UMFan83

Who is the Atlanta guy and how come I havent heard him mentioned up to this point?

None of the other free agent WR options are currently playing well either. Look it up. Roy Williams - 5 catches for 70 yards, 0 TDs (in 3 games) Sidney Rice was injured the first 2 games and since coming back has caught 11 passes for 188 yards and a TD. Santonio Holmes 13 for 164 and a TD Braylon Edwards has played 1.5 games this year and has 4 for 48 Malcolm Floyd has 9 catches for 158 yards as SD's number 2 WR. Plaxico Burress has 10 catches for 160 yards and 2 TDs as the Jets number 2 WR James Jones has 9 catches for 88 yards and a TD as the Packers number 4 WR Mike Sims-Walker has 11 catches for 139 yards Cant remember if there was anyone else we mentioned back then. No, none of them are dominating, as they all have less receiving yards than Knox (although Rice would if he was healthy for 4 games) but they all have better numbers than Williams (besides Edwards) despite some of them being the team's #2+ WR (Floyd, Burress, Jones) or having an extremely ineffective QB (Rice, Sims-Walker, Edwards). You conveniently fail to mention that Williams missed the end of the first game, all of the second game, probably wasn't 100% against GB, and was victimized yesterday by a run-heavy gameplan. You can also argue that he has suffered from ineffective QB play as well. Besides, my argument wasn't that he has outperformed the other options, but that the other options aren't setting the world on fire either, and they aren't. I mentioned he played in 3 games. I think he played 3 quarters the first game, his most effective game. He missed the 2nd one. You conveniently slide in a comment about him probably not being 100%, but why because he was injured the week before? He played and was ineffective, caught 0 passes, dropped a TD and another pass and was held off the field whenever the Bears were in the red zone in the 2nd half. Sidney Rice was probably less than 100% when he came back from his injury, and yet Tavaris Jackson of all people found him 8 times for 109 yards in that game. And that's fine that none of them are tearing it up. Like I said, 3 of them aren't their team's number 1 receivers, like they would be if they were on the Bears, and 3 of them have mediocre to bad QBs. You could argue that James Jones would have much better numbers if he wasn't his team's 4th option. Or that Mike Sims-Walker would have better numbers if Bradford didn't completely blow this year. And despite this, they all have better numbers than Williams. I can tell this is going to be an agree to disagree argument.

Matt Clement, although I don't think Theo knew he would be struck in the head by a batted ball and never be the same. There's also that curious Josh Bard-Doug Mirabelli thing where the Sox traded Mirabelli to SD for Bard in the offseason and then after Bard could not catch Wakefield's knuckler, they had to frantically trade Bard plus a prospect back to SD for Bard, then immediately fly Mirabelli to Boston and straight to Fenway to catch Wakefield that night.

I still have no idea what Total Quarterback Rating is, but they have Cutler at 27th of the 32 currently starting QBs and there is a huge drop off between Cassell at 26 and Cutler at 27. Some of the names ahead of him: Kolb, TJax, McNabb, Alex Smith, Grossman, Henne, Campbell.

None of the other free agent WR options are currently playing well either. Look it up. Roy Williams - 5 catches for 70 yards, 0 TDs (in 3 games) Sidney Rice was injured the first 2 games and since coming back has caught 11 passes for 188 yards and a TD. Santonio Holmes 13 for 164 and a TD Braylon Edwards has played 1.5 games this year and has 4 for 48 Malcolm Floyd has 9 catches for 158 yards as SD's number 2 WR. Plaxico Burress has 10 catches for 160 yards and 2 TDs as the Jets number 2 WR James Jones has 9 catches for 88 yards and a TD as the Packers number 4 WR Mike Sims-Walker has 11 catches for 139 yards Cant remember if there was anyone else we mentioned back then. No, none of them are dominating, as they all have less receiving yards than Knox (although Rice would if he was healthy for 4 games) but they all have better numbers than Williams (besides Edwards) despite some of them being the team's #2+ WR (Floyd, Burress, Jones) or having an extremely ineffective QB (Rice, Sims-Walker, Edwards).

So everyone is talking about that Victor Cruz play and how no one's heard of that rule, but isn't tha rule the reason why you can take a knee and be considered down without the other team touching you? I'm not talking about the actual invoking of the rule on that play, just the rule itself. People are acting like its the first time that the rule has ever been used.

He's been wrong as much as he's been right so just another journalist speculating. What does the bold part mean That the Cubs see them both staying put or Heyman does?

Man this is like the Brian Roberts thread with the same info and quotes being posted several times throughout the week.

Not sure but I heard a rumor that Theo overheard singing "go cubs go" at a local bar.

Any idea on the finalists to purchase the Cubs? I hope Mark Cuban buys them!

The funny thing is, the "crazy person" was UK, and he was simply using hyperbole (I think) to make the point that hiring a top notch GM would be worth spending significant resources to acquire.

