UMFan83

**WARNING BILL SIMMONS RANT** The Sports Guy has changed his opinion of the Bears roughly 15 times this year. First he picks the Bears to make the playoffs and talks up how the Bears were one of the top 3 teams in the conference and a sleeper Super Bowl pick before Cutler got hurt last year. Then he decides the Colts are the perfect team to beat the Bears in week 1. Then after the Bears blew them out and GB lost to SF, he excitedly picked the Bears to win in week 2, saying they might be ready to take over the north. The Bears looked terrible and lost, so he started asking questions in his podcast like 'are we sure the bears are good and not good-bad?'. The Bears blow out the Rams, Cowboys and Jags, and suddenly he's including the Bears amongst his elite teams in the league, talking about how the defense is one of the elite units in the NFL and called them a playoff lock and almost wanted to call the NFC North race over when the Bears were 4-1 and the Packers 2-3. Before the Detroit game he said something about how if the Bears were really a super bowl contender, they would take care of the Lions handily on MNF. OK the offense wasn't great, but I think anyone who watched that game would say the Bears took care of the Lions handily. Well that didn't sway Bill yet, since he was still high on the Bears going into the Carolina game. However, after that crap of a win, Bills tune has changed yet again, and he was saying things like 'i just dont know what to think of the Bears anymore, are they really all that great?' and now he is picking the Titans +3.5 over the Bears. Nothing that I wrote above is really outrageous, but its extremely fickle and way too influenced by a single game here and there.

Do itttttt

The Colts would've been better to use there than the Seahawks. Seahawks are NFC tho They are? Whoops. the Bears have knocked them out of the playoffs 2 times in 6 years. I'm pretty sure David was referring to an inside joke from a few weeks back.

James Harden with 37 points, 12 assists and 6 rebounds in his debut as a Rocket

Wait you cant buy your way to a championship? Well I guess we should wait to see how the season plays out for the Kobe, Gasol, Nash, and Dwight. You are acting like the luxury tax is some legitimate barrier that teams dont cross all of the time, especially the teams that make $50 million in profits every year.

Theo alt? No, he's pretty much right. Profit clearly comes before winning. I didnt want to believe it but this offseason made it really care. I mean I get that the luxury tax penalties are getting stiffer next year, and the repeat offender penalties are even worse. But come on, the Bulls are the most profitable team in the game by a decent margin and you are one of 7 teams who has never paid the luxury tax. The other 6 teams: Charlotte Golden State LA Clippers New Orleans Oklahoma City Washington Not exactly a bunch of large revenue teams....how about the 5 teams that have spent the most in luxury tax penalties: Boston ($46 mil) Dallas ($150 mil) LA Lakers ($84 mil) New York ($195 mil) Portland ($89 mil) Other than Portland, who somehow spent $51 mil in luxury tax in 02-03 and another $29 mil the next year and only $8 million more over the next 8 seasons, you are talking about the highest revenue teams in the game and teams that compete just about every year. Not saying we need to spend as much money as them, just that they be willing to go over by a couple million when necessary.

Why aren't the Packers discredited for almost losing to the Jaguars at home (not to mention losing to the Colts), when the Bears beat them by almost 40 in Jacksonville? Oh that's right, Aaron Rodgers was able to stablize his mood throughout the game.

They care about their fans..........as long as they are able to be the most profitable team in the NBA by a wide margin.

That's crazy that Denver is #1

I hadn't thought about it that way, but yeah that looks terrible. I think all the CBA did is make it even harder for the small market teams to build and sustain a championship core, and made it so instead of maybe 10 teams that can live above the luxury tax, you are left with probably 3 teams that can year in and year out (New York, LAL and Miami (for now)), along with a handfull that can venture into the luxury tax level occasionally for a year or so. Then you have the Bulls, who benefitted greatly (at least in Reinsdorf's eyes) as they now have a great excuse to never go over the luxury tax (and yes Rip will be traded at some point this year so the Bulls dont finish over)

I'm fine with the Bulls getting the 2,3,6 or 7 seed to presumably avoid Miami until the ECF. Not that I think that the Bulls are going to get that far even with Rose back (I don't think he'll be studly again until next year), but I won't completely discount it either. TBH though, I'm rather down on the Bulls in general. I think it will take a long time for all the new pieces to mesh, the defense will be quite a bit worse than the previous 2 years, at least initially, and obviously the offense will struggle quite a bit during certain stretches. I'm thinking if Rose can come back by mid-February, given what I said above, I think we're looking at a 44-38 season or something close to that. Vegas has our O/U at 49 wins I believe...seems too good to be true.

