UMFan83

Strange and funny that reporters keep asking Ohio State players at the combine about whether Justin Fields is just a RB playing QB: Stroud tells the Bears not to draft him and stick with Fields lol Probably my favorite group of Ohio State players ever. Sure mostly because they were all unable to beat Michigan, but also because they are defending Fields.

Also true Bryan Bickell also says hi, though his was just mostly bad (not Seabrook bad) until his diagnosis. Probably a similar situation with Toews and whatevers been going on there the last couple years. Seth Jones? Or are you only talking about contracts awarded with the Hawks were still good? The Hawks still have a $5.5m cap hit on Keith this season, though he provided an adequate amount of value during the first part of his deal.

Making this the Morel mega-thread while we still have mega-threads: :-k

Still a chance according to this Link "At 14-19 and without a conference title to their credit, the Titans are ineligible for the NIT and NCAA Tournament. However, Davis could still break Maravich's record if Detroit is invited to a postseason event such as the CBI or The Basketball Classic, which allows teams with records below .500 to compete." Maravich set his record in 83 games over 3 seasons. Davis has played 143 games over 5 seasons. The idea of the record being broken because a bad team got invited to some 3rd rate tournament just for the sake of allowing the record to be broken would seem very unsatisfying to all involved. But regardless, great career by Davis the son of legendary IU coach Mike Davis. :hello:

The bottom of the league is littered with teams that were good in the 10's and are rebuilding. You are right that good teams can retool and be good again later on Teams like Boston and Pittsburgh seem to be perpetually good. But the Hawks under Bowman could never do that and instead found themselves in a positon where they were nowhere near good enough, had little draft capital, not many prospects, and a poor cap situation. The gut rebuild was the best path forward in their mind. Do I think they should have kept Debrincat and Dach and other young players? Yes, but even with them it was going to be a multi-year rebuild imo. The bad teams previously being good doesn’t mean anything. The top of the league is littered with teams that have been good for a decade+ with the exception of a year or two. The tear down is easy. The rebuild is the problem. The devils spent two decades in mediocrity and are only just now finally good again. When Davidson says it’s going to be a long process, he’s probably underselling how long that will be. I agree, its going to take forever and it sucks. But there's 2 situations we're talking about: being a good team and balancing the future and the present to stay competitive, and being a good team with declining results and not much to fall back on. The Hawks were trying to be the former but I feel like Bowman put us in a position where a massive rebuild had to become the route forward. Maybe the Hawks could have kept their young guys, cut bait elsewhere and hoped to get better quicker but the margin for error is a lot less. If we fired Bowman before he could have executed that ridiculously bad offseason, we probably have better route to retool, but he massively set back the franchise several years with his moves. Just my 2 cents...

I just didn’t see a path forward after Bowman epically botched the 2021 offseason in a way that almost seemed like he was sabotaging the team. Rebuilds in hockey suck as hey have the strictest salary cap by far. You can’t just buy a good team and you can’t just cut players with bad contracts and save money like you can in the NFL. When a team finds itself in the position the Blackhawks were in, the most obvious path to contention is it tear it down and spend multiple years building it back up. Except nobody has ever done it. Good teams generally take a year or two to step back and reload. But rarely do they bottom out and start over. It takes a decade to rebuild a winner. You need a lot of good hockey players to win a lot of games. The bottom of the league is littered with teams that were good in the 10's and are rebuilding. You are right that good teams can retool and be good again later on Teams like Boston and Pittsburgh seem to be perpetually good. But the Hawks under Bowman could never do that and instead found themselves in a positon where they were nowhere near good enough, had little draft capital, not many prospects, and a poor cap situation. The gut rebuild was the best path forward in their mind. Do I think they should have kept Debrincat and Dach and other young players? Yes, but even with them it was going to be a multi-year rebuild imo.

I just didn’t see a path forward after Bowman epically botched the 2021 offseason in a way that almost seemed like he was sabotaging the team. Rebuilds in hockey suck as hey have the strictest salary cap by far. You can’t just buy a good team and you can’t just cut players with bad contracts and save money like you can in the NFL. When a team finds itself in the position the Blackhawks were in, the most obvious path to contention is it tear it down and spend multiple years building it back up.

Eh. To be fair, if the refs had any idea what a goaltend is, the game wouldn't have even made it to overtime. There was some wonky stuff called on both sides, though none more blatant than that goaltend. I'm sure you can point to several " if that didn't happen then..." calls in a double OT game. The fact is Michigan had a 7 point lead with 1:49 left in a game they desperately needed to win and they lost. Sucks. I know most here are either Illinois fans or Michigan haters so I'll end my sob story there lol

Basketball is a stupid sport for really stupid people. That was probably the roughest Michigan basketball loss I've felt since the Elite 8 loss to UCLA. And of course the dude that Michigan admissions wouldn't let in is the one that beats them

that's freaking depressing. I imagine he will start out a bit slower too with no spring training....possibility this throws off his season at least a little.

