UMFan83

Well that makes me feel better about Super Bowl 36. That was Mike Martz's fault. What the hell does the coach of the 2005 version of that team have to do with the 2010 team? That would be like blaming Jauron for the Bears disappointing 2009. He's referring to the Martz led Rams losing to Brady/Belichick in the Super Bowl in what was considered a fairly huge upset at the time (Rams were giving 14 points). Players wise, those Rams teams outgunned the Pats for sure. Yes but they didn't have Tom 'sex pistol' Brady at the helm. I've got a friend that I met 2-3 years after that game who is a huge Rams fan (seriously bigger than any Bears fan I know), and he's never been able to talk to me about that game because he's still pissed about it.

Your logic is outstanding. The Bears are better because they beat Green Bay? Sure. And have a better record and better players. It's the only impressive victory on either team's schedule. Regardless, my argument is more about the fact that calling them bad in the preseason was not dumb and is not nearly as big a mistake as calling Dallas good. They are 4-4 and in the bottom half of the NFL. I just wanted to point out that the Rams did beat the Chargers in San Diego. IMO that's more impressive than the Bears beating a Packers team penalized 18 times at home. The Chargers may be 4-5 and may have been in the middle of their annual early season malise, but according to DVOA team rankings the Chargers have been a better overall team this year (7th overall vs. GB's 10th), and I believe the Chargers had the gained the most yards and allowed the least yards in football up until this week. Just wanted to point that out, although that doesn't mean the Rams are better than the Bears by any means. I think there is a small but clear division between the Bears and the Rams at this point.

Why? They have 4 losses, none of them to good teams. It's not that hard to make a top 8 list of NFC teams anyway. There may be 12 AFC teams in that discussion. The Bears lost to the Seahawks and Redskins at home. The Rams beat those two teams by a combined 30 points. The Bears are 27th in points scored and fourth in points allowed. The Rams are 29th in points scored and seventh in points allowed. Looks pretty even to me. The Bears beat the Lions, and you lost to them by 38 points. The Bears have 5 wins in 8 games, the Rams have 4 wins in 8 games. The Rams play in the worst division in football and are matched up against the worst division in the AFC. The Bears are in a middle of the road division with no true cupcakes, and are matched up against arguably the best divsion in the NFL.

1. Giants 2. Falcons 3. Packers 4. Saints 5. Eagles 6. Vikings 7. Buccaneers 8. Bears I'd get to that point before I started considering the Rams for #9. I think the Eagles and Vikings, even with their season, are clearly better than the Rams. The Bucs and Bears probably are, but its not as clear cut.

Only 1 non-BCS team ranked 12 of higher is guaranteed, which would of course be TCU. Does that apply for the title game? If TCU were to make the title game, would one of the BCS bowls have to pick Boise State because of that rule? Just looked it up to make sure: It doesn't say anything about the National Championship game having any effect on a 2nd non-BCS school getting an automatic bid.

For whoever said they almost feel bad for Phillips, I'm not. He is probably relieved right now. What incentive did he have to finish the season with the team? He was gonna get canned no matter what, the team has completely quit under him, so the chances of him salvaging some of the season with a 5-3 finish or that would make him more appealing for a future job are pretty much non-existent. Cutting him loose right now helps him just as much as it helps the Cowboys. There was no benefit, other than a small amount of financial benefit for the Cowboys, for either side to remain married.

haha. I'm not sure what's worse up to this point -- Minnesota and Dallas at 3 and 4 or Tampa Bay and STL at 30 and 32. Neither Tampa or STL is good. Tampa has beaten some crappy teams and lost to everybody that posed a threat, plus they've been outscored by a wide margin. They could both easily finish in the bottom 10 of the league, while Dallas and Minnesota have no chance of being a top 10 team. STL plays in a crap division and their AFC division opponents are also the weakest. St. Louis is probably a upper 20s in terms of ranking. They've showed some promise, not as a team that can be good this year or maybe next year but as a team that's improved and could certainly win that putrid division. TB is just so young, I don't feel like they know they're supposed to suck. The D is fairly decent though. They're probably in the 17-20 range in rankings imo.

