UMFan83

First of all, its rather odd that the Hawks have 5 full days off in the middle of the season and it's not the All Star Break. I know it happens occasionally but it never feels right. Second of all, good move for the Hawks/Flyers game to be moved from 3PM to 11:30AM on Sunday. That move was made on January 5th, but it probably would have happened at some point due to the Bears game. I don't know who in Chicago would choose to goto a Blackhawks regular season game instead of going to or watching the Bears/Packers NFC Championship game. Now, its set up to be an amazing doubleheader. At 11:30, we have a rematch of the Stanley Cup Finals last year, and that game will get over exactly at 2 when the Bears game starts. I wish the game started at 11 or the Bears game started at 3. That would be an awesome Chicago sports doubleheader to attend.

So Aaron Rodgers is a cancer patient hating jerk apparently.

I was reading an article that was saying until this season, the Packers would put Woodson exclusively on Olsen, and he was really effective at preventing Olsen from getting anything. This year they mixed him on the WRs, and as we remember, he stopped Knox completely in the 2nd game. It'll be tough but its not like we only have one pass catcher that we trust and that's it. I look for Earl Bennett to step up and have a good game.

This is a joke, right? I honestly can't tell. OK, he didn't use the term "winnable game" exactly, but the rest he said, and it was implied that it was a game that got out of hand early that probably shouldn't have.

I think the Bears were daring the Seahawks to blitz them with their playcalling. Cutler has been awesome for the most part against the blitz in the 2nd half of the season. Reason of course being that the O-line has done better at holding them off long enough to find the open man. Also, the plays called are allowing Cutler a safety valve when the o-line doesn't hold.

Exactly. And that doesn't upset me at all. If you told me back in September that we'd be in the NFC title game with a 50% chance of winning, I'd be all about it and I am all about it now.

BTW, Bill Simmons says he doesnt regret picking the Seahawks and said that it was just one of those games where you lose a starting TE right away, and the receivers drop a few balls and all the sudden things unravel and you lose a winnable game.

Assume you meant "team" and not "game", but I think the Packers are pretty close to being clearly better than the Bears. Passing game is one of the league's elite. Bears run game is much better, but not enough to make up the difference. I think the Packers are a better team defensively too, especially vs. the pass. But that's a closer contest. Special teams is where the Bears have a huge advantage, though. But if you ask the Packers and most of the free world, they would say the Packers are clearly better (as witnessed by the early picks for the game). That being said, the Bears clearly don't need a miracle to win and they aren't even overmatched in any way. People keep telling me the Packers are better than the Bears, yet the Bears are the ones hosting this game. I realize we've gotten a lot of breaks this year, but we've played them twice and have showed no signs of being inferior to the Packers. Maybe we just match up really well against them defensively, but for whatever reason I don't fear the Packers one bit. Doesn't mean I don't think they can win or even blow us out. But I like our odds on Sunday, as much as the Packers fans probably do. Maybe I shouldn't be doing this, but a huge huge part of my confidence comes from almost beating the Packers in Lambeau when there was nothing on the line for us and everything for the Packers. By all rights they should have blown us out, especially coming off a 30+ point victory over the Giants, and no Bears fan would have lost that much confidence in the team. But their high flying offense that scares everyone put up 10 points and struggled to move the ball most of the game, and we were right there in the end despite having an unsustainable unbalanced offense. That gave me all the confidence in the world that we can beat them if we play them again in the playoffs, which we are about to. I'm not confident of a victory, I'm confident that we have a good chance of winning. I'll take 50/50 at this point.

Oh that's cute. Clay Matthews thinks his team represents an actual city.

PACKER FANs are douchebags

The one additional cool thing about this game, is that it seems to me that both fanbases are extremely confident in their team's chances on Sunday. I don't think Packers fans are all that fearful of playing the Bears, and I don't think Bears fans are all that scared of playing the Packers. It's not like where one team is clearly a better all around football game, and the other side is praying for a miracle to win. If I goto this game, I'm gonna find a safe spot so that I can survive if things get out of hand between the winning and losing fan bases. There is likely to be a lot of energy and emotion coming from both fanbases. Although I'm a Bears fan and it slightly hurts us, another cool thing is that the Bears home field advantage will be somewhat negated. I'm gonna guess maybe 70-30 or 75-25 depending on how many Bears fans cave and sell their season tickets. I know a buddy of mine whose dad has seats in the United Club and told me that if he sold his 4 tickets for Sunday, it would pay for 3/4ths of the season. And these have a $300 face value in the regular season.

