UMFan83

I'm going with Packers 34 Bears 17

They played pretty well against Milwaukee early this week, and last week absolutely killed Philly. The truth is, they aren't playing anyone half decent, and the effort is likely related to that. Pretty well against Milwaukee? We played a good first quarter then scored 10 points in the 2nd and were losing at halftime. The Bulls were only up 2 with about 8 minutes left before dominating the last 8 minutes and winning by 13. An effort that wouldnt cause any alarm unless its surrounded by several similar performances. I don't mind it all that much since they are winning, and are like 7-8 games up in the division. I am assuming we're gonna end up the 3rd or 4th seed in the East, and it will be nearly impossible to drop below that, so I guess these games aren't super meaningful.

Odd that you say that on a night they shot 78% from the FT line. I watched the Cavs broadcast and they flashed a graphic that said the abulls are 28th in the league in FT% Yeah they are horrible at FT shooting. Tonight was a good night for us at the line despite shooting a mediocre percentage. But we also missed several FTs in the last minute that would have killed us had Cleveland hit a shot or two. I don't necessarily know if lack of FT shooting will hurt us in the playoffs. Orlando actually has even a worse FT percentage than the Bulls this year and they are a team that wins in the playoffs and went to the finals 2 years ago. We'll see how much it hurts us.

Neither are the Bears, according to the trib article about it.

Didn't Weiss take Willingham's last 2 recruiting classes and goto 2 BCS bowls? The core of those teams were from Ty's first recruiting class. And the classes got progressively worse which is what ND bottomed out with in 2007. Fair enough. As you can tell I don't have a profound knowledge of ND football. I always had the (probably misinformed) impression that they handled the Ty thing wrong and should have kept him.

Didn't Weiss take Willingham's last 2 recruiting classes and goto 2 BCS bowls?

you keep saying this. it doesn't make any sense. How many coaches have you had in the past 10 years? You on your 4th head coach now? It doesn't show impatience to see that Weis and Ty weren't going to get it done at Notre Dame and changes needed to be made. It does, however, show a functioning brain and sensory organs. So they just weren't using those functioning brains and sensory organs when they made those hires? What about the other 2 (3 if you count the O'Leary fiasco)? I think the dumb thing ND did for Ty and Weiss was reward a good season with a huge long term commitment and then give up on them 3 years later. I thought they should have held on to Ty at least 1-2 years longer. Weiss was just about done so I don't think it was bad to can him. As far as Michigan, I have no idea what they did wrong, but I feel like we are heading to ND territory. But all it takes is the right hire to get us back on track. Ohio State was probably heading to ND territory until sweater vest started winning games.

Also he would dunk home a lot of misses on the fast break due to his speed for a big man. We are missing that dunk ins a lot.

I think Boozer is more of a half court player for the most part, and with Boozer being the dominant scoring option the last ~10 games, its natural that the Bulls are running less. That said, Thibs did single that out as something the Bulls need to do (faster pace, more fast breaks) in his postgame interview after this afternoon's game.

pRose is definitely in a shooting slump. Last year he topped all PGs in FG% from something like 12-17 feet. This year he can't seem to knock down that shot with any regularity. Worse yet, he seems to have lost confidence in that shot and has cut back on shooting it. The good news is, those shot attempts are becoming 3 point attempts, something much more efficient for him than the mid range shot. Rose also is missing a lot of shots at the rim lately. "Giant killers", tear drops, even layups just aren't going in as much. I am not sure if he is trying harder to draw contact and that is throwing his shots off, but he certainly isn't getting to the line more. I feel like this is a slump Rose is in, and he will get out of it. But I'm not sure he's gonna average 24 PPG this year with the emergence of Boozer and the fact that Rose is noticeably trying to be more of a distributor (or could be deferring more due to slump). I've also noticed Rose digs himself into huge holes, shooting wise, early in games. He'll start out like 2-10, and get hot in the 2nd half and finish something like 11-23

Anyone hear anything about when playoff tickets will go on sale? I've been looking and haven't seen anything.

For anyone that didn't see that... Syracuse was up 8 over KState with 1:20 left in the game when KState scored a TD. The guy who ran the TD in, dropped the ball and saluted the crowd and then turned and ran back to the sidelines. He didn't do any other celebrations other than the brief salute. So he was flagged for excessive celebration and the 15 yard penalty was enforced on the PAT, meaning they had to try for a 2 point conversion from the 18 yard line instead of the 3. Of course they couldn't convert and Syracuse is gonna win by 2.

What what an awful borderline penalty that destroys a critical play.

I dont know. The entire argument is odd. He has been in the league for at least 6-7 years, with numerous teams and given big roles in other teams offenses. He's been given extended chances to produce and hasn't produced like he has this year. I remember when he came to the Bears people kept saying he was a great preseason/practice player but when the curtain goes up he's very average. We only had him for 1 season. If anything it would seem he's talking about SF since that's where he began his career and spent by far the most time.

