UMFan83

Also, the offensive line has done ridiculously better the last 3 weeks. I mean its been night and day. While by no means is it a good or even average or even below average offensive line, the improvement has been noticable. 2 thoughts pop into my head: 1) Was Angelo right (even a little bit) when he said the line needed continuity and it would be fine? 2) Will this improvement, considering it continues or at least stays at this level, combined with a playoff appearance cause Angelo to ignore improving the O-line yet again for next year?

We do tend to play Philly really well the last few years. I know every team every year is different, but there are many players that are the same, and the coaches are certainly the same on both sides, which is a key measuring stick in situations like this. You could argue that the Eagles were conisidered the better team between them and the Bears before each game the last 3 years we played them. In 2007, we went to Philly with Griese as our QB, I think this was the week after AP ran for 203290593 yards against us and we beat them on a last second drive. In 2008, Philly came here for SNF on the 4th game of the season, after the Bears beat the Colts and losing to TB and Carolina. I think the Eagles were 2-1 (after a bye) and were the highest scoring per game team in the league to that point (and this Philly team eventually made the NFC Champ game) and we beat them after a goal line stand late in the game to secure victory. In 2009 we were in the midst of a horrible 2-8 stretch with our only victories being over the Rams and Browns, and in the last 3 week had been blown out horribly by the Bengals (45-10 I think) and Cardinals (41-21. The Eagles came in with a good offense and the clearly better team. Everyone expected another 40+ point collapse by the defense but instead the Bears were in it all game and actually led 20-17 until about 5:30 left in the 4th. They also had the ball at midfield with about a minute left in the game down 4 and Cutler threw a pick.

Didn't look that way when Marshall picked up a 15 yard penalty for taunting Cutler.

This is extremely unscientific, but I was trying to break down the Bears and Packers remaining schedules, and while the Bears schedule is supposedly much harder, a closer look shows they might be closer than you'd expect. What I did was just try to match up a Bears game with a similar Packers game remaining on the schedule (exclusing the Bears-Packers game). Bears - Packers - Adv 1. @ DET - @ DET - Even 2. @ MIN - @ MIN - Even 3. NE - @ NE - Bears 4. NYJ - @ ATL - Bears 5. PHI - NYG - Probably Even 6. SF - @ MIA (already won) - Bears

Really? I'm thinking I want NYG to win, because the Bears already lost to them and if they have to compete for a Wild Card spot they are screwed. Exactly my thoughts. As much as a bye week and all that stuff would be awesome, I am just rooting for any and all ways to get in.

What time do you think is the latest time to get there to get a good spot in the crowd? I ain't getting up at 2:45 that's for sure.

It's begining to be a problem (having that bad quarter). Obviously you can't expect a team to win every quarter, but 37-12 last night in the 3rd quarter, 30-14 to Houston 2 nights ago in the 3rd, 27-18 in the 3rd to Denver a few games ago, 30-15 to Boston in the 2nd quarter, 36-22 to the Knicks in the 2nd quarter, 39-23 to Detroit in the 2nd quarter, 24-13 to OKC in the 4th. In 7 their 10 games they've had a lopsided (at least -19 points) quarter. I'm sure that's probably a typo, but only one of those games you mentioned (the Spurs game) fits the category of a "-19" quarter. I'm assuming you mean -9. And honestly, if you're going to bring it down to that kind of number, I'd be surprised if a lot of teams don't meet that statistic. Occasionally yet, but with being too lazy to look, I'd bet most teams don't have a quarter like that 70% of their games. Even so, take out the -9 game, adn the -11 game, and say in half their games they have a quarter where the opponent outscores them by 14 points or more.

Thanks for your backhanded compliment of an article Gene http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?page=wojciechowski/101119&sportCat=nfl

Huh? Are you under the weather or something?

Like I said, if he wants to offer an insane discount, go ahead. That's a $5m average, and he is going to get $5m this year alone. Crap I didnt realize that. I figured it was somewhere around $3 mil. I was thinking 3, 5, 8, 10. in the 4 years or something. So I guess 4, $26m, so maybe 4 $30 mil or 5, 7, 8, 10 each year

I think we need to win 1 of the next 2 games, either vs. Philly or @ Detroit. If we go 1-1, we'll be 8-4, needing to probably split the "impossible" last quarter of the season against Minnesota (in the terror dome) NE, NYJ and at GB. We can beat Philly if the D shows up, but they are a phenominal team with lots of dynamic play makers. So it's gonna be very tough. Hopefully home field advantage tips the scales on our side.

P.S. Who knew I've been using the phrase "weak link" incorrectly all these years. I always thought that it meant something or someone who is the worst part of a group

It was ok....My girlfriend hated that during intermission and while leaving the theater I put on my headphones and blasted music so that I wouldnt overhear people talking about the game. Also I made her put on a CD on the drive home so that I didnt hear some FM deejay say something about the game in between songs. It worked out in the end.

Wake is out, Long will start and play which sucks. Thigpen will start with Ramsey as the backup and Henne is active as the third qb.