Also, as far as the Lakers go....I haven't watched any of their games or seen more than a couple highlights, so I am confused as to how there seems to be this growing hype of their dominance. I know they are 7-0 but it's not like they've destroyed every team they've played. 2 point win over Houston, 8 point won over Phoenix, 12 point win over Sacramento, 5 point win over Toronto. I guess I don't see how this is different from other years when the Lakers start off well.

Yup. I remember them losing the 2nd to last game of the season against Indiana on NBC by one point. It annoyed me so much because A) I wanted the Bulls to lose less than 10 games. 73-9 sounds much cooler than 72-10, and B) Indiana was the only team to beat us twice in the season, and them the Sonics, the Nuggets and the Suns were the only 4 teams the Bulls didn't have a winning record against in the regular season that year. How spoiled was I back then to actually be mad about that? Also while I'm talking about this time period, after that Indiana loss, the Bulls last game of the year was preempted by a Sox game and was shown on tape delay several hours later. That would never ever happen in this day and age. There would be an outcry if a late September game between the Pirates and Nationals was not broadcast for an inning.

Even so Auburn has to lose twice for LSU to make the SEC title game. Without that I don't think they have enough to leap in front of TCU. Although that could be the final piece to destroy the BCS. I think the final piece to destroy the BCS would more likely be a Boise St/TCU Championship game and not a team from one of the power conferences jumping them to be in the Championship game And then as of TCU or Boise State wins the game, a 1 loss Wisconsin team wins the Rose Bowl and the AP selects them as their National Champ.

Even so Auburn has to lose twice for LSU to make the SEC title game. Without that I don't think they have enough to leap in front of TCU. Although that could be the final piece to destroy the BCS. Whoops, I did forget about that. Auburn could lose twice. They are a good team but I don't think they are so good that beating Georgia is a formality. And despite Alabama's up and down play, they are certainly good enough to beat Auburn, and might even be slight favorites in the Iron Bowl. But yeah it is pretty unlikely, though not impossible, that Auburn loses both.

I'd hope that they wouldn't sacrifice a lot of attention from an intradivision game for a non-conference game a few days later. I mean, they're all important, and the Bears should probably win both if they want to be serious playoff contenders, but if you had to pick one, the vikings game is clearly more important.

Speaking of Peter King.... I just skimmed his entire MMQB article, and there was not one single mention of the Chicago Bears, or the game they played yesterday. He did mention the Bills in the form of the Merriman signing, but no reference to the game, no Bears in his fine 15, nothing he liked or disliked about the game, nothing. I don't think I've ever seen a game get completetly ignored in one of his columns. In fact, up until now, I thought he had some short of guideline where he would make it a point to mention every game in his column, even if it is just a 5 word sentence about something he liked in the game.

lol ESPN now pimping the Lakers/72 wins discussion. Wonder if they will have a "Laker Index" special section in the coming weeks. Speaking of ESPN special team pages, all the hype and discussion about the Heat really died down after the first couple of games didn't it? Wonder how many hits the Heat Index is getting. When I went there last week I didn't see anything about their quest for 72 wins and their LBJ Triple Double progress like they promised when they launched it.

Imagine if that Tennessee too many men on the field penalty was the thing that kept a TCU out of the National Title game. I personally don't think LSU will win the rest of their games, but still.

Only 1 non-BCS team ranked 12 of higher is guaranteed, which would of course be TCU.

If there's one thing I am certain it's there is no way the voters will allow Boise State to play TCU in the title game. If they have to vote a 1 loss LSU, Ohio State, Wisconsin, etc over Boise they will. Sucks for Boise but the voters will not allow 2 non-BCS schools to play in their championship game.

