UMFan83

The point is that if I want to sign Briggs to an extension, Roberto Garza is not standing in my way. Briggs is much much better relative to his position than Garza is, and if I want to give him an extension, he gets to bypass people like Garza in the priority list. the problem is the Bears don't want to give him an extension.

I read an article about this topic, maybe this one, earlier. These are the same people who insisted there was no way this team could function without bringing Kreutz back. Garza has no case for an extension. He's an old replacable piece. This is Garza's last year on his deal. You comfortable with Spencer in there? I mean...if you are, that's cool. I simply was pointing out that there's guys that have contracts expiring, and that if you do want to extend them, that is probably more important that tacking on extra money to a guy that has 3 years left. Whats wrong with Chris Spencer instead of Garza? Chris Spencer isn't bad...in fact not a huge difference from garza at center. The only issue preventing him from starting now is not enough reps with our offense.

that's always fun. This board would be hilarious (with me being part of the hilarity) if that score is reversed.

Sorry Lance Briggs, we need to focus on Roberto Garza's extension first. Huh?

Also, the Cubs would have won the 1995 NL East with a 73-71 record and played the Braves in the NLCS.

This is completely random but...did you know: If there was no realignment in 1994, and we still had 2 divisions in each league, an LCS and a WS, in 2008, the 2 playoff teams in the NL, and thus the 2008 NLCS would have been the Cubs vs. the Astros? NL EAST: Cubs 97-64 Phillies 92-70 Mets 89-73 Cardinals 86-76 Marlins 84-78 Pirates 67-95 Nationals 59-103 NL WEST: Astros 86-75 Dodgers 84-78 Diamondbacks 82-80 Rockies 74-88 Reds 74-88 Braves 72-90 Giants 72-90 Padres 63-99

You realize that was pretty similar last year? Detroit @Dallas GB @NYG Now granted, Dallas ended up sucking, but that wasn't the perception going into the season. I do realize that and mentioned it several times in the past. Just because we went 3-1 last year, doesn't mean this year's schedule is any easier.

I have a bad feeling about the start to this season. As one of the announcers pointed out last night, Chicago starts the season playing 3 of the maybe 4 favorites in the NFC. At least 2 are at home. If we could win 2 of the 3, I'd be ecstatic. 1 of 3 would suck but wouldnt be too devistating to the season.

freeman got sacked half as much as cutler and bradford would get smooshed and go away forever. Freeman's offensive line was actually almost as bad last year Clearly Cutler was under way more pressure, running for his life way more. I don't know how those numbers at the link were calculated, but Football outsiders has the Bears pass protection 32nd by a pretty big margin over the 31st team, and has the Buccaneers as the 13th best pass protecting team last year. http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/ol

It is all relative. He is with the Red Sox now. No its not relative. You said the Cubs are tight with spending and they have the 6th biggest payroll in baseball, 3rd last year. Sorry if the Cubs didn't shell out an extra 20 mil during a period where ownership changed and inherited an extremely flawed and overpaid team. 20 mil probably wouldn't have made this team a playoff team so theres no point in adding more high priced and potentially disasterous contracts. Rickets did the right thing and invested the money in scouting and the draft. Epstein would love smart ownership like that, possibly because it reminds him of the team he's currently with and not the bumbling band of morons that have symbolized the cubs front office for several decades.

Wait where is Epstein being considered besides the Cubs?

Well the money to spend doesnt factor into it because they only used maybe 20% of the money they had available to spend.

My guess is they don't have an opinion on the matter, and Lovie is more than happy to use the "disrespect" card. I definitely think the Bears have managed to never be overrated in the Lovie era. It suits him well. When the Bears brought in Cutler and Pace, plenty of people thought they were a potential SuperBowl team. Actually, I think Peter King had them in it vs. the Steelers. I know SI did, but not sure if it was King specifically. Yeah I believe he had the Bears beating the Packers in the NFC title game

Doesn't surprise me, everyone thinks the Bears were flukes last year. From a national perspective, I'm not sure I blame them. Then again, we did beat 2 of the other 3 conference finalists (Packers, Jets) last year, beat everyone's favorite, the Eagles when they were pretty untouchable, etc. I guess I would have expected at least 1 person to pick us. But when you are in a division with everyone's favorites to win the title, and everyone's favorite surprise playoff team, its hard to be considered.

lol our old friend Byfuglien pulled a Ced Benson last night...BWI The best part is, while he was being booked, he was weighed and came in at 286 lbs. For comparisons sake, last year he supposedly played at 245

3800 isnt that crazy, even in this offense. He's already had a 4,500 yard season in his career.

If we have another year like 2009, when Pisa, Urlacher and Hillenmeyer were out almost the entire season, we'll be screwed.

LMFAO, did anyone see what happened to Ryan Braun tonight? For those that didn't, he had a great chance at an inside the park home run but lost his balance rounding 3rd and basically faceplanted somewhere between 3rd and home. He stumbled again while getting up and after a brief rundown was tagged out. http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=18664053&topic_id=&c_id=mlb&tcid=tw_video_18664053

lol I was wondering why I couldnt find the game on any channels tonight. It was a day game lol

You don't think Okoye will make the team? I didn't say that. I just listed the probable starters.

i wouldn't take brady over cutler in this offense. you saw how bad he looked against the lions against pressure. Preseason. And how many INTs has Cutler thrown because of pressure the last 2 years? Don't get me wrong, Cutler has adapted really well with the constant pressure he's faced the last 2 years. I'm just not sure I'd take him over Brady.

Meh. Do I think Cutler should be higher? Maybe. But I'm not going to argue them saying Cutler is 16th because in my mind Cutler is in a pretty close bunch with most of those guys. In terms of talent, he is way above all of them except maybe Bradford. But if you are looking at someone like Bradford who had a mostly good year as a rookie QB past year and you look at Cutler who threw 26 picks 2 years ago which led the league and is middle of the road in a lot of the QB stats people use to evaluate QBs, it's not completely insane for someone to put Bradford ahead. I wouldn't, but like I said I wouldn't pick a fight with someone who does because it's close enough for me.

The Bears defense may be aging meaning that several of them are nearing the end of their primes, but other than Urlacher, I don't see any players where their age would dictate a decline from last year's performance. Idonije: 30 Toeaina: 26 Adams: 31 Peppers: 31 Briggs: 30 Urlacher: 33 Roach: 26 Tillman: 30 Jennings: 27 Harris: 29 Wright: 23 Would I prefer that the 3 best players on the defense be 26-27 instead of 30-33? Sure but none of those people besides Urlacher are at an age where you could reasonably expect a decline over last year. Now when evaluating the Bears defense over the next 3 years, you could say that they are aging of course. In fact, assuming Wooten comes back playing at a similar level as he was in training camp, I would think the defense can be better than last year's. Major Wright has gotten mixed reviews in the preseason, but I think he can ultimately be better than Manning. Jennings should improve over last year, Wooten and Melton give the Bears some nice depth on the D-line. The thing everyone should be worried about on the Bears defense is the linebackers. If you injure any of the 3 starting linebackers on the Bears, they are immediately screwed, as there is absolutely no depth there. There is only one backup linebacker on the Bears roster currently that has ever played an NFL game before, Brian Iwuh. The other guys are almost exclusively undrafted FA rookies.

Geez Mike Fontenot's numbers suck. How is he still in the majors? Actually, what am I talking about? A .655 OPS is probably slightly above average on this team.

I don't know why I think this is so interesting, but coming into today Soriano and Castro had the same OPS (.767).