Agreed and why in the world would Epstein even want that. If he wants to go he can bitch and moan till the Red Sox let him walk. Boston should be grateful for everything he has done for them. If they really want something they can have Byrd. No doubt the Sox owe Theo a lot but at the same time Theo signed a couple of questionable long term contracts (Lackey and Crawford) over the last 2 years and failed to make the playoffs both years. I don't think the Red Sox would be readily open to bailing Theo out of the "mess" he created. It would be like if Hendry bailed to another team in 2007 after signing Soriano, Lilly, Ramirez, Lee and Zambrano to long term deals, if only Hendry was desirable. What I'm saying is, while I think its crazy that people would expect compensation for Theo (players getting traded for managers/gms has happened 3 times ever that I can remember and GMs do leave occasionally with years left on contracts for no compensation), I wouldn't be shocked if they either forced Theo to stay in Boston to preside over the team he spent so much money building, or would demand something of value from the Cubs, which would likely be a middle of the road prospect or prospects at best. There is no way the Cubs are going to trade a 21 year old all star SS for a GM, no matter how highly regarded Theo is. If it came to that the Cubs would almost certainly say, ok on to plan B.

I can't believe "Castro and/or Garza for Theo" is even being discussed semi-seriously here

I keep hearing jokes from Red Sox fans saying "ok you take Theo but you have to take Lackey as well ha ha ha ha ha". What's funny is that, while the contract wouldn't be ideal, I wouldn't necessarily hate taking on Lackey that much. I think moving to the NL, a year removed from his personal issues could lead to a couple of decent seasons. That said, I'd certainly rather find a better cheaper pitcher, but if we were somehow forced to take Lackey for whatever reason, it wouldnt be as bad as when we had to take on Silva.

MLB execs told him that? Tom Ricketts has told everybody that many times. I'm pretty sure that is how he introduces himself to people. "Hi, I am Tom Ricketts, owner of the Cubs and Red Sox obsesser"

Jay Cutler is on pace for Career lows in completion percentage (54%), TD passes (20) and QB rating 78), and career highs in fumbles (12) and times sacked (60).

I don't know why I just thought of this, but Roy Williams better keep his [expletive] mouth shut this week. BTW, our big FA acquisition with a huge 1 catch for 15 yard performance yesterday, giving him 5 catches for 70 yards and 0 TDs on the year. And to think, I thought that there were so many decent FA WRs out there, that there was no way Angelo would screw it up.

I havent seen much preseason action, what are the projected lines looking like?

Boston wins 110 next year, make Epstein co-CEO and the cubs miss out on a franchise changer. Cubs are forced to make Crane Kenney the GM and his first move is to field an all scrappy lineup as Eckstein and Erstad among others are lured out of retirement. Fixed

If they put "Tiny Tim" Jennings on Megatron, I will probably stop watching the game for my own well being. Not like we'll stop him anyways, but at least it will look less embarassing. Anyone watched the last 2 Detroit games? I want to know what caused them to trail by 20+ points in both games. Lets be honest, Detroit pulled that one out of their asses yesterday and shouldnt have won. They also could/should have lost to hapless Minnesota who lost to the equally hapless Chiefs yesterday. Before that they looked really good in their domination of the Chiefs and their only slightly less dominating win over the Bucs. I think the team can be beaten, but on their home field during a prime time game that they are trying to use as their coming out party is the not the ideal situation to play them. To win they need Chris Harris back, they need to limit Major Wright's time on the field, Tilman needs to keep Calvin from having a Steve Smith like day. The Dline absolutely has to get a ton more pressure than they've been getting. On offense, the game plan has likely got to limit Cutler's deep dropbacks and the Bears need to get early success on the ground, as the more the Bears are forced to pass, the quicker their Dline will wear our guys down. It would also help if Earl Bennett is back as the offense hasn't looked the same without him. So while we could do all those things, and in the back of my head I feel like we are not as bad as we've played and are due for a surprising performance, I am gonna have to pick the Lions here. Lions 27 Bears 16 We CAN win this though. And not just in the "any team can beat any team on any given sunday" way.

2 losses in the SEC isn't so bad... They'd better get used to it.

Blah. Hamels better be awesome the next game. Are the Phillies going with a 3 or 4 man rotation this round?

I think his point was that if you give up 550 yards on defense and score 20 points on offense you will probably lose most weeks. Think of all that happened to keep the Panthers from winning -A blocked kick on a 30 yard FGA -A touchdown that came back because of a questionable penalty on Shockey -A penalty that costs the Panthers a FG as the kick went about 3 feet short of going through The Panthers left a lot of points on the field, which you'd probably expect if you give up 550 yards and only score 29 points.

Baltimore's D turned a probable fantasy win into a definite loss for me.