Joe Morgan is rolling pver in his grave. HOW CAN YOU GIVE IT TO SOMEONE WITH ONLY 13 WINS ARE YOU NUTS!!!!!

Exactly, its a detriment against Dusty that he wasn't able to get them winning sooner.

Sweet, I was just thinking of all the things I wanted to say about Derek Jeter's contract negotiations and you my good sir have provided me said forum. Edit: New thread rule #1 1. If the first sentence of your new thread begins with "Not really of interest to us," it probably doesn't need to have a thread made for it.

I have no idea what your first sentence means. As for the rest, he isn't relatively consistent from year to year. He was very pedestrian in 2009. He is coming off a career year. The vast majority of these guys are not consistent every year, and that is the reason you don't sign him. Plus, the consistent ones don't walk a million people a year. If Marmol does what he did this year for the next two years, then go ahead and think about a longer term deal. But there is just no reason you sign him now unless he is offering an insance discount just for the security. It has nothing to do with taking line drives off the elbow, it's all about the inconsistency of relievers and his ridiculously injury inviting motion. Sorry about the first sentence. I meant how many years is Marmol away from FA right now. My head is in a daze thinking about how I'm gonna miss the Bears game tonight. While technically you were right, in 2009 Marmol was less than consistent vs. the other years of his career. But if a 1.5 WAR is pedestrian and thats his FLOOR, well then I'm fine with that. In the last 4 years only Marshall (10 - 1.9), Wood (08 - 1.8) and Marmol (07 - 2.8, 08 - 2.2, 09 - 1.5, 10 - 3.0) have had seasons out of the pen with a higher than 1.5 WAR. I'm perfectly fine with Marmol getting a 4 year, $20 mil deal to keep him on the team for the next 4 seasons.

How far as the Cubs from FA with him? I wouldn't suggest just letting him go at the end of his arb years, nor would I suggest signing him for 8 figures a year. But relievers with his stuff and are relatively consistent from year to year are hard to find. There are significant risks to a long term extension but while I am typically very against paying relievers a lot of money, I am ok with a big market team like the Cubs having one high paid reliever on the team (meaning up to 8 mil a year). Sure you could sign him to a 4 year deal and watch him take a line drive off his elbow tomorrow and his career is over. Or you could sign him and watch Marmol figure out his control issues and become the most dominant reliever in baseball for a good chunk of the deal.

Every single mainstream prediction I've seen has picked the Dolphins to win tonight. ESPN's "pickcenter" picks the Dolphins, but picks the Bears to cover, which I don't know how that's possible since the line is Dolphins -1. ESPN's expert predictions haven't been uploaded yet. Peter King picks Dolphins 20 Bears 16 and makes some comment about how Thigpen is going to show that he's more than a clipboard holder or something. All 6 of CBSsports.com writers pick the Dolphins straight up tonight, including Prisco who has Dolphins 24 Bears 20. Wait I did find someone picking the Bears. On Yahoo sports, 1 of the 2 posted predictions is for the Bears, but some guy named Jason Cole. The other dude, and the fan majority both pick Miami. Whatifsports.com uses a statistical model to predict their games, and has the Bears winning handily, 22-14 (which is handily for these types of predictions), with the Bears winning over 75% of the time it was simulated.

$#(%# My girlfriend just reminded me that tonight was the night she bought stupid Lion King musical tickets for us to go to. I told her to pick a night during the week so I didn't waste time on the weekends going to it. And of course she picks the night of the only Bears weekday game between September and December. So I'm gonna miss the entire game. The show starts at 7:30 (same as the Bears game) and ends sometime between 10:15-10:30 supposedly (roughly when the Bears game will end). I was considering DVRing it but I won't be home until 11, and I can't kill a Bears game in an hour. The worst thing is, my gf has the biggest pet peeve of me checking my phone during stuff like this. I am going to have a miserable night if I am checking my phone during the show. I guess I should set popup notifications on my phone for scoring plays. That way it pops up as a text message, so I can really quickly sneak my phone out and check the message instead of having to refresh a web page to see the score.

It's begining to be a problem (having that bad quarter). Obviously you can't expect a team to win every quarter, but 37-12 last night in the 3rd quarter, 30-14 to Houston 2 nights ago in the 3rd, 27-18 in the 3rd to Denver a few games ago, 30-15 to Boston in the 2nd quarter, 36-22 to the Knicks in the 2nd quarter, 39-23 to Detroit in the 2nd quarter, 24-13 to OKC in the 4th. In 7 their 10 games they've had a lopsided (at least -19 points) quarter.

i don't know if you guys agree, but I'd rather the bulk of our money be spent on an impact offensive player rather than starting pitching, and DEFINITELY rather than the pen. We were awful offensively last year and we come into this year worse off than how we came into last year (we don't have Lee coming off a 35 HR 100+ rbi season this year).

There are a lot of decent to good centers in the East right now. Howard, Horford, Noah, Lopez, Hibbert, and Bogut.

I feel really bad for him. I pretty much think the Blazers have moved on and are going on like Oden isn't going to be there. And he won't. Still sucks though, I would have liked to have seen how that promising Blazers team would have looked with a healthy Oden.