Soul

The reason is simple. This defense could play much more physical football----and indeed WANTS to play much more physical football. So they get many more phantom roughing penalties, more of those stupid horsecollars (Bears have 2 of those I believe, and while I'm sure others have gotten them too I haven't seen it), more offsides (including several by Tommie Harris which clearly were not offsides). The Bears defense wants to play like the defenses of yore. But the league's new rules and enforcement won't allow it.

To be fair, the lack of holding calls on our defensive ends have frustrated me a bit this season. (Almost as bad as the non-calls that Berrian should have got in the Patriots game, all the controversy about Grossman and the Bears might have been completely forgotten if the reffs threw 2 flags after Berrian was practically molested, but thats for a different post) Still, our pass rush needs to be there or our cover 2 will just be picked apart in the playoffs. Since the Patriots game quarterbacks have had all day to find an open receiver. I'm not opposed to blitzing either...but seeing Lance Briggs launch himself at a guard isn't going to get the job done either. I'm frustrated with the non-holding calls too. But I've got to be honest: from what I'm seeing, it's down all over the league. My best guess is the league is giving the offense more license to hold in order to protect QBs better. It makes sense; the NFL is bound and determined to create a baby's cradle for every QB so they can throw bombs with impunity. The NFL is trying like heck to keep every game above the 50 point barrier. Any time teams score over 20 apiece, the casual fans stay tuned in longer. It's ruining the game for true fans like me, but the league knows I'm addicted so they don't care what I think.

Yeah, and notice who Riley ordered to have injured. Not Hinrich, but Deng. Deng's a threat. That's why Riley tried to take him out. I don't think this was a Riley order to take out Deng in particular. Deng was going up, Posey saw an opportunity. I do. This is a pattern with Riley. He gave Posey the go-ahead at first opportunity. Obviously I can't prove it. But we're not in a court of law. I believe Riley orders hits on players.

I still don't think the Giants are going anywhere.

Cedeno's OBP was .005 higher than Neifi's. That is pretty darned insignificant. Ronny was just as bad as Neifi. Seriously. It cracks me up when people try to say that Cedeno was better than Neifi last year. I'd take .254/.266/.343/.610 over .245/.271/.339/.610 every day of the week. Some people seem to forget that a hit is better than a walk. What do you consider a better AB.....a 10 pitch walk with no one on base or a first pitch single with no one on base? I'll take the hitter who can do either on a much more consistent basis than Ronny or Neifi :wink:

Yeah, and notice who Riley ordered to have injured. Not Hinrich, but Deng. Deng's a threat. That's why Riley tried to take him out.

I think more harm is being done by not knowing. The constant secrecy, the rumors----this is more harmful IMO. Also, not knowing just keeps the whole thing going interminably. Maybe a mass exposure of names would help people say "OK, this is what it really was." Then move on.

Isn't that the same wrist he broke 2 years ago? That's the first thing I thought of when he hit the floor. Here's hoping he's okay. And Riley can go scratch. His teams have always been cheap shot specialsts. Yes it is the same wrist. KC Johnson's article this morning says that Deng's wrist is 'sprained', which is a damn relief. Let's just hope it doesn't become a lingering issue for Luol Coming in to work though, the radio report was that Deng still needed X-rays, and was concerned. I really hope it's just a sprain. Posey should be banned from the league. He's openly trying to hurt players. He took Hinrich out of the playoffs----heck, the Heat might not even have beaten us without Posey's thuggish BS. Now he's at it again? Come on, something's got to be done.

Alex Brown is a great player. In the Meadowlands he is. The fact is the whole "sacks don't matter" attitdue died when Jauron and Blache left, and thankfully so. Sacks do matter. Jon Kitna proved that Sunday. The Bears had a few opportunties to sack him on the last play, and luckilly Big Bust Mike Williams dropped that ball. Not only is Brown not getting to the QB, he is getting owned at the LOS. Alex Brown is an extremely streaky player and needs to step it up or else. Maybe someone ought to tell Ogun that too, then.

Nope, it was the Seahawks who kicked their final FG (and score) of the game at the end of the 1st half. Bears were up 20-3 before then. a 2 TD lead with the way our defense was in the early season is insurmountable, IMHO.

Ok. What about a 20-6 halftime score and an opening drive TD by the Bears to start the 3rd quarter says that the Seahawks were in that game? I'm not disputing that the Bears aren't likely to beat Seattle as bad as 37-6 if they played again, but Seattle was never in that game, and has to be a longshot, at best at this point, to beat the Bears. Agreed. Hubes, are you sure you are remembering the same game? Seriously---that one was a blowout pretty early. Seattle was never in it. Rex seemed to just keep slashing them with long passes-----all day long. I know they had a couple drives, but the only one that was meaningful was the first drive of the game. I do remember a long pass opportunity that was just badly overthrown by Hasselbeck. But that would have only brought Seattle to within a couple scores----and it was desperation under heavy pressure anyhow (Bears were putting great pressure on back then). There's just no way in hell Seattle comes to Chicago in the blistering cold and actually *beats* the Bears. Alexander or not. It's not their MO. They play great at home. But get them out of their element and that team often begins to resemble a top 10 draft team, not the NFC champs. This is the same team that got embarrassed by Arizona and SF and are on a 3 game bender at the end of the year. I'd have a tough time feeling comfortable with them beating their wild card opponent in the first round @ home, much less coming all the way to Chicago and beating the Bears.

Free Big Macs soon. :lol: Oh yeah, there's always that 8-)

This is ridiculous. Doesn't our home court buy anything?

...again, the definition of luck. But whatever. We all believe what we want to believe. And I believe I broke my promise to be done with this argument. Sorry.

And the refs just letting it all happen because Wade & Shaq are out. The rules in this league are so nebulous as to be non-existant. It's simply a game that is played according to the whims & mood of the refs on any particular night.

This is one of the best mental images of baseball I've had all offseason. Wrigley during this would rival Dodger Stadium in Gagné's