diminishing returns on upgrading the offense compared to the defense at this point. That's not to say that if there wasn't an unbelievable value on offense, I wouldn't want them to take him and worry about the rest later. I like the offense but do not think for a second we are at the point of diminishing returns on upgrades there. The WR group is a 2 man operation. There is one legit NFL TE. The offensive line is stable but very unspectacular. The RB has a lot of miles and the QB is not Peyton Manning in his prime. There's literally room for improvement at nearly every spot. I agree with this. Plus with the offensive line, I think PFF graded them as fairly middle of the pack or slightly below average (granted a major improvement over past seasons) and they gave up something like the 4th most QB hurries in the NFL, but one of the lowest sack totals too. Too me that suggests a solid amount of luck. Not to say that Long and Mills won't be better next year, but Garza is old and declining and as awesome as Slauson was last year, can we expect him to play at that level again next season? I wouldn't be opposed to a 2nd or 3rd round pick on an OL if they like the guy.

Holy wow, Hub loves the move. Not sure if that's a good thing or bad thing. http://www.chicagofootball.com/2014/03/26/arkush-allen-makes-bears-a-contender/avfwrk5/

The problem with Noah is it seemed like the Bulls were collecting high energy, high effort bigs at the time, but had a glaring need for a low post player. Hawes was seen as a much better low post prospect, at least in my memory...he hasn't exactly turned out that way. I thought Noah would be another Tyson Chandler type player and never expected he would be able to have the effect on the game that he has.

Agree with all of this except the "Allen isn't going to play every snap" thing. Allen's snaps have actually gone up the last 4 years and he's threatened to retire if he was only being offered a role as a situational pass rusher. Now maybe that was only an idle threat and I don't think you are implying that Allen will be used as a situational pass rusher only, just reduced snaps in some situations, but I think the Bears gave him some sort of assurance that he will be an every down player and Allen will throw a fit if the Bears try to reduce his role. Just my opinion Also look, Lance Briggs isn't bitching about something the Bears did: