UMFan83

Funny thing is, for all the talk of Flores torpedoing his career, he is still interviewing with the last Saints and even gave them a heads up about this suit before filing it. Would be awesome if the Saints hired him after all this.

Can I just rant about Michigan fans being upset Harbaugh is leaving? 97% of you guys wanted him gone at this time last yr But to answer your question, I think Bill O Brien would be a great get at this point. I am sure he would keep most of the current coaching staff, be able to land a decent DC if they don't promote within, and have a good enough reputation to keep current recruits and players in place. Edit I am drinking and reading some other stuff on the webs. I think a real out of the box bold move would be Brian Flores I don’t think it was anywhere near 97%. It was maybe half the fan base, though a very vocal section. Also the Dolphins owner Ross is a gigantic Michigan booster and has given hundreds of millions to the university. I’m not sure how he’d feel about Michigan hiring Flores lol.

Knew those idiots would leak it before it was announced

So who wants to speculate about Michigan's next coach and how screwed they are in their immediate future?

when the rumors started I said Harbaugh leaving my favorite college team to coach my favorite pro team would be the weirdest thing ever. I was wrong, leaving to coach a division rival is even weirder. I'm really good at being completely detached to players when they leave Michigan to go to the NFL/NBA so I'm sure I can hate Harbaugh pretty quickly while still appreciating his work at Michigan.

This makes more sense right. This was before the Watson stuff. This would have been during Brady's final season in NE though so meeting with him before FA would be tampering which is why Flores refused? Makes sense. I'm sure Brady and Ross are friendly towards each other as Ross is one of the biggest Michigan boosters out there and Brady of course went to Michigan. That could explain away why Brady met Ross on a boat while under contract with the Patriots.

was dusty really fired/let go from the giants or did his contract expire and they didn't re-sign him? feel like those are two different things. Yeah maybe you’re right. Just a quick search shows that the Giants wanted him back but they had philosophical differences.

Not just hiring practices, but firing practices seem broken too....this is cherry-picked because there are white coaches that fit this list too but it sure seems like a lot of black coaches/managers get let go after winning seasons. NBA: Byron Scott - Fired from the Nets one season after back to back Finals appearances Avery Johnson - Fired after 3 straight 50 win seasons, including a 67 win season Mike Brown - Fired after 272-138 record with the Cavs and consecutive 60 win seasons (with LeBron of course, and admittedly he was fired because the Cavs thought LeBron didn't want him and they were trying to keep him in FA) Mark Jackson - Fired after bringing the Warriors to relevance and back to back playoff seasons NFL: Tony Dungy - Fired by TB after leading the Bucs to playoffs in 4 of 5 seasons, 9-7 in his final season Lovie Smith - Fired by the Bears after a 10-6 season, following .500 or better seasons in 6 of his 9 years, including 3 playoff appearances and a conference championship Brian Flores - Fired after back to back winning seasons MLB: Dusty Baker - Fired by Giants after 6 straight seasons of 86+ wins and coming off a world series appearance Dusty Baker - Fired by Reds after making the playoffs 3 times in his previous 4 seasons, including the season before he was fired Dusty Baker - Fired by Nationals after 2 straight 95+ win seasons OK maybe Dusty is his own category but it is strange that he keeps getting let go after being mostly successful everywhere he's been.

Oh yeah this screws him over in that respect. Kudos to him for taking a stand though, and there's always colleges that will give him a shot (maybe?)

Wow... *grabs popcorn*

More news

Also just for the feels

Shouldn't shock anyone but

All I have to say is that Ryan Poles better be awesome because the Bears hiring him started a chain reaction that looks as if its going to end up with Harbaugh leaving Michigan. These are the tea leaves that I've read from various rumors. 1. Harbaugh was going to sniff around the NFL before taking a contract extension that he had tentatively agreed to. Mostly because the extension would have a huge buyout designed to prevent Harbaugh from easily going to the NFL. Given his age, the deal in front of him and coming off his best year at Michigan, this may have been his last good opportunity to explore NFL jobs. 2. Poles was the Vikings choice at GM. If he doesn't take the Bears offer he's going there. Instead the Vikings offer an analytics-minded GM who has history with Harbaugh in SF and Michigan's current QBs coach. 3. NFL jobs start to drift away from Harbaugh, whose outsized personality, insistence on significant control over personnel decisions and contract demands turn off many teams. From what I'm reading it would take a godfather offer for Harbaugh to bolt. 4. All signs late last week were indicating Harbaugh was staying at UM. Then suddenly over the weekend the Vikings reach out with heavy interest. Turns out that Adofo-Mensah is a big Harbaugh fan and is convinced he is the coach that can turn things around quickly. (interesting to note that others in the Vikings org are still not sold on Harbaugh). 5. Now Harbaugh is flying to Minneapolis for an interview, and Michigan insiders report that if offered the job in Minnesota, he'll take it. Still not a given that he's offered due to ownership reluctance but Adofo-Mensah is heavily pushing for it.

With the Bulls moving percentage points ahead of the Heat for 1st in the East, Billy Donovan is in line to coach in the All-Star game if they can hold on for 4 more games (cutoff is after Feb 6 games). Of course with 6 teams within 2 games of 1st place, they won't have much room for error should they lose. Schedule: vs. Orlando @ Toronto @ Indiana vs. Philly

I missed this comment from Fields yesterday: It's good that he takes the high road on this type of stuff, but you can tell that he thinks the previous administration was a shitshow. Hopefully we can put it together before he realizes that its the organization that's fucked.

