UMFan83

PFF things that have trickled out on Twitter:

hawks outshoot the stars 50-18 and lose 4-3

First give up a penalty shot and goal, then can't score on a 90 seconds of 2 man advantage, then with the last PP still going you give up a breakaway and commit a penalty. ugh!

This would have been welcomed during the 3rd quarter on Sunday when we were all talking deep playoff run for the Bears.

They are saying that this is the deepest draft at least since 2003, but possibly since 1984. I think I read somewhere that there are probably up to 12 guys in this draft that could have gone #1 in last year's draft (albeit last year's draft was said to be historically weak). There is some value to getting 2 picks in the 10-15 range (one being the Bobcats pick)

lmao, I'm sure they learned their lesson and any other potential instigators will be deterred from doing stuff during games due to fear of being scolded publicly. I wonder if things would be different if OSU wasn't in the hunt for a berth in the championship game

Isn't Landon rumored to go back on loan to Everton?

KC Johnson was on Mully and Hanley a bit ago and said that tanking is going to be almost impossible for this team. He doesn't think the team will be able to trade Deng, said he'd be surprised if the team trades more than 2 people, and he'd bet the under on that. And he said there's almost no way that the Bulls don't make the playoffs thanks to so many bad teams. He said that people need to get over the idea of tanking, because it's much harder to do that in the NBA when you're built like the Bulls than other sports like baseball where you can just pay $14mil or something to make Boozer go to another team. Sorry maybe tanking is the wrong word. But it makes no sense to have this team pay the luxury tax when they would be in danger of being repeaters if they are over the tax in either of the next 2 seasons. But you're right, it might not be possible to clear enough salary off the books. I think the Bulls would need to lose $7.5 million in salary during the season to avoid the tax. That would mean somehow finding a team under the cap willing to basically absorb Deng for nothing.

Gah, for some reason I thought we had one more week on the schedule. I tied for the last playoff spot but lost the tiebreaker by 40 points.

Sorry anti-tankers there is almost certainly going to be some sort of move made to downgrade the team, especially with the team going 1-5 without Rose so far. There is no way JR is going to pay the luxury tax for a sub .500 team, especially if that puts us on track for a repeater tax after next year which is good for the team long term.

Ok, this is nonsense. And also wasn't it Minnesota who called the TO?

unnamed Vikings player on the decision to kick on 2nd down:

I'll predict: SYRACUSE over Indiana Illinois over GEORGIA TECH PITTSBURGH over Penn State IOWA over Notre Dame Florida State over MINNESOTA DUKE over Michigan 2-4 then Wednesday: OHIO STATE over Maryland Wisconsin over VIRGINIA NC STATE over Northwestern MICHIGAN STATE over North Carolina PURDUE over Boston College Miami over NEBRASKA 4-2, 6-6 overall

No thanks. Why eat up 1-2 pre-arb (or arb?) years of Sale when we're not going to be competitive next year and possibly the year after.

Can you imagine the drama if the 4 team playoff was happening this year? Let's pretend that MSU beats Ohio State this weekend. The committee would choose FSU of course but would have to pick 3 teams amongst: Ohio State, Alabama, Auburn/Mizzou, Michigan State, Oklahoma State, Baylor, NIU and probably Stanford and Oregon.

Especially because IIRC we got a pretty good pass rush on the play and were in Cassel's face, he just found an open guy and got it off in time.

They are all must wins from here on out. At the very least we have a chance to influence the NFC East race. Oh and, Cutty back? Briggs? Give me something to be excited about guys.

You could have hired a 3-4 D guy, let 1/2 the defense go in the offseason and we wouldn't be any worse on that side if the ball. Yea, losing 15 d-linemen to injuries hurt, but holy Christ our safeties play out of position a lot Burn it down and start over I still have no idea how the Bears do not have one quality safety on the roster after spending 4 top 4 round picks on safeties and one in the 6th round over the last 6 drafts. (Hardin, Conte, Steltz, Wright, Afalava)