First 3 seasons: 450 games, 16.7 WAR Next 3 seasons: 295 games, 1.2 WAR I realize there are better metrics to look at that will diagnose the issues better but just throwing basic WAR out there to illustrate how big his decline in play has been. Realize there's been injuries and swing changes and other factors at play, just curious if there is a comp out there of a player with a similar career arc suddenly finding their form again. I'll let our resident baseball wizard TT, who is probably the biggest asset that Brock acquired in his purchase of the site, chime in with some fancy numbers.

Counterpoint: great time to get a glimpse at some of the organizations "rising stars" and lesser-knowns. Meh, its hard (at least for me) to parse through what is relevant and what is not relevant when it comes to Spring Training performances. Because of that I really don't care to watch spring training at all. I check back in this thread every 4-5 days to see whats going on

Look at like 2012-2013 if you want to see game threads that are 1-2 pages long almost exclusively filled with Fred posting PBP to himself. God bless that man

Game Thread guide: Cubs are bad: Cubs are bad but the few that remain are getting a little goofy: Cubs are good but playing bad and people are rushing to the thread to complain: The people who hate Game Thread overreactors respond: http://vol1brooklyn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/tumblr_moj96a1vbU1r556mmo1_400.gif Cubs are on a winning streak: The Mets are in town: Cubs blow a save: The Cubs game ends on trade deadline day and Jed does nothing: The Cubs pull one out of their ass:

My current Twitter name is "Biblical Losses" so yeah....horsefeathers the Ricketts family. PS I know you are trying to generate discussion with new topics and all of that but this thread titled "The Ricketts family sucks in all kinds of ways" will tell you everything you need to know. viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2630

Assume he means the Blackhawks. How many times has a prominent player in any sport been traded half way through their final season under contract and then returned in FA? It's happened before but seems like most of those cases are players who have played their whole career one place, then they realize its not bad playing for another team so they are more willing to sign elsewhere. If I was a betting man, Patrick Kane will never play another game for the Blackhawks again (Especially because Stan Bowman is no longer in charge). Think about it, the Hawks are like 3-5 years away from potentially being good again, why would a 35 year old Patrick Kane after experiencing the thrill of the NHL playoffs for the first time in more than half a decade (outside of the bubble), choose to sign back with a team still in the beginning stages of a rebuild? I was thinking that while they're still a few years from competing, they still need to have a team and bringing back the fan favorite for his final years would make sense. It also seemed like Kane was looking to finish his career here and unlike other players, he may not care about chasing a cup at this point. That being said, I am retracting my statement based on the statements released by the Blackhawks. They seem pretty much like this is the end, although that may just be them trying to avoid any tampering nonsense. I can see that stuff as an option down the road, but do I think its likely? no. Kane will find a new home and fan base to embrace him. Maybe if the circumstances align themselves for him to return but once he gets a taste of being on other teams I see it being less of a priority to him. We'll see. and yeah their statements seem pretty definitive

Who is the "them" in this sentence? The Blackhawks or the Rangers? Assume he means the Blackhawks. How many times has a prominent player in any sport been traded half way through their final season under contract and then returned in FA? It's happened before but seems like most of those cases are players who have played their whole career one place, then they realize its not bad playing for another team so they are more willing to sign elsewhere. If I was a betting man, Patrick Kane will never play another game for the Blackhawks again (Especially because Stan Bowman is no longer in charge). Think about it, the Hawks are like 3-5 years away from potentially being good again, why would a 35 year old Patrick Kane after experiencing the thrill of the NHL playoffs for the first time in more than half a decade (outside of the bubble), choose to sign back with a team still in the beginning stages of a rebuild?

Sounds like you did the right thing by never inviting me. To be fair I don't think anyone was added after like 2007 and there's maybe 3 posts a year there. All about you of course

Have to be honest 'mf'er Windermere' should be required reading for every teenage child. There are some great life lessons in there.

When this board started, CT was like 12. I always thought the creation of the insiders forum was to have game threads without a super hormonal teenage posting a stream of consciousness during every single game. I remember there being insiders game threads in 03 and 04. Also CT is actually a cool dude now. He'd fit in quite well in the politics thread. He also offered me a ticket at face value for Game 6 of the 2016 NLCS and I turned him down because I didn't want to spend $250 to watch Kershaw potentially shut down the Cubs. I am a complete moron, though I enjoyed watching the game at a bar down the street with soccer

Sure. Bypassing the swear filters on these boards is fucking easy. Dammit now Matt Murton is never going to do a chat with NSBB

I may get roasted for this but I never really figured out how to resolve my feelings towards Kane post-rape accusation. I know he wasn't charged and its long forgotten by a big chunk of the fanbase but its sort of always in the back of my mind when I think about Kane. I also didn't put a ton of research into it in recent years, perhaps he was absolved beyond a reasonable doubt in the court of public opinion and I just missed it because people don't just talk about it anymore.

I didn't say he was. I'm just explaining why the return seems underwhelming to a casual.

It's what happens when the Blackhawks pledged to do right by Kane, who waited until there was months left on his contract and only allowed the Blackhawks to negotiate with one team starting a few days before the deadline. I'm not necessarily ripping on Kane too hard here, he earned the right to have a no movement clause in his contract and believe he was genuinely torn between going to a contender and staying with one team his entire career...but Kane definitely could have done a few things that would have helped the Hawks get a higher return for him.

Tim, is the Windy City Football forum for sale? I'll give you $20