UMFan83

omg Soriano cleared waivers! Shocking!! Did they even have to wait the normal time period, or did Hendry just say, 'hey Soriano's on waivers', and they replyed "cleared".

Yeah you can afford to let 1-2 players at a time on your line develop. What the Bears are trying to do is develop 4/5ths of their offensive line, 2 of them being late round picks noted for their rawness when drafted. And the 5th guy is mediocre and playing out of position.

Or maybe he's referring to this:

I'm guessing you're referring to Bradley spending two weeks on the M's restricted list last year (wikipedia says he asked the M's for time off to do that, but it being wikipedia and all, whatever... I'll concede the M's). I don't see anything for the Marlins in the last couple years, so I'm gonna guess you're trying to compare a 1-2 game benching for hustle to a 30 day suspension without pay for being a dick... which seems a bit off. As to the Orioles, the only thing I can figure is Alfredo Simon spending time on the restricted list because he was being held in the Dominican Republic on murder charges... which again, feels like a bit of a different situation. Did Hanley Ramirez get suspended for a game or two for dogging it last year?

Yeah last year everyone thought they'd probably start 0-4 or 1-3 with a schedule of Detroit, @ Dallas, GB, @ NYG but they started out 3-1. Who knows in this parity driven league. The only thing I can say is that 2 of those first 3 are at home, so I think its likely they win at least 1 of those games. I think all 3 of those teams are better than the Bears, but not by a ton.

I would not want to be a coach in the Rockies organization.

Exactly. And while the run blocking did a lot better, how many extra yards did Barber earn from breaking tackles on his rushes? He did a really really good job of that. That said, the run blocking did a good job of opening up enough of a hole to get up to speed to make those moves possible.

Again, they picked it up a bit after first 2 possessions (strangely enough, right when the bills started taking our their starting defense....), but in the first 2 possessions with the first team D out there, you got about 5 yards on 4 carries, if you include the Hester end around, and not the Cutler scramble.

That wasn't struggling, that was flat out embarrassing. As I said, struggling is ok and understandable, and who knows ultimately it might just be some preseason footnote on the way to a much improved season. Most of the angst is that I like many Bears fans desperately wanted to see upgrades on the line, and while Carimi was a nice pick, I'm dumbfounded why we have money just sitting there waiting to be spent, while we try to create a line where you are starting a 7th round 2nd year player who was really bad at times last year at the most important line position, a 2nd year 5th round pick that only played 2-3 games last year, a Center who has played almost his entire career at guard, a rookie 1st rounder, and a 4th year 1st round pick that is only mediocre to poor season away from unanimously being declared a bust. So while I was holding out hope that this crazy plan to have Mike Tice magically assemble a passable line out of mostly scraps, I wasn't exactly expecting it. Yeah I'm probably putting too much emphasis on 2 measily preseason possessions, but man did that not look like a flashback to last year's O-line? It's not like I have any sort of past performances to look back on to reassure me that the line will be anything but awful. I mean I guess I could believe in Mike Tice or something. But maybe I'm wrong but I don't seem to remember him taking marginal talent and turing them into a cohesive line in his previous stops. I don't know why all the sudden Angelo is giving him very few of his plentily available resources and asking him to do just that.

I think I selected 7-9, thinking 9-7 would be my guess, but I could easily see them going 6-10 or 12-4. Who the hell knows. All I know is that the schedule looks fairly daunting, especially to begin the year. Just like last year, our performance in those first 3 games might set the tone for the rest of the year. My guess: vs. ATL - Win (just a feeling) 1-0 @ NO - Loss 1-1 vs. GB - Loss 1-2 vs. CAR - Win 2-2 @ DET - Win (respect the lions just think they won't bring it in a rare prime time appearance but will get us back at SF) 3-2 vs. MIN - Win 4-2 @ TAM (in London) - Win 5-2 @ PHI - Loss 5-3 vs. DET - Loss 5-4 vs. SD - Loss 5-5 @ OAK - Win 6-5 vs. KC - Win 7-5 @ DEN - Win 8-5 vs. SEA - Win 9-5 @ GB - Loss 9-6 @ MIN - Loss 9-7 Looks like I'm predicting a streaky and ultimately disapointing year.

Thanks Erik. sure it wasn't cubbievirus? Oh wait, he's a Pats fan, nm.

