UMFan83

Ugh this is just a lost season for Michigan. You can't lose to NW at home. I just hope they can beat OSU again.

wtf Michigan defense? Also I never knew Pat Fitzgerald was such a cheerleader on the sidelines. I always thought he was more of the stoic type. But here he is having an orgasm celebrating a roughing the passer penalty when his team is still trailing. (or was at the point)

Being a cubs fan isn't hard enough so now the Internet has to get our hopes up several times a year with false reports. I know next to nothing about this dude but with the new CBA limiting the value of extra resources, a team like the Cubs should be going balls to the wall to get young talent that isn't affected by the new CBA. Sounds like the Cubs did go hard after him but once again it wasn't enough. Again he may not be worth it at all, I don't know. But if he had any decent shot of becoming a an above average starter I think it's worth overpaying in this new CBA world. The Dodgers payroll is probably double ours and they didn't have a problem with buying more talent (of course their resources seem to be double ours as well)

This is getting ridiculous

Bill Simmons actually makes sense regarding the Bears: That's almost exactly how I feel. I feel very confident about the Bears right now, but at the same time I wonder 'should i really be this confident?' I see the team built on an absurdly abnormal amount of turnovers against mediocre to bad teams and I feel like I should be a little scared. At the same time, we throttled those teams, what a great team should do. So I am outwardly confident right now, but losing this game will definitely cause me and other Bears fans to look behind us and see the Packers 1 game behind with the 49ers come up. I'm not saying that even if we lose both of these games, I will give up on our chances to make the Super Bowl, but I'll be a whole lot more worried that's for sure. Also.....everyone points out that Green Bay apparently destroyed us in week 2. No we didn't play well, yes they played better, but I don't think it was the blowout people make it out to be....We were down 3-0 just before halftime when a fluke fake FG put us down 10-0. But even then, it was a 10 point game (13-3....really 6-3 without the fake FG) until midway through the 4th quarter when they kicked another FG to make it 16-3 (9-3) and then broke our backs with a TD after yet another Cutler TO. I dunno, obviously they dominated our offense, but it almost seemed like it was their scheme and plan against Marshall that killed us, not because they were all that more talented. Defensively I thought we were great, and held the offense to 16 points (and who knows how many were short fields because of Cutler INTs...dont feel like going back and remembering). Anyways, the Packers deserved to win, no doubt, but I'm not necessarily looking at the Packers like a team we can't beat.

I wonder how different this offense would look if Johnny Knox was healthy this year. Then again, its possible the Bears don't pick Alshon if Knox doesn't get hurt, despite them being different types of receivers.

Time to step up Earl.

Huh, I thought she was indeed due Sunday. Wasn't that what brought the issue up in the first place? No. In his original response he mentioned Monday being the day, he was just hoping it doesn't come early for some reason. Probably because babies have a tendancy to come earlier than expected. Right, but if it's not due til later in the month, that should help the chances of it not happening till Monday immensely. Much ado about nothing essentially. Well yeah, I thought that was clear from the start (that the actual chances of her having the baby at a time that would cause Peanut to miss the game were very slim). But of course it's taken a life of its own and has been blown up.

But what does the Madden simulation have? Bears 24-17

Picks are starting to come out. To my surprise, 8 out of the 10 ESPN dudes that have made predictions have picked the Bears. Accuscore also has Chicago. Pete Prisco on CBSsports.com has Texans 20 Bears 17. As far as the rest of the CBS guys, 5 have the Bears straight up vs. 3 for the Texans (ATS is the same). All 4 of the Yahoo guys have the Texans winning (one is "Yahoo Users') Whatifsports' computers have the Bears winning 23-22 and winning 53% of the time, the closest margin for any matchup this week.

Yeah I did a double take to make sure I wasn't listening to a local show when I realized Mike and Mike were talking about it this morning.

Florio says you work 16 days a year and you should be there for those 16 days no matter what. Where do you draw the line then? What if a player's mom died the night before a game....are you forcing them to play then? Do you even want them playing hours after a close family member dies? Not everyone is Brett Favre. Do you trust Tillman to mentally be 100% in the game when he knows his wife is pushing out a kid at that very moment? What if there were complications in the birth? How horrible would it be if something went wrong and he wasn't there to help/comfort his wife, etc.? Does Florio know that Tillman once had a baby born with an enlarged heart that almost died? What a moron.