I'm starting to question if Emery knows how to draft a defensive player. In his career I don't believe he's been responsible for drafting a quality defensive player Well he's had 2 drafts and drafted 7 defensive players, 4 in the top 5 rounds. Shea has been a spectacular bust relative to the position he was drafted. Wasting a 3rd round pick on a safety who couldn't play a snap for the Bears even though they have terrible safeties was a disaster as well. But Bostic looks like a solid pick, taunting penalties aside. Isaiah Frey has been decent as a 6th round pick thrust into significant action this year. I'm not sure about Khaseem Greene yet but he's starting due to injury and has been passible from what I've seen, don't remember how he's been graded this year. The other 2 are late round picks Cornellis Washington (6th) and Greg McCoy (7th). McCoy isn't on the roster anymore, and Washington has played sparingly. So in 2 drafts he's had 2 pretty big failures and has drafted 1 defensive player that looks to be a starter. Not good at all but again, its 2 drafts so I'm not ready to call him a failure at drafting defensive picks just yet.

even if we win our next 3, Detroit probably has to lose 2 of their next 3 to make it interesting because I don't see Detroit losing to Minnesota in week 17.

We've also won multiple loseable games this year (CIN, MIN, BAL). Seems like the mark of a .500 team and look at that were 6-6. That doesn't mean we shouldn't lament on the Washington, Detroit and Minnesota games that we easily could have won but it kind of is what it is. A team that has been ravaged by injuries, execution in critical moments, and questionable coaching decisions but has fought to at least remain quasi relevant in the playoff picture (at least until today)

Man I'm so glad the Metrodome is done. In the last 12 years the only times we won here were: 2006: a strip sack by Tommie Harris with 2 minutes left takes away a likely loss 2011: Last game of the season and both teams were done and AP didn't play

I don't either. Just frustration. But [expletive] he's a terrible in-game decision maker. He can say all the [expletive] he wants to try to sound smart, but he is clearly coaching scared right now. You go for 4th down on your own side of the field with a lead in GB, but you don't go for it on the opposite side of the field on 4th down with a lead today? You don't coach to prevent a penalty. Turnover yeah, don't [expletive] throw it. He's pretty much lost 2 games this year with bad coaching decisions. Not even 2nd guessing [expletive]. Straight up bad decisions that are preventable with common [expletive] sense. Lost 2 games and could have easy lost the Ravens game by holding onto his TOs as the Ravens were driving for the game winning score. I've calmed down too, I don't want him fired but I'm starting to seriously question him. I'd be one thing if he was a new coach getting acclimated to head coaching but this guy is 57 yards old, had been coaching in the league as far back as the 90s, and has been a head coach the last several years, albeit in the CFL. I know the CFL has different rules and all, but it can't be that much different to the point where you need an entire season to adjust to coaching in the NFL.

Also this could be stupid because I have no idea how this would effect a kicker, but Robbie Gould's wife had a kid at 7:30 this morning. Gould was likely up all night at a hospital while his wife was in labor and then flew from Chicago to Minnesota this morning in time for the game. It's more than possible he was less than focused whether he wanted to be or not. But then again I could be completely off.

That's quite an exaggeration. The Bears also had a lot of things go their way also. It was just an amazing collection of errors and [expletive] ups by both teams. hawkeye its more about the Bears coming so close to victory and the Vikings converting. Off the top of my head the Bears probably win in regulation if: -Jennings doesnt barely get his 2nd foot down on his TD catch, instead of a TD thats a FG and the Vikings need a TD to win -The Bears don't idiotically run up the middle twice on 2nd and 3rd and 1 from the Vikings 40 when we've consistently failed on those situations this year. If they pick up the 1st they are just outside of FG range and at worst the Vikings get the ball back with 2 minutes left instead of 4 mins left -The Bears can't stop a 4th and 11 with 1:55 left with the Cassel throwing from his own end zone. If the Bears get a stop the game is all but over -The Bears have the ball at midfield with 14 seconds and 3 TOs left needing to get at least 10 yards to get a legit FG try and they only pick up 2 yards -Allen commits a late hit penalty that would the Bears a 1st down in Vikings territory, a flag is thrown and somehow it is picked up -Then Trestman commits a Trestman and elects to kick a 47 yard FG on 2nd and 7. I get that the Vikings threw a tipped interception in the end zone as the Vikings were driving for the lead late. I get that the Vikings should have won if there wasn't that inexplicable facemask call, but the Bears should have won this game several different times and all went against them either by luck or by not performing or bad coaching.