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Hopefully they don't mean this only in leadership terms and, instead, mean that he'll be getting some starts at first to give Pujols days off.

2010 Brendan Ryan WAR: 1.0 Ryan Theriot WAR: 0.0 Theriot is better offensively, but UZR loves Ryan as a defensive SS. So Theriot is a slight downgrade for them according to WAR.

What do you think the motivation was of the asker? Really wanted to hear a good joke? If I were to ask that question, that would be the reason. I strongly doubt it was his, though.

Like goony said, it's likely not all that uncommon for a person to smile or laugh when sitting on the losing sideline and yet they don't get asked why they laughed. The only reason he was asked is because it happened to get on camera and because Gruden pitched a fit about it. That said, reporters like questions that are likely to get a player pissed off and asking a guy who just led his team to a 21 point defeat against a 3-7 why he's laughing (when the answer is extremely obvious) is likely to piss him off. No matter how respectfully it's asked.

I honestly didn't know how much each win is valued at, so thanks there. And the more I think about it, efficiently was the wrong word there. If I was looking to upgrade at second (which I have no problem with looking into), I'd look for a younger option first and save Hudson as a last resort type of signing. If you're looking to sign a guy like Hudson after trading for Dewitt just a few months ago, it probably means you're not sold on Dewitt improving with playing time. Thus, I'd go in pursuit of a guy who hasn't likely already started showing signs of age-related decline. If that guys isn't out there - and I don't know if he is - then I might turn back to Hudson. But pursuing him this early means he's one of the first options you have and at 33 years old, coming off a bad year, I'm not crazy about that.

Reporters ask questions, but why ask that one? Why not ask more questions about the game and why the Cardinals lost and how they can improve? Why does it matter that Lutui told a joke and Anderson laughs at jokes? I just don't get the point in asking that particular question. I don't have a problem with the way the reporter asked the question. You're right that it was asked in a respectful manner, but that doesn't mean anything could have been gained by asking the question.

This is pretty much a must win. We lose to the Jags here and we're two games behind them and you figure the Colts are going to win another game at some point - putting us 2 games behind them if that win comes this week. Beating Jacksonville gives us the tiebreaker over them since it'd be our second win over them. This week and next week will pretty much decide whether or not we hang around in the playoff race this year.

I don't know how Johnson got off without a suspension. I think an unprovoked sucker punch getting just a fine one week before pretty much sealed the deal for Johnson, since that was actually a provoked fight. I'm surprised Cortland didn't get a worse fine (or even a suspension) than Johnson did since Cortland instigated it. I'll take it, though, because we need Cortland out there.

I don't see why you need to ask the question at all. It's not like Anderson and Lutui are over there laughing at the fans who showed up to the game or how much they enjoy throwing games and not trying. Lutui said something funny, Anderson chuckled a little bit. I don't get why it matters what Lutui said.

I'm not really arguing that we shouldn't seek a replacement for Dewitt if one is out there. I'm more questioning how confident we should be that Hudson constitutes enough of an upgrade to be worth the extra cost. Hudson signed a 1-year, $5 mil deal with the Twins last year and I'd say that's what we're looking at for him this year. Is a max of 2 wins worth $5 mil and can that money be used more efficiently elsewhere or for a different player?

If players don't hang their heads the entire game and shed tears, they don't care and are probably clubhouse cancers.

If it's purely Dewitt vs Hudson, I agree Hudson is the right choice. But how confident can we be that last year's dropoff was a fluke and not age-related? I'd want to be pretty confident to hand out $5+ million in possibly a two year deal.

How much of that is accounting for age, though? Hudson is going to be 33 and his 2010 numbers could be a sign that he's trending downwards. Dewitt is significantly younger and has the upside to improve on his numbers. I've been a fan of Hudson in the past, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if those wOBAs were a whole lot closer than James is projecting.

This is true. Riggins seems to have potential if he's promoted, though.

In all seriousness, I like Jacques quite a bit (not as a tight end, though). He's a big, road grating lineman who should do well anchoring an interior line spot. He was still a little raw coming out of UT, but I hope the Colts give him a shot at some point to earn playing time on the line.

Jacques is too busy being a tight end.

This isn't necessarily directed at you sulley, mainly just an anecdotal opinion on Fisher as compared to Lovie and you were the most convenient to quote. There are more similarities between what I've seen from Lovie and Fisher than what most people realize. Both seem to prefer conservative approaches offensively, though I think Fisher will take a couple more chances than Lovie. Both rely on strong defenses to win games, though the defensive philosophies are different (Cover-2 for Lovie, aggressive 4-3, Buddy Ryan-esque for Fisher). I've heard complaints a lot on here about Lovie not hiring the best assistants and instead bringing in his buddies whether they're qualified or not (Ron Turner for example). Fisher, on the other hand, has always had excellent assistants. Mike Munchak, Jim Schwartz, Mike Heimerdinger, Jim Washburn, Dave McGinnis are all very good coaches and most of them I'd place near the top of their field. I've never been concerned about Fisher making a poor coordinator hire (though the Norm Chow hire didn't work). Fisher's record, which is cited often by his critics, is also a bit misleading. He, much like Lovie I would imagine, took over a team that was pretty miserable his first couple of years and yet was able to get 15 wins out of them in 2 years. His biggest issue, however, was truly horrible cap problems from 2004 to 2006 that kept the Titans from really improving the team at all. 2004 and 2005 were his only really bad seasons and those years featured Billy Volek as the starting QB (2004) and Chris Brown as the starting tailback both years. Part of that was on Fisher, but mostly it was poor cap management by Floyd Reese. Outside of those two awful years, he's only had 2 losing seasons in 14 years, which is pretty remarkable. He's also very good about getting his teams to overachieve (something people have also mentioned about Lovie). The 99 team had no business going to the Super Bowl and the 2008 team wasn't quite as good as the 13-3 record would lead you to believe (though it was still a very good team). The 8 and 10 win seasons in 2006 and 2007 were pretty remarkable as well, considering Vince was pretty terrible both years. Fisher is also good about adjusting his offense to his personnel (he milked a couple extra good years out of an aging roster just before the 2004 collapse by spreading out the offense, fazing out Eddie George and letting McNair and the receivers win us games). I don't believe I'd fire Lovie just so I could hire Fisher, but that's more a credit to Lovie than a knock on Fisher. I think Fisher's in the top tier of coaches, but Lovie is pretty well average or better. Very rarely will you get worse than average out of a Jeff Fisher team no matter the quality of the talent.

8-4 and second in the league! Marc Mariani and Stefan Logan have been great boosts to me – my improvement really started when I picked the two of them up.

You think he can reach a .380 OBP and .070 IsoD? His best two OBPs have been .394 and .355 and the .394 was with a .041 IsoD and a .380 BABIP (60 points higher than his career average). I'd think a .360-.370 OBP with a .060 IsoD would be the max he could realistically reach, considering he'll be 28 next year. And that's if he had an average or better BABIP. UZR likes his defense, so he's a valuable enough player, but with the glut of OFs we have it's difficult to give up much of anything for him.

I really hope we don't go with a non-reclamation project pitcher at this point. The only two good innings eaters out there – Westbrook and Vazquez – are now off the market, so if Hendry feels the need to sign a pitcher, hopefully it'll be a high-risk, high reward type like Webb or Bedard (is he a FA?).

Not sure the Titans game could've been much worse. We appear to have thrown in the towel, so I just hope if one of Fisher/Young is around next year, it's Fisher. I doubt that, though.

Titans look horrible and CJ appears to be hurt. Great . . .

It's incredibly frustrating to know there are probably going to be 2 undefeated teams who might be (or probably are) the best teams in the nation who won't even have a chance at the BCS championship game. It's really absurd.

No way. Arizona is averaging like 19 points over their last three games. Mike Stoops will find some way to accuse Oregon of cheating to win. I'm hoping Foles can pass them to a win, because it's not looking like the defenses showed up.

Any chance Arizona can win a shootout, or does their defense have to stop Oregon a few times?