Hmm...there have definitely been RBs that have had decent to good statistical days against the Bears (like Chris Johnson last week) but I can't remember a RB who has just shredded us constantly in a game for quite some time. Benson with the Bengals in 2009 ran freely against us but that's the last one I can remember clearly.

It's worldwide man

Dammit, that would be a big blow. I don't trust Jennings on Andre Johnson. Completely understandable if it happens, but it would really suck regardless. I guess the odds are ok though. I'm assuming if the baby comes Friday or Saturday he'll still be able to sneak out and play.

Also, love the Blue Jay Way reference in their State of the Farm quote

Is that a mild shocker (Almora over Baez)? I feel like every list or projection I've seen has Baez #1, and then you consider Baez is likely closer to the bigs and has a better track record of producing in the system, BP would have to think Almora's ceiling is a bit higher than Baez's or that Baez is definitely going to end up at 3B, no?

So recreational use was legalized in CO and WA last night (and denied in OR). What will this mean for the legalization of marijuana as a whole? I know the big issue is still the federal government keeping marijuana illegal and they don't appear to be budging anytime soon, but how do people see this 'legalize pot' initiative looking in say 30 years? Will a larger percentage of the country cave at a state level after seeing the tax money that WA and CO are pulling in from recreational weed ir will it continue to be something only a couple of liberal states adopt kind of like Nevada and prostitution, or will the federal government find a way to enforce their laws and keep this down? Interested to hear thoughts on this.

Interested to see how this team does against a team that isn't among the NBAs worst. Will they play up to the level of competition? I hope so.

Interesting mid-season awards/predictions article on NFL.com http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap1000000091214/article/2012-nfl-midseason-report-mvp-super-bowl-xlvii-picks-more Two people (out of 16) picked Peanut as his DPOY (everyone else picked Watt). 8 of the 16 'experts' picked the Bears to win the NFC North, with the other 8 of course picking Green Bay. All 8 of the guys who picked GB had the Bears winning a Wild Card spot. 6 of the 8 people who picked the Bears to win the NFC North had them in the NFC title game (also one person who picked the Bears as a WC had them in the NFC title game). Two of them had Bears over 49ers, 1 had Bears over Packers, 1 had Bears over Falcons, 1 had the Falcons beating the Bears, and 2 (including the WC guy) had Packers over Bears . Of the 4 that picked the Bears to make the Super Bowl, 1 has the Bears beating the Pats and 2 have Bears over Texans, while 1 has them losing to the Steelers (?) Overall, 7 out of 16 had the Packers winning the Super Bowl, followed by the 3 picking Chicago, 2 picking SF, and one person each picking Houston, New England, Pittsburgh and Atlanta.

Actually, other than Bears/Texans, there aren't really any good matchups at all. Going by ESPN's power rankings, there isn't a single matchup between 2 teams in the top 15 besides the Sunday Night game. The closest is the #14 Lions traveling to #16 Minnesota or #13 Tampa Bay playing #17 San Diego 1 plays 22 2 and 3 play each other 4 plays 24 5 plays 23 6 is on a bye 7 plays 26 8 plays 29 9 plays 28 10 plays 32 11 plays 31 12 plays 25 13 plays 17 14 plays 16 15 plays 27

Daniel Manning talking about the Bears and his departure from the team. Seems like he really liked being a Bear and was quite upset that the Bears didn't try harder to keep him. http://blog.chron.com/ultimatetexans/2012/11/texans-danieal-manning-opens-up-about-facing-his-former-team-on-sunday/

Just did some reading up on Texans fan's opinions of the game this week. Fairly respectful overall. Looks like both teams fans are using the game as a measuring stick. Some selected quotes: Could not find a single meatball to give me something good to bring back here. And this was the Texans Official Site board.

Agreed but it'd be downright scary to know we'd be playing GB, NYG or SF in the 2nd round Bears will need to go through one of those teams regardless. So....which one would you prefer? I vote SF :) I prefer a 7-9 Seattle team again :)

Agreed but it'd be downright scary to know we'd be playing GB, NYG or SF in the 2nd round