At what point does it become so cold that it negates the advantage of cold weather vs. a Central American team? Temps at match time are going to be around 6 degrees with a wind chill of -9. I feel like unless we can score on a set-piece, this will be an ugly 0-0 draw which of course would be disastrous.

If Tom Brady was a franchise he'd be tied for the 3rd most playoff wins ever with 35, trailing only the Patriots (37) and Steelers (36). For comparison purposes, the Bears have 11 playoff wins. He also has more Super Bowl wins than any individual franchise. Heck just since turning 40 this is how he would fare all-time: TD Passes (168) - 74th - More than Troy Aikman, Joe Theisman, Roger Staubach and Bart Starr had in their entire careers - Would be most in Bears history Passing Yards (22,938) - 92nd - Would be 505 yards behind Cutler for most in Bears history Super Bowl appearances (3) - 10th - More than the Bears entire history Super Bowl wins (2) - 5th - More than the Bears entire history Playoff wins (9) - 15th - 2 less than the Bears entire history Heck, Tom Brady had 3 400 yard passing games just last season at age 44, which is 1 less than the Bears have had in the entire history of their franchise. As much as I was meh on Brady today's the end, there are so many eye-popping stats you can throw out there about his career. I don't think we'll see another player with the type of career he had in a long time. As much as I was ready for him to stop dominating football, I'm a little disappointed we won't be able to see how much longer he could play at a high level

Bengals are obviously a good team but I cant shake the feeling that they also had amazing luck during these playoffs. Raiders game: Bengals moved the ball well all game but didn't end enough drives in TDs and kept allowing the Raiders to keep it close. At the end the Raiders had 1st and goal from the 9, and ended up being intercepted on 4th down preventing the game from going to OT. This game felt like the better team making just enough mistakes to allow their opponent a shot to win. Felt like a very pre-2021 Bengals playoff game without the final blow Titans game: Moved the ball ok but only put up 19 points. Midway through the 4th in a tie game, the Titans had the ball at the Bengals 35 on 3rd and 1 and ended up getting stuffed twice instead of either converting or taking a long FGA. They then forced the Bengals 3 and out and instead of playing conservative with bad field position to get the game to OT, Tannehill throws an absolutely terrible interception to put the Bengals in prime position for a walk-off FG. Chiefs game: Chiefs had 1st and goal from the 5 yard line to end both halves with enough time for a full set of downs and ended up scoring 3 total points (on a 42 yard FG at that). Chiefs won the coin toss in OT but threw a bad INT setting the bengals up for a win. This one might be the least fortunate as the defense causing the Chiefs offense to implode in the 2nd half was mostly great defense. But still, if they punch in that TD before half to make it 28-10, it would have been really hard for the Bengals to catch back up in the 2nd half. If they manage to punch it in from the 3 yard line on 2nd and goal late, the Bengals are down 4 and only have enough time for 1-2 desperation plays. Now don't get me wrong, the Bengals deserve to be here. They forced the INTs, they stopped the Chiefs, they hit the FGs etc. But it seems like if you played the end game situations of those 3 games 100 times, the chances the Bengals advance to the Super Bowl are like 5%. Which is what makes it so awesome that they came through.

I read that the town they're going to is where they were created. Presumably they are going to be touched up while in storage before going back to Wrigley.

yea, the two home games are must win at this point. I don't think Costa Rica catches the US but hate to leave that to the last game. If the US beats Panama, its hard to see Panama catching the US though the last game against Canada is unlikely to matter for Canada. The Mexico-Panama game is in Mexico right? Wednesday is critical if the US wins and Panama loses, it becomes impossible for Panama to lose at US and catch US. Good point. If the ideal results happen on Wednesday the table looks like this: Canada - horsefeathers off US - 21 Mexico - 21 Panama - 17 Costa Rica - 13 If you are also assuming a US win against Panama, I believe that eliminates both teams from catching the US. So despite the disappointing window so far, with some luck we can ensure that only the Panama game truly matters in the last window, with the other matches our fallbacks.

I think you are misreading that. Sounds like he is stressing that Poles did decide this on his own. I had a bad night of sleep last night, that's my excuse. You are correct, I misread my bad

Wish there was a scenario generator out there that could do the math. But I think if the US wins their 2 remaining home games, they likely won't need a result at Mexico and Costa Rica. Right now: 1. Canada whatever 2. USA 18, +6 3. Mexico 18, +5 4. Panama 17 +2 5. Costa Rica 13 +0 Lets say USA loses the road matches and wins the home matches. That puts US at 24 points. To match that: Mexico needs 6 points from: @ Panama, vs. US, @ Honduras, vs. El Salvador. Probably pretty likely to get 6 points from those games. Panama needs 7 points from: @ Mexico, vs. Honduras, vs. Canada (again assuming the USMNT beats Panama at home) Costa Rica needs 11 points from: @Jamaica, vs. Canada, @ El Salvador, vs. USMNT Getting 6 points from the home matches is easier said than done but IF we can accomplish that, both Panama and Costa Rica need results in all their remaining matches to pass the US. None of this is groundbreaking and is why we are still at 89% chance to advance, but it feels better typing it all out. Now if the USA doesn't get 3 points in Wednesday, we have the right to fully panic.