UMFan83

Part of me is just remembering that Huet is a really streaky goalie. That and the D has looked rather shakey lately

Hawks are just bored and thus increasing the level of diffculty by spotting them a couple goals. No worries.

I had one good year (I think 2007) and several bad ones. Sign me up.

Good call. I paid a crapload to go to the NFC Championship game in 06 (sorry) and I'll never regret being there while my team clinches a SB berth. Of course your experience may be different than mine if the result is different than mine. Assuming the Saints win, you will have an absolute blast.

Can you guys stop talking about this? Blah

Come on...did the Blue Jackets make the Stanley Cup Finals for 2 years in a row with similar teams. Provided the rest of the crew comes back and the injuries are minimal the rest of the year they are a lock to make the playoffs. In fact, they are only 5 points out of the 4 seed in the conference. I hate defending the Wings, but you guys make it seem like they suck.

Detroit is still short 5 regulars(all of whom are better then Burish) and played very evenly. Not sure I would be too cocky yet. you should just let us be as cocky as we want so if we do falter embarrassingly you can read back on these comments and enjoy a hearty laugh. Detroit is not a team I want to face I'm the first round. I honestly think they are just about as good as us when healthy plus they play a similar style as us and generally have a ton more experience than us. However health may be an issue for the Wings all year so well see.

Great work Tim. I was a little skeptical about 312sports upon launch but I find myself increasingly going over there to read the page. Keep it up.

That said, I'm 2-6 predicting games this playoffs (so you should all listen to my rants about expert predictions). Without further ado, here are my (wrong) predictions. Saints 27 Vikings 17 Colts 20 Jets 13 So congrats Jets and Vikings on your trip to the Super Bowl. I can't wait to hear nonstop talk about Favres last 2 teams.

Yeah, it's kinda funny that there is so much demand for predictions in the media when their predictions aren't any more or sometimes less accurate than any joe blow predicting. The media in general pick horribly. They only seem to care about what happened the last 3-4 weeks and base their predictions on that. Here are some examples: -The Saints dominated all year, scoring the 9th most points in NFL history, having a very opportunistic defense, and a legit home field advantage. Unfortunately they couldn't go undefeated, losing at home to Dallas, and with nothing to play for anymore lost their last 2 games. This caused everyone to jump ship and choose a team that gave up 45 points last weekend over the Saints at home after a bye week. Simply idiotic. -The Cowboys are teetering on the edge of disaster in early December before winning a big game in New Orleans. Then they shut out a horrible Redskins team and destroyed an Eagles team twice that they clearly match up well against. I'm not saying the Cowboys are bad, but you can't ignore their flaws and give them the NFC title before they earn it like some in the media did. The Vikings, while I've knocked them at times, are a really good team and oftentimes absolutely dominated opponents in the dome this year. They were 8-0 at home this year, they have playmakers all over the field, and people predicted that the Cowboys were going to win easy. It's like the media completely forgets the dominating play that got teams where they are and only focus on the last 3-4 games when in a lot of cases teams ease up, intensity is down slightly, teams are worn down tired and battling nagging injuries. For a team like the Vikings the bye week is the best thing that could happen to them. Picking the Cowboys isn't a stupid thing (I did it), but when only 2 out of 8 ESPN experts pick the Vikings at home after a bye week, something is wrong.

I'm pretty happy UM beat UConn today. It's too bad that with a 10-7 (3-2) record it's gonna take an almost impossible run to get into the dance. With @ Wis, @ Pur, @ MSU, MSU, @ OSU, @ NW, IL left I don't see it. Oh well at least we helped the conference RPI

I appreciate the scoop you dug up for us, but I still don't believe they have no interest in signing Sheets.

Awesome Decision. This will be fun. I don't even know who I want to win right now.

because gould forces you to punt on your opponents' side of the field and rarely gets touchbacks. meh. Until someone shows me how many times the 5 yards that Gould can't convert from that some other kickers can and then factors in the fact that it's like 50-50 for even good kickers beyond 50, then I don't think that hurts us very much. The lack of touchbacks is valid but I'll take it as a tradeoff for having the second most accurate kicker in NFL history or whatever the stat is. At least until he has a year that he falls apart and can't kick crap which it seems like all kickers do. Then I'll give up on him.

I just don't understand why anyone would take any kicker over Gould. He has his issues but until he fails in a clutch game like this I consider him above all. Yeah he misses the kick in the Vikings game but he's made literally every other GW attempt in his career and there have been a good number of them. Maybe there are slightly better kickers but not enough to even question dropping Robbie.

I'm just gonna assume that every fg attempted for the rest of the playoffs will be missed.

getting a point here is a minor loss for Det

Wings team looks much better than 3 weeks ago. We can't get into the flow of game were used to. I'll be happy with 1 point here honestly.