Come on guys. I want to see NHL hockey at the Big House

Umm ok. He's a rookie and when using logic we can safely assume he will only improve with more reps and training camps. How many rookies play to their ceiling in the first year? It is absolutely disgusting that Angelo couldn't draft a player in the first round to make an impact. We should have at least 2-3 more first round starters on this team from Angelo's years. No, you can't really assume that. Did Chris Williams ever get better at being a left tackle? No. Oh well if Chris Williams didn't get better then it must mean it never happens. Not sure why its difficult for you to grasp the concept that players more often than not develop over their first few seasons and many improve dramatically. Its hard to prove statistically, but I'd bet a decent percentage of current quality tackles struggled or underwhelmed their rookie year. But yeah let's go ahead and cut Carimi after 9 games.

I don't know if its true or not but I feel like MNF matchups were much better pre-ESPN. For some reason when ESPN got the rights, it seems like Sunday Night Football has been given the higher priority with matchups.

Stop posting in this thread. Now that its the offseason, I just assume Castro has **allegedly** raped another girl.

They traded for a dead guy a couple years ago. It's a good example, but I don't think it was quite at the deadline. IIRC it was during week 5...the Bears were 3-1 and on a bye week before playing in Atlanta. But close enough.

I didnt see this discussed anywhere: Perhaps more mutinously, a pair of Panthers commented on the unimaginative and ineffective defense, all but throwing defensive coordinator Sean McDermott (and defensive-minded head coach Ron Rivera) under the bus: Ron Rivera's explanation—"If you jump (the route) and they double-move you, now all of a sudden it's a touchdown or the ball is in field goal range"—rings hollow, the words of a coach content to lose as long as it's not in spectacular, embarrassing fashion. With his own players noting it was the play-calling and not the execution that cost Carolina the game, I'd say Rivera failed.

Now we know why Angelo rarely spent high draft picks on the O-line. Between Williams, Carimi* and Columbo, we got maybe 2 games of solid production combined. *Though I'm not at all ready to give up on Carimi

Makes sense. I've always thought the NFL trade deadline should be maybe 2-3 weeks later than it is, say around week 11-12 to let teams better figure out what their chances are and/or for the top teams to add a guy if they lose someone to injury after the earlier trade deadline. Not that it really matters as trades rarely happen in NFL during the season and not a ton really happen during the offseason outside of draft day trades for mostly picks. But I'd still like to see it moved back a few weeks. They did move it back two weeks this season. It's been in week 6 before. Now week 8. We're halfway through the season after tonight. Technicality, but we're through 8 weeks of a 17 week season.

I love how whenever a boring team like the SF Giants (at least to the casual fan) wins the World Series, the next morning everyone except Giants fans are like like 'welp onto the next season'. When the Cubs win the World Series, I wont give a crap about how the rest of the country reacts to it, but I'm sure the imact will last more an a couple of hours plus a brief parade story in a couple of days.

What a terrible leader and teammate.

He's got the body frame of a former Cubs starter/hothead http://www3.pictures.gi.zimbio.com/World+Baseball+Classic+Tokyo+Day+5+0nS_VL7afQBl.jpg http://pds.joinsmsn.com/jmnet/koreajoongangdaily/_data/photo/2012/09/04195653.jpg

If this guy is legit as the stuff you are finding for this thread, I feel safe in saying the Cubs will be serious bidders for his services. Other than FA, opportunities to use the Cubs financial advantage come few and far between in this new CBA.

It was. Right in the heart of the Krenzel era.

Was just looking at the standings, and noticed that the Bears have played the 2nd easiest schedule in the NFL so far in terms of opponent's winning % (.392). The easiest schedule is Atlanta (.360). I guess that has to do with the fact that they are a combined 13-1.