UMFan83

It doesn't really mean all that much. The Cowboys struggled but they went to the 2nd round of the playoffs last year with almost the exact same cast. They can get away with struggling. I understand your point though that struggling doesn't mean that come week 1 we're going to suck. Winning and losing doesn't matter in a game where the playbooks are fairly vanilla compared to what will be run in week 1. So you can't really measure the performance in terms of results. You can however, notice how things like the pass rush looks or the run blocking. It's still not completely accurate because you need to factor in things like intensity, which sometimes you just can't duplicate until the curtains go up. You can try but if you had a guaranteed starting position, and are comfortable with the offense, its hard to give 100% out there when your main goal is not getting hurt. I remember a similar complaint about preseason performance in 2006 when the first team offense hadn't scored a TD the first 3 preseason games. Coming off such a mediocre offensive performance in 2005, many people were thinking 'more of the same". Instead the offense came out and scored 34+ points in 5 of our first 9 games of the season.

He's due $18.5 next year, the final year of his deal. My biggest question would be where to put him. Could he conceivably play first? If not, there's really nowhere to put him since we have Colvin, Byrd, Soriano and Kosuke all in the outfield and Brett Jackson potentially ready to come up sometime in the second half of next year. Trade Kosuke and make Colvin the 4th OF/backup 1B so he gets 400 ABs if management really thinks he's a legit future player. I have no idea how good/bad Beltran's defensive metrics have been as he's aged and went through injuries, but if he's been a liability you can still move him to right with Byrd staying at center. Of course, I really want to see him finish this year with much better than a 634 OPS if we're going to pay him 18.5 million to play baseball for us.

When (if) the O-line fails again this year, will this be the offseason where Angelo (if it's him) finally decides to make it the number 1 priority in the offseason ?

LSD is a hell of a drug. Awesome

Especially when the team is 20 games under .500 in mid-August.

That show is over, but yeah.

My biggest issue is was pass protection. I don't know how the O-line looked ok when Cutler was sacked 4 more times, another time the pressure forced a fumble, and Cutler threw 2 INTs which I'd have to watch again but would think at least some of that was getting rid of the ball under pressure. The Bears can move the ball...they did last year a lot. But with no pass protection and a QB like Cutler that tends to throw a couple of dumbfounding passes per game, way too many possessions end in an INT, lost fumble or a couple of sacks making it a long 3rd down conversion. I don't think the Bears running game and WRs are good enough to overcome multiple turnovers per game by the QB. It's just really frustrating because the Bears have tried everything, signing potentially undervalued FA Olinemen, hiring one of the better oline coaches in the game, etc to improve the line. But the one thing they haven't done was commit the offseason to building the O-line which to me is the most important thing to have. Instead they decided to go with what they had in house which was awful last year, and move them around to their more natural positions and hoped that this and Tice were gonna make the Bears O-line average...I say average because I don't even think Angelo was dumb enough to think that what he built was good enough to build an above average O-line. Oh and he put even more pressure on this O-line when he hired Martz who relies on 5 step drops and perfect timing to make his offense work. You can't do that with an offensive line that is going to leave the QB scrambling multiple times per drive.

I saw that Antonio Bryant was cut by the Bengals today and for a half second I thought that maybe we could pick him up and it would be a good pickup. Then I realized that receivers are probably the 5th or 6th biggest problem on this team. I don't think adding a receiver the caliber of Bryant would make the offense all that much better.

Its a very creative outside the box idea. But it seems like that is the kind of move a middle or small market team does in order to strike gold with their limited resources. Color me unimpressed if we ended up with him instead of a Dunn or AGonz. Not saying it would turn out badly but there is a bunch of risk too of course.

Jay Cutler interception count: 2 I've been saying all preseason that I don't take much out of the preseason. Although the playbook is still way too vanilla, if there is a game I take anything at all from its the 3rd preseason game. And we've looked downright awful this game. Lovie has to be geting nervous for his job.

Lou Canillis is right with 2 out of our 3 starting LBs out again, it's looking like last year in this game. I hope Briggs' injury isn't bad.

And now a missed FG. It can't get much worse.

Man our special teams has been absolutely atrocious this preseason. Gave up long returns in the first game, 2 botched snaps on an XP and FG in the 2nd game, blocked FGA in the third game.

Jay Cutler interception count: 1 Line looked pretty good on that drive though.

He's had a typical Fukudome year. At times he looks awesome, and other times he's God awful. The difference is that he lost his starting job during the season.

We're winning somehow.

I don't know. We've got the baseball-reference link, but not any actual footage of the game. It may not have existed. Baseball reference conspiring to create box scores of games that never actually took place?!?! This could be bigger than steroids. I am quite sure that no one actually witnessed an Expos game in their last three years in Montreal. I defy anyone (besides the now VERY suspect BR) to prove otherwise. I have a ticket stub from that Cubs/Braves game somewhere in my drawer. Sorry guys.

Yeah I can't remember if Peavy is the last "big" (arbitrary term) named player we've pursued. Since then the White Sox have pursued several big names and are linked to others (Adrian Gonzalez). Again I'm not saying the Cubs are wrong or right for not being heavily involved in big names, especially considering the state of the club right now. I'm just saying it would be exciting if we were in a position to add talent and it was a big name. I'm desperately seeking excitement from the Cubs.

Not that it's always worked out but they always seem to be in the hunt for a big name player. I can't remember the last time the Cubs were. Probably Peavy and we didn't get him. Again, not saying its a good or a bad thing, although I presume it would give me a little excitement.

lol guess Capps didn't work out for them.

But of course during that same period he happens to have 52 RBIs against the hapless Pirates. How strage.

He's hit a few, missed a few. Hasn't shot more than 1-2 a game. My guess is he's made about 50% of what he's taken, which is good but obviously a tiny sample size.

LOL you got me because of ignorance but some people were getting legit mad because their impassioned objections to you not believing in tipping were being responded on with loosely related jibberish. Good stuff though.

Interesting to see that 54 games ago, Aramis was at at .485 OPS. 54 games is 1/3rd of the season and is actually where he started picking it up. So project his stats in the last 1/3 of the season over an entire season and we get: .320/.367/.615/.982, 48 HR 135 RBI 27 2B 108 R

I was gonna say that it should be placed 2 feet from MJs and it should be of him standing there watching MJ soar for a dunk over him.