UMFan83

Yeah I think I like Joanna Garcia the best.

Was bored, so I did some pointless simming on whatifsports.com. Based on my simulations, this is how the Bears fare this season: v IND W 34-16 1-0 @ GB W 28-7 2-0 v STL W 16-13 3-0 @ DAL W 31-22 4-0 @ JAX W 27-10 5-0 BYE v DET W 23-3 6-0 v CAR L 24-27 6-1 @ TEN W 17-13 7-1 v HOU W 24-17 8-1 @ SF L 13-16 8-2 v MIN W 33-10 9-2 v SEA W 31-20 10-2 @ MIN L 14-24 10-3 v GB L 16-24 10-4 @ ARI L 20-33 10-5 @ DET W 18-15 11-5 Playoffs: @ SF W 24-10 12-5 @ GB L 21-28 12-6 Playoff Seeds: Packers 13-3 N Falcons 11-5 S Eagles 10-6 E 49ers 10-6 W Bears 11-5 WC Buccaneers 10-6 WC 5 Chicago Bears (11-5) @ 4 San Francisco 49ers (10-6) CHI 24-10 6 Tampa Bay Buccaneers (10-6) @ 3 Philadelphia Eagles (10-6) PHI 27-24 5 Chicago Bears (12-5) @ 1 Green Bay Packers (13-3) GB 28-21 3 Philadelphia Eagles (11-6) @ 2 Atlanta Falcons (11-5) PHI 23-20 3 Philadelphia Eagles (12-6) @ 1 Green Bay Packers (14-3) GB 28-24

I don't think the Dolphins will be 2-14 bad. They have some talent, and I'm sure Tannehill will be replaced at some point if he's completely ineffective. They showed some moxie last year with Moore in there. I'm thinking 6-10ish for them

Wow, I was quite perplexed at how the Orioles were this good, but I just noticed that they still have a fairly big run differential despite being 16 games over .500. Their -31 differential is the 5th worst in the AL, and their expected record is 64-70 instead of their actual 75-59 record. I am cheering for the Orioles because I've always liked that team and they havent made the playoffs in quite awhile, but if any team were going to collapse down the stretch, it would probably be them.

I understand you're trying to temper your expectations, but I feel you are way off base here. Lovie has consistently gotten his teams ready to play opening day. The offense hasn't started off slow at all under Cutler. He had his best passing games (yardage wise) for the season on opening day of each of the last 2 years. He was also pretty good in the 09 opener vs. GB. Also think you are off base on the defense. The Bears aren't going to see what the Colts are going to do. They are going to try to dictate what the Colts do. The Colts won't be able to run it. I think they will disguise a lot and even blitz Luck more than you are used to seeing from the Bears. He's still a young QB, and that offensive line is suspect. Especially in long yardage to go situations, I think the Bears blitz Luck, try to trick him into the wrong hot read and create a turnover. The Bears don't play nearly as much Cover 2 as people think they do. You make some good points there, and I will concede I was probably wrong about assuming the Bears will wait to see how Colts will play. I was thinking they would treat Luck as more of a veteran because he's looked really good thus far, but what am I thinking, this is still his first NFL game. It makes sense that they would blitz a lot and try to force him into mistakes. However if they are unable to get much pressure on Luck with their blitzing, he's gonna be able to pick the Bears apart and gain confidence as the game goes on. As far as Opening Day, Cutler has been pretty good on opening day (except the GB game), but the Bears have been hit or miss the last few years in the first game. Last year they dominated a good Falcons team, the year before they needed a controversial call to beat a 6-10 Lions team at home (mostly because they were unable to score from 1 yard out) , the year before that they lost a tough game in GB. 2008: Surprisingly beat a good Colts team on the road to open their new stadium 2007: Scored 3 points in losing to a good Chargers team in SD 2006: Shut out GB in GB 2005: Lost an ugly 9-7 game to the Redskins 2004: Lost a close game to a bad Lions team That's 4-4 overall in the Lovie era. I don't think there's any sort of pattern that suggests the Bears, as a whole, play better in week 1, but your point about Cutler stands. I just happen to think the offense will start out slow. Cutler admitted there were communication issues during the Giants preseason game, and while I tend to ignore just about everything in the preseason, that comment suggested to me that he's not in sync with the offense just yet. Maybe they've gotten more in tune during the last 2 weeks of practice, who knows. Anyways, thank you for respectfully disagreeing with me, it is much appreciated.