That was awesome. Most fun I've had at work in months watching Rose's quest for a triple double. 28-13 and we won on the road against a decent team without Boozer and Noah. Impressive. Chicago sports are bullish right now.

From what I've seen he hits a lot of line drives, has a great OF arm, but has a Tony Gwynn like physique which will obviously limit him as a player. Seems like his issue is inconsistency. Inconsistent performance, inconsistent approach to the plate, etc.

If so, who cares who the other 2 are. This is a great trade! Former 1st round pick. 2007 1st round pick with strong power numbers in the mid minors and a great OF arm (was rated best OF arm in the Nats org back in 2009 by BA). That's a fantastic prospect to get for Gorz. It seems like he had a bit of a drop in expectations over the last year. Didn't really look like he had a down year though. Maybe just progressing through the minors too slowly? I have seem him somewhere around the 8th to 12th best prospect in the Nats org.

Speaking of Rose, going into the 4th, he's 3 rebounds and 1 assist short of his first career triple double. He'll have probably 7-8 minutes left to get those, unless the Bulls keep the 20 point margin going in his absence.

Whats up with Roses shooting? 6-16 today. Every time I look at a box score I feel liek hes shooting under 50%. And then randomly he'll have a 10-16 game, and then 5 more games of subpar shooting.

Cutler was actually recruited as a safety out of high school. He went to Vandy because the HC at the time (promised he could play QB. He's always been an athletic QB. i know that ron turner could have had him if he wanted. but seriously, cutler was a big-hit safety, a mean, cheap-shotting missile who just happened to be able to throw the ball. he also returned kicks for his high school team. Don't forget in HS, he caught the game winning touchdown pass in the state championship game on a trick play. The guys an athlete.

Sarcastic? He made 3-4 of them in the first half.

I'm assuming the outfield prospect is harper right?

So the rotation is looking like (based on how its set up for opening day) Zambrano Dempster Garza Wells Cashner/Silva (who am I kidding probably Silva)

Ryan Grant is handling being out of the spotlight due to injury a tad worse than Urlacher did last year:

If anyone cares, I've been listening to the same Seattle show that was ripping relentlessly on the Bears the other day. Following the blowout they are.....still relentlessly ripping on the Bears. The consensus is "Jay Cutler should have thrown 5 INTs.....the Seahawks would have been back in the game and probably won if Babeneaux caught that ball thrown to him" One of his biggest points is that the Seahawks didnt come to play because it was a 10am game, his proof if the fact that "JAY FING CUTLER WAS JUKING DEFENDERS AND LOOKING LIKE VICK. HE IS A HORRIBLE RUNNING QB AND SOMEHOW HES DODGING SEAHAWKS AND BREAKNIG TACKLES." He has no idea that Cutler has been a pretty shifty running QB all year and it surprised no Bears fans. But since he's an ignorant homer, he thinks its a sign that the Seahawks didnt come to play because of a 10am start time or something. What makes me laugh though is that this guy is originally from Boston and his favorite team ahead of the Seahawks is the Pats. He had a miserable weekend. I love it. Here is an article he wrote after the game. I want to point out that in this article, he lists "MAYBE THEY WERE LOOKING AHEAD TO THE PACKERS" as one of the reasons the Seahawks lost the game.

that pisses me off but whatever, let them think that. I'm to the point where I don't think the Bears will get respect unless they win the Super Bowl. Or even then, I'm not sure how much respect we will get, especially if we play the Jets or something. There will always be people that say how lucky we got to even get in the playoffs, then we only had to play 1-2 good teams (the Packers and maybe the Jets) to win the Super Bowl. We lucked into playing the Seahawks, and then we lucked into not having to play the team that beat us by 30 points on our home field in the Super Bowl. But at that point I won't care because we're Super Bowl champs.

You must have missed the Wildcat plays You're right. He should definitely be caned. Why is it either he gets a headcoach job or he gets fired? He's a smart offensive coordinator that has his flaws but is in general a great offensive mind. That doesn't necessarily mean he should be a head coach.

For anyone that cares, Peter Carroll was on Seattle radio and picked the Packers next week.