I believe the Bears will get a compensatory 2nd round pick. Yeah right. The Bears got nothing from a 2nd round pick. I guess there's nothing new there.

Ughh...a comment made out of momentary frustration has turned into a never ending argument. Struggling was a bad choice of words. I really would have liked to see the Hawks have the top 1-3 road record in hockey, not 7th or whatever you claim it is. I don't know how I explained my opinion incorrectly, but what I meant was I don't care about OTL, if you win, you get a win, if you lose you get a loss in my book and the extra point for losing in a shootout is just a bonus. What 11-10 shows me is that in 21 games they won 11 of them. If they lost in a shootout, they still only basically played to a draw and lost on a crapshoot skills contest, that's not what I want to see from a team that has the highest goal differential in hockey and is 3rd in GS and 2nd in GA. If a near majority of their road games are games that either they lost or they have to go into OT, I expect more when the other good teams in hockey are winning much more frequently. I realize no hockey team can win every game and I realize that teams play better at home than on the road, but I think there is room for improvement and they could be among the top 3 road teams in hockey, regardless of how much better the conference is. Maybe it's just a coincidence but the road is where they gave up 5 goals to Columbus, road is where they blew a 4 goal 3rd period lead, road is where they gave up 5 goals to Dallas. They've had a lot of impressive games on the road too. I don't know what I'm typing anymore, I'm kinda drunk, but I think I made some sort of coherent point.

You have to wonder if any team has allowed 90 points in a 7 quarter span. It sure feels like the Bears did it several times this year but I know they didn't hah.

Has Rackers ever made a pressure kick like Gould has several times? What are you basing this on? That he can kick a 55 yard FG once in awhile?

Look at the top teams in hockey. NJ has a 16-6 (72%) road record, Pittsburgh has a 16-10 (62%) road record, Buffalo 13-6 (68%), San Jose 16-8 (67%). The Hawks were 11-9 (55%) when I made the comment, thats a worse road record than 4 of the other 5 division leaders (and the one division leader that's worse has a 54% winning%) and 6th out of 15 teams in the Western Conference, including below 2 teams in their own division (Nashville and St. Louis). So yeah, for a team that is tied for the most points in hockey, having a road winning percentage that is 6th in their conference and 10th in the league is struggling in my mind. They are a great team but the reason right now that they are tied for the most points in hockey is largely because of how well they've played at home and the fact that they've played 6 more home games than road games so far this year. That said, I have all the confidence in the world that the Hawks can and will play better on the road. Edit: Oh and the reason I simplify records by putting OTLs in with the losses is because I think the most important way to evaluate and compare the records is with winning %. I'm not concerned with whether the Hawks got an extra point because they lost a crapshoot shootout, I am concerned with how the Hawks do in the 60 minutes beforehand to pull away from their opponent on the road. Either they win the game or lose it is all I care about in my opinion, the extra points for an OTL are just a bonus in my book. dude, you're completely contradicting yourself. you say you're not concerned with whether the blackhawks lost in a crapshoot shootout, yet you are counting OT losses as regular losses. what kind of sense does that make? if you actually want to follow the logic you're using, then the record you should be posting would be 11-6. you just said that you're more concerned with how they played in the 60 minutes, right? well 11-6 shows that, not 11-9. That doesn't make any sense. I said I am not concerned with whether the Hawks lost a game in regulation or if they got an extra point for losing in OT or a shootout. They either won the game or they lost the game, which is what I said above. My primary concern is the percentage of games that the Hawks win on the road, and at the time I made the comment it was 11 out of 20. Either way, it's stupid to keep this argument going. I think I proved that the Hawks are not world beaters on the road, and you proved its not as bad as I made it out to be when I was frustrated. Let's shake hands and cheer the Hawks on tomorrow morning.

See Neil, that's how you kick a FG.

Nobody did, I don't recall anyone having a ton of interest in Brees when he was a FA. I think a lot of people attributed his numbers to LT, Gates, Schottenhimer, etc. If Brees was an unrestricted FA after this season and the Saints made it known he wasn't coming back, I would think it would be the biggest story in sports before he signed somewhere. How many times in the history of this league has a QB of Brees caliber been an unrestricted FA with his previous team making no effort to resign him? he was also rehabbing a badly dislocated shoulder at the time. i wasn't sold and thought it was a risky move, too. I completely forgot about that. That's a very valid point, I remember thinking the same thing. I thought he was a very good QB with potential to be top 5 in the league but there were a lot of issues raised about his shoulder. He wasn't at the time considered top 10, but his previous 2 years he had 3159 years with 27 TD/7 INT and 3576 with 24 TD and 15 INT. You saw how much the Bears gave up for a QB with less success in the league. But with his shoulder injury that puts his demand into perspective.