I think this will be a really close one. The Bears are quite a bit better than the Colts most likely, but its the first game of the year and the Colts have a new head coach, offensive system, defensive system, quarterback, etc. It will take a little bit to feel out what they are trying to do. Lots of Cover 2 and daring Luck to throw over the middle. Meanwhile the offense will start off slow, and lets say a halftime score of 10-7 Bears. Second half, the Bears come out strong, grab a couple of TDs, and hold on for a 27-17 victory. And I predict a Jay to Marshall TD hookup somewhere in the game.

Yup. This was probably the worst defense for Denard to matchup against. I guess that is true about a lot of Alabama opponents though.

Yeah this is what I feared. Complete domination by Bama so far. I don't think Denard is very good at all against good defenses.

That was too easy

I got this being a closer than expected Bear win. Maybe something like 27-23.

When did you change your name, cubbievirus? Wilson A was the original cubbievirus

Hmm I've been supporting Everton partially because of Tim Howard, but I'm getting bored of being a second flight club that doesnt have the resources to play with the big boys. Not that Tottenham is typically a top of the table team, but at least they will be fun to watch.

Whose gonna be the 3rd string QB then? That dude that won every game he played in college?

Wow looks like not only did none of the starters play (which is standard) but no 2nd stringers played either. McCown is the starting QB, Booker is the starting RB, Sanzenbacher is among the starting WRs

Man is the 4th preseason game pointless. No one is even discussing it on here lol. And its always the Browns for the 4th game.

I was going to bag on Castro and Rizzo going a combined 2-9 despite scoring 9 runs but then both of them came through with huge hits and both days end up looking solid.

I was trying speed home to catch the end but I'm still stuck on the train dammit. Oh well, this is the kind of game that reminds you that baseball is awesome even when your team is 30 games under.

Pretty fun game for a lost season. cubs win!

How about an 8 minute OT, no FGs or XPs allowed, teams must go for 2 after every TD? OK I put no thought into that at all, no need to rip it apart with "logic"

8 straight losses to the Brewers including 6 in the last 10 days. Yay

Bill Simmons, for like the 7th year in a row said " I don't think the Bears are going to be very good this year." In his most recent podcast. OK Bill Keep in mind that before Cutler got hurt last year he reversed his earlier "Bears are going to suck this year" opinion and was saying the Bears were at least the 3rd best team in the NFC and a sleeper SB pick.

Twins have a major announcement to make tomorrow and it's almost certain they are announcing that the 2014 ASG will take place in the twin cities.

Rizzo 0-4 with 3K's today. OPS down to .771 for the season now. He's hitting .233/.283/.282/.565 in August (27 games, 113 PA) with 3 XBH (1 in his last 18 games), 26K with 9 walks. For an unfair comparison, his OPS last year (in 49 games) was .523. Despite the extreme negativity from me in this post, I still believe in Anthony Rizzo, but I'm a bit disappointed with how he has played since his hot start.

It may or may not carry over. Preseason record doesn't tell us one way or the other. And your example hardly applies considering the Bears are 2-1. That was just an example showing that preseason play doesnt mean anything. If you go off the assumption that you have to be playing "well" to go 4-0 in the preseason, it means nothing with regards to the regular season success of the team. As far as individual units, how much can you really take out of watching the defensive line going vanilla with no gameplan tailored to the opponent? No disguises, little blitzing, etc. Or the offensive line...are they coming up with a game plan to handle the other team's best pass rusher, or are they hiding that plan so that other teams with elite pass rushers don't have tape on it? And then you consider the fact that as much as the players want to to play as hard as they can, unless you are fighting for a spot on the team or a starting role the intensity is not 100%, not for the opponents, not for the Bears. So you have Bears players playing at 85% running very basic plays out of very basic formations going against a team that is also playing at 85% running very basic plays and this is supposed to tell you anything about the regular season?

OK but what does that have to do with last weeks preseaon game against the Giants? They looked really bad in that game and if such a thing carries over into the regular season the margin of errors disappears and Lovie is gone. It won't carry over into the regular season because there's no coorelation between preseason performance and regular season performance. Over the last 4 seasons, the combined regular season record of teams that went 4-0 in the preseason: 39-72 Over the last 4 seasons, the combined regular season record of teams that went 0-4 in the preseason: 82-78 I know this is a very basic way to look at it because the starters don't even play half the minutes in a preseason, but you would think that went a team goes 4-0 in the preseason, the team played pretty good football, starters, reserves, etc, and vice versa with 0-4 teams