This game would have been so much easier if the Vikings had lost last week. They looked like they were quasi-giving up at times on Sunday, until Favre led them back (ugh). As it is right now instead of 2-6 and their season essentially becoming a battle with the Lions and maybe Bears for 2/3rd place overall, they are looking at a scenario where if they win the next 2 gams, they will be 1 game in back of the Packers and possibly the Bears with 6 to play. Season saved. That said, the Vikings haven't looked like last year's Vikings in any game this season. Maybe a little bit in their win over Detroit, but even in wins over Dallas and Arizona they looked mediocre and could have easily lost both. So the game is winnable. And despite the negativity surrounding the win over the winless Bills, there were some things that I saw that I liked and encouraged me. For one I thought the offensive game plan was a lot better overall. Not just because it was balanced, but because for once they came into the game with a plan to use short drops and quicker passes instead of starting with the same 5 and 7 step drops. Cutler looked like he had more freedom out there was well, which is anti-Martzian in nature. He did a good job finding the hot reads and getting the ball quickly out of his hands under pressure, and if not moving around in the pocket and running when needed. He did throw multiple passes that went in and out of the hands of defenders, but I guess that's just going to happen. All of this led to the offensive line having a below average game, which is an improvement over the awful that they usually are. Cutler wasn't sacked and I don't recall him being hit very much. This is of course more because of the offensive game plan than it was the line actually doing good, but that's fine by me. Anything we can do to minimize the effect the O-line has on the game is fine by me. The running game was fairly disapointing as we still have extreme difficulty running the ball against one of the worse rushing d's in the league. Against the schedule we have coming up, there are not many teams that are going to let you run the ball, so it's gonna be an issue once the Bears surely give up on the running game and go passing in future games. Looking at the results of the game, its ok to be disapointed at the close result of the game yesterday. More than the close result the fact that the Bills probably outplayed us, and we're a blocked XP from being tied at 21 at the end of the game and possibly losing it. But lets not forget that the Bears have played 6 of their 8 games extremely close, whether it be lesser teams like Seattle, Buffalo and Dallas, or better teams like Green Bay. The only games we're played where the difference was more than a score was the very good Giants and the very bad Panthers. I don't doubt we can play most of our upcoming opponents close as well, its just going to come down to coaching and how we fare in the most important 3-4 plays of the game (I just head you groaning). Anyways, it's not all doom and gloom. It's not like the Bills have been getting blown out by every team they've played. They took the 6-2 ravens and 5-3 Chiefs to OT in their previous 2 games, and neither of them are giving up on their seasons. I would have liked to have seen us just overwhelm them with our supposed talent advantage, but I feel like the way our O-line plays, its gonna be the equilizer in most games, meaning expect a lot of close games. My early thoughts on this game are the Vikings win a close one, something like 23-17. I think the key is to keep Brett Favre in the game, as despite yesterday's performance, I'd actually rather see old man Favre in there than TJax.

I don't know if I can handle seeing him in purple. That [expletive] sucks. How about navy and orange? Doubt that would happen though. While Harris even at this stage would probably be an upgrade over our DBs, I don't see this being an Angelo type of move.

I dont fault ESPN for dumping the NHL. I don't either. It's just funny they want back in now.

when was the last time Gameday was on a campus that was hosting a 3:30 game? The primetime games must be awful Last week? Weren't they in Salt Lake City last week for TCU-Utah or am I imagining things

LOL ESPN basically left the NHL for dead several years back, losing broadcasting rights while dropping NHL coverage to nothing more than a 3 minute segment on Sportscenter. I don't even think they sent guys on location for big events like the Stanley Cup Finals (could be wrong though). Anyways, the NHL has a tiny bit of momentum now so it's nice to see ESPN wants back. It will be interesting to see if/when their hockey coverage explodes if they acquire the rights.

But the scenario is what would happen if the Packers were 1 game back and won the Week 17 game, which means that if both teams win the rest of their other divisional games, both teams would wind up 5-1 in the division. And in that case the tiebreaker would move to conference record where at the moment it's almost impossible to tell who would have the advantage. Agreed. Meaning, it's far too early to tell who would win the tie breaker if the Packers beat the Bears in week 17.

The packers don't even have to stumble against Minnesota or detroit due to the bears already having a game better than gb in the division. While it's not likely that the bears will win all 3 of their other divisional games it is still a scenario that could occur. Sorry I'm being a stickler but when I read your post it seemed like you were all but giving the packers the tie breaker which there is still a lot of stuff going on to decide that. Regardless being the negative bears fan I am, I don't see that game having any meaning for the bears.

Why would winning the game in week 17 mean they get the division. The Bears haven't lost the division record tiebreaker yet, in fact they are 2-0 in the division, and the Packers 2-1.