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Panthers Forget sample size, the Cardinals cannot win when they travel east. They feasted in the regular season on the pitiful opposition in the NFC West and are extremely tough to beat in Arizona. I don't think they've got what it takes to handle the Panthers in Carolina. Andy's boys win this one handily.

Steelers I've got a ton of respect for the Charger players' ability to overcome Norv Turner, but they've been playing "playoff" football for far too long and, after such a tough game with Indy this week, just won't have enough to match the Steelers the whole game. It'll be close, but I think Pitt pulls it out.

Titans I think I'm being as unbiased as I can be with this pick. The game won't be pretty, will be low scoring and likely will get numerous people hurt (both on and off the field). But I think the Titans have the ever so slightly better defense and a little better offense. I really believe Kerry will handle the pressure Baltimore's defense puts on him better than the rookie Joe Flacco will handle Tennessee's pressure.

Bill Cowher has decided stick around at CBS for another year and will not be returning to the sidelines next season. Sorry to those whose team is looking for a new head coach. I don't have a link for this one since I heard it at some point today on one of the football stations (might well have been Adam Schefter on NFL Network) that the leading candidate for the Jets' head coaching job is Brian Schottenheimer. May not be a bad hire (Marty's son), but I'm betting there were some livid New Yorkers after hearing that news.

For anybody drooling over the idea of Bill Parcells opting out of Miami and coming to your team, forget it.

As much as I hate to get soccer's hopes up, it looks like the Raiders may be looking to sell some interest in the team. No idea if everyone's favorite kook would remain in control or not, though. Chris Mortensen was then admonished by Amy Trask, part of the Raider ownership, for not running this by them. This was part of his response: :-))

Yeah, that was a bad day overall. Heck, it was a bad season overall.

Sorry, I missed your post, first time through.... There is WAY TOO much whining about DeRosa! Did I like him? YES, very much. Will the Cubs miss him? At times, probably. But with the Cubs determined to balance the lineup he would have diminished playing time and would have been very unhappy. He was a great fit for either the Twins or Indians, and he was paid too much to sit on the bench, when, unlike Fukudome, he could be profitably traded, and MOST of his usefulness could be replaced by a switch hitter who is much cheaper and two years younger. I thought most of the DeRosa complaining was because of who we replaced him with (Miles) not because of losing DeRo himself. It's a little bit who we're replacing him with (Miles) and a little bit what we got for him (very high risk, very young pitchers). I was fine trading him, but I thought we could get more for him by selling high. And then we use half his salary to sign a guy who would be decent as a strict bench player. These days if you are trading salary, you seldom get high value prospects, because everyone is trying to conserve cash and protect their young players. So if we couldn't get good value, we weren't selling high, so we shouldn't have traded him. We made RF a little better (allowing the signing of Bradley) and made second base much worse with the trade. Unless we get Peavy (which you're assuming and I'm not ready to yet), this was a horrible trade. The risk is in them developing. If they don't, we traded DeRo for nothing. And there's a pretty good chance, given their skill sets, that they don't develop. I've said it numerous times before, if the trade ultimately nets us Peavy, I'll feel a whole lot better about it. If it doesn't, it was terrible.

Isn't that the play that Crompton popped right back up on? I remember there was some massive hit he took from a Florida defender where he popped right back up and started talking trash.

The Ravens should send some booze and women to his room on Friday night. Luckily, he seems to be past that phase, but nice try. :-)) It's possible for a man to get past that phase? Also, why would he want to? The overindulgence of the booze, I guess. :D The women, I'm not so sure about, though.

Sorry, I missed your post, first time through.... There is WAY TOO much whining about DeRosa! Did I like him? YES, very much. Will the Cubs miss him? At times, probably. But with the Cubs determined to balance the lineup he would have diminished playing time and would have been very unhappy. He was a great fit for either the Twins or Indians, and he was paid too much to sit on the bench, when, unlike Fukudome, he could be profitably traded, and MOST of his usefulness could be replaced by a switch hitter who is much cheaper and two years younger. I thought most of the DeRosa complaining was because of who we replaced him with (Miles) not because of losing DeRo himself. It's a little bit who we're replacing him with (Miles) and a little bit what we got for him (very high risk, very young pitchers). I was fine trading him, but I thought we could get more for him by selling high. And then we use half his salary to sign a guy who would be decent as a strict bench player.

Now that was uncalled for. :evil:

The Cardinals are 0-5 in road games against teams outside of the western divisions. Just an FYI. One of them was a game we should've lost, and it was Boldin's first game back from his broken-face injury. That team scares the bejeezus out of me if I think about it too much. I'm probably going to be a horrified wreck come Thursday or Friday. That Ravens team is some kind of scary.

Talk about exactly opposite styles in QBs. Miami would go from a weak-armed, smart game manager to a strong-armed, flaky gunslinger. That'd be interesting to see. Pennington's rep as a game manager is crap. He managed his way to 4 interceptions today. He can't stretch the field, which kills them against good defenses. Not that I think Rex is all-world or anything, but he'd instantly make that offense less one-dimensional. I'd start Henne over signing Rex, and I'm actually a fan of Rex. You do realize that Pennington had a higher QB rating than anyone in the NFL this year except for Rivers, right? He had a horrible game today with the INTs but he was phenomenal all season long. 3,653 yards, 19TDs/7INTs, 67.4 completion %. He's definitely limited by his lack of arm strength, but he's still a very good quarterback. By the way, he did all this with an undrafted FA (Davone Bess) and Ted Ginn as his top 2 receivers (plus Camarillo until he got hurt). Taking nothing at all away from Pennington, but I always thought Bess was better than a UDFA. He should've been drafted, that's still not a remarkable receiving corps. I agree completely that he should have been drafted. But still, the point remains. I know, and I wasn't disputing it. I just think Bess is a pretty underrated receiver.