It's impossible to judge a schedule before the season. Coming into this season, many people thought we had a really tough schedule, but it turned out to be one of the easier ones until this recent stretch.

I thought this was interesting:

Ahh yes I forgot about that. I read that on some website awhile ago

Does anyone know if the 2011 schedules are going to follow the same format as previous years? I read somewhere that the schedule formatting was only in play until the CBA expires. I guess there's a lot up in the air (is there a season, will it be full or will games be lost due to lockout, will they goto 18 games), but based on the old schedule, the Bears 2011 opponents are just about set. Home: Packers, Vikings, Lions, Falcons, Panthers, Raiders, Chargers, Rams/Seahawks Road: Packers, Vikings, Lions, Saints, Buccaneers, Broncos, Chiefs, Eagles

lol, I love that article, from 2006, leading off with the Favre 'will he/won't he' discussion.

Chicago's offense has needed every snap all year to get to where they are, and they still have room to improve. There is something to be gained by playing a quality opponent at full capacity when you have 2 weeks before your next game. That's a valid point. I guess I'm not sure the net benefit of that is worth the risk of injuries. I'm sort of dealing with gambler's falicy when I consider that though. I feel like because we've been so fortunate with injuries this year, we are due to suffer a major one playing in an insignificant game. In 2005 I think resting our guys killed us and am still mad about that. Rex Grossman started 1 game and played in a half of another and for some reason did not even play the last game of the season against Minnesota. That game would have given Grossman valuable snaps against NFL competition. I believe that year he was hurt in the 1st preseason game, so he barely had any game action all year. He came out in the playoff game ice cold, he was something like 2 for his first 12 throws or something. He looked *ok* as the game went along but by then we were trailing. In 2006 resting our guys didn't seem to hurt us, although we should have crushed that Seattle team. That team had several weeks of meaningless games, as I believe we cliched at least a bye with 3 games to go. They played their starters the whole game against TB, played them for a half against Detroit (I believe) and played them for a quarter or maybe a half against GB.

I think I heard she wanted him punished, not that she was demanding a suspension. True, but his fine wasn't actually for misconduct with Sterger. The statement the NFL released said that they couldn't find/prove any misconduct and that the $50k fine was because Favre wouldn't cooperate with the investigation in a timely manner or something. So basically they did not punish Favre for what he did with Sterger.

First of all, NO playing the Bears in Chicago doesn't scare me as much as it should. The Saints only have like 2 wins from November on in cold weather environments since 2006. The Bears beat them in the NFC Title game in 06, and in regular season games in 07 and 08 all in Chicago. Granted this years bears and this years saints are different teams but many of the same pieces remain, including the head coaches and the schemes they run. I think a cold weather game on Soldier Field's crappy turf would really be to our advantage. Brees has not at all looked like the QB he has been in the past. No doubt he's very capable of being that QB again, but his track record this season isn't great. As far as resting players, the Bears really have very little to gain by playing their guys the entire game. The only thing they have to gain is I guess confidence by potentially beating the Packers, and less rust for their first game. What they have to lose? Injuries are the biggest thing. As someone mentioned before, I can easily see Cutler getting creamed on a blitz because the o-lines heads arent in the game. You can say all the right things, and you can really want to play hard to win, but deep down there is nothing to gain by winning, the players can't give it the 100% they need to win the game. On the other side of the ball, you have a team that needs to win to get in. This is the playoffs for them. They will deck one of our guys if they stand in the way of their playoff berth. So you have one team playing a glorified exhibition game and another team playing a playoff game. The results could be disasterous.

for who? or is it for whom? I've always wanted to play the Packers in the playoffs but this season, I'm really glad we avoided it. I would want to come into that game as the inferior wild card team where a loss is expected and a win brings unbridled joy. In a situation where the Bears finish 11-5, win the North and play a WC Packers team that most people believe is better than the Bears, it just sets the fans up for a deflating loss. A win would still bring a ton of happiness, but a loss would be more crushing.

Wow, I might go out of my way and put some money on the Packers then. They'll take this in double digits, I mean, given Lovie's history, Caleb Hanie is going to have serious minutes in the second half. I don't think Calib Hanie will play at all. My guess is Cutler in the first half and the backup QB Collins in the 2nd. Hanie will probably be active in the game instead of emergency 3rd QB like he is most games but I don't think he'll play. They had their chance to remove Collins as the backup QB, and they moved him back in there, so obviously they believe Collins is their man if Jay goes down.

Wasn't Sterger threatening legal action on the league if they didn't suspend Favre? I was assuming that was part of the reason the decision was being held up so long.