Weren't there 9 sacks? I think it was 4 (5?) allowed by the starting OL, and 2 of those were arguably Hanie holding onto the ball too long. Also they didn't do any chip blocking with the TE or RB. They did run block pretty darn well...obviously pass protection is a work in progress, to say the least. I mean they cleaned it up a bit by the 3rd possession, but the 1st two offensive possessions were about the worst you could possibly see an o-line play. It would have been more effective if there was no o-line and the defense had to count three mississippi's before rushing. Off the top of my head, this was the first 2 possessions 1st possession: -End around to Hester for 2 yards -Drop back to pass, coverage collapses within 2 seconds causing Cutler out of the pocket where he underhands a pass to Forte for no gain. -Drop back to pass, again the pocket collapses quickly, causing Cutler to scramble for a first down. -Handoff to Taylor for 1-2 yard gain -Handoff to Taylor for 1-2 yard gain -Drop back to pass, rusher immediately blows by Louis, while another rusher has to be noticably held by Webb to not get to Cutler. End result is both a sack and a holding penalty on Webb. 2nd possession: -1 yard loss by Taylor -Hanie sacked -Hanie sacked Yes Hanie held onto the ball too long but at the same time, the blocking broke down rather quickly in both cases. It took until the third possession, and the 6th drop back to pass before the Bears were able to successfully get off a pass beyond the LOS. I've give them credit for picking it up in that 3rd possession which led to a few nice runs, and allowed Hanie some time to drop back. And its no doubt with 4/5th of the line being either new players or a new position for returning players, with 2 weeks of practice, it wasn't expected to be perfect, but I don't think I can excuse that bad of a performance. It looks really bad considering 4/5ths of that line is returning from a o-line that was almost historically bad last year. People all wanted to see some money spent in upgrading that line, and it was ignored despite still having plenty of money to spend. So the last thing people wanted to see was that type of performance. The other thing that bothers me is that they've done all this stuff to implement the Martz offense, including trading Olsen and going with blocking TEs, but they don't seem to want to adjust for one of the most important part of the Martz offense, which is allowing the QB to consistently use a 5 step drop. If we're forced to limit Cutler to a 3 step drop, then it's not the Martz offense, its some modified hybrid that may or may not have the same effectiveness as the offense he ran in St. Louis.

I thought for sure this post was going to end with "and wins the Cy Young next year".

That was definitely my concern too. It's not really difficult to imagine the Cubs doing that.

That's somewhat good news. I was worried he'd be out for a lot longer and I'm hoping for big things this year from him.

Really frustrating that Angelo has placed all his trust in Mike Tice turning marginal talents into a passable line, especially with all the money we can spend.

The Astros should probably find some of those mythical "replacement level" pitchers to pitch for them.

The Cubs should be trying to drum up support from the players union to go on strike until next August so they can fit in a 2 month season.

lol, the VP of officiating called Soldier Field during the game last night to tell the Bears to stop kicking off from the 30 yard line.

Jim Hendry's prized GMing at work again. John Grabow everyone

Sorry if this was posted already. Nothing shocking.

Same When you have a top 5 payroll and play in one of the biggest markets in baseball it is simply unacceptable to make 2 playoff appearances in an 8 year span. It is definitely unacceptable to lose 90+ games 3+ times in a decade as well. If those were Jim Hendrys results as GM of the Royals, he gets an extension. But he is the GM of a team that has all the resources in the world to build a contender and he can only occasionally do it. I honestly have no idea what kind of spell Hendry holds on the Cubs organization. He probably should have been fired after 2006, but instead got an extension after building an 85 win playoff team the next season. I know Hendry is a people person but geez. I've been defending Ricketts from people here saying that it's too soon to judge them etc. But if they keep Hendry, it says all I need to know about Tom Ricketts.

Between his performance in the NFC Title game and his strong performances every preseason, if Jay Cutler has a bad game or two and the meatballs will be out in full force demanding Hanie.

Making judgements in preseaon games is pointless but Barber >>> Taylor

Were you expecting it to? Bad players after a really short practice period? Looking for justification for not spending any money on the line besides the backup C. You are allowed to be bad but 3 sacks in 8 plays and 3 2 yard runs. The Qb has dropped back to pass 5 times and hasn't been able to get off an overhand pass yet.