The Cardinals are 0-5 in road games against teams outside of the western divisions. Just an FYI.

Talk about exactly opposite styles in QBs. Miami would go from a weak-armed, smart game manager to a strong-armed, flaky gunslinger. That'd be interesting to see. Pennington's rep as a game manager is crap. He managed his way to 4 interceptions today. He can't stretch the field, which kills them against good defenses. Not that I think Rex is all-world or anything, but he'd instantly make that offense less one-dimensional. I'd start Henne over signing Rex, and I'm actually a fan of Rex. You do realize that Pennington had a higher QB rating than anyone in the NFL this year except for Rivers, right? He had a horrible game today with the INTs but he was phenomenal all season long. 3,653 yards, 19TDs/7INTs, 67.4 completion %. He's definitely limited by his lack of arm strength, but he's still a very good quarterback. By the way, he did all this with an undrafted FA (Davone Bess) and Ted Ginn as his top 2 receivers (plus Camarillo until he got hurt). Taking nothing at all away from Pennington, but I always thought Bess was better than a UDFA. He should've been drafted, that's still not a remarkable receiving corps.

The Ravens should send some booze and women to his room on Friday night. Luckily, he seems to be past that phase, but nice try. :-))

Talk about exactly opposite styles in QBs. Miami would go from a weak-armed, smart game manager to a strong-armed, flaky gunslinger. That'd be interesting to see. The QB will be Pennington for 1 more year then Henne will take over. Henne may even get a chance to win the job for next year, but I wouldn't bet on that. Yeah, I wouldn't think they'd dump him quite yet.

Talk about exactly opposite styles in QBs. Miami would go from a weak-armed, smart game manager to a strong-armed, flaky gunslinger. That'd be interesting to see. Pennington's rep as a game manager is crap. He managed his way to 4 interceptions today. He can't stretch the field, which kills them against good defenses. Not that I think Rex is all-world or anything, but he'd instantly make that offense less one-dimensional. He's not a great QB by any stretch, but he's ok as long as he's got talent around. Most of his picks today were on bombs that he never should have thrown. I wouldn't want Pennington for my team, but generally nobody wants a game manager because of how limited they are. As long as you've got some weapons around him and a good defense, you're fine. I honestly don't know which QB I'd want between him and Grossman.

Talk about exactly opposite styles in QBs. Miami would go from a weak-armed, smart game manager to a strong-armed, flaky gunslinger. That'd be interesting to see.

Only if the Cardinals pay the difference in salary. Miles is far too valuable a property to trade away willy-nilly. He does get a single 30% of the time after all.

They dumped DeRosa for youngsters that almost certainly won't help this year (Stevens might). I don't think Soriano will be traded (unless BroLight has some insider information), but Hendry has already proven this offseason that he'll dump some of our offense for future minor league help. The stated reason for "dumping" DeRosa was to add offense (Bradley). I still think the secondary reason was to get prospects to add to the package to get Peavy. I know. Dumping offense to get offense doesn't seem to be the most logical thing, though. Especially when the return for the first offensive player is mediocre.

Baltimore's defense is worrying me. I knew they were great, but they've been terrific today (helped some by Pennington, though). Hopefully Collins will be on his best game Saturday.

The Titans haven't been big spenders in free agency for a while, but three of the biggest signings we've made were Harper, Thornton and Scott. I don't regret a single one.

The Titans won't be a great matchup either, though. A worse Titans team last year (with Vince at QB and no Chris Johnson) went to SD and led the entire 1st half and was down just 10-6 until a late Charger TD sealed the 11-point win. This year's Titans are much better and the game would be in Nashville. The Chargers scare me, but I think the Titans can win it. The Titans have been overlooked by most, methinks. They "slumped" at the end of the season by losing three of six, but won the only game they had to by 17 points over a 12-4 team. To me, that's far more indicative of the team they are and the team they'll be in the playoffs. Of course, if the Colts had won last night I would be rooting for the Dolphins today (more because the Colts won at Pittsburgh and not Tennessee and duplicating road wins is extremely difficult -- see last night). The Titans have certainly been overlooked much of the year, but when you play the style we do, you expect it. I'm guilty of it too. I thought, and probably still believe, that if the Colts could get by San Diego (and subsequently Pittsburgh, depending on today's outcome) they'd win at Tennessee. As I've said before, the Colts terrify me. I'm worried about most any team that is effective with the deep ball because that's where our defense seems most susceptible. There's no team better at the deep ball than the Colts and Peyton Manning. It would've been an awesome game and perfect case scenario for me. I'd obviously be rooting extremely hard for the Titans, but even if they lost, I could pull for Peyton in the Super Bowl. I'll be rooting for the Titans out of the AFC at least, I think. They have a number of former Colts that I like and I've always been extremely impressed by Jeff Fischer. Also, I don't like Pittsburgh or San Diego much at all. Good luck from here on out. I appreciate that. I assume you're talking about Nick Harper, David Thornton and Jake Scott - they've all been fantastic help since coming to Nashville. It's going to be a tough road, but I think this team has as good a shot - if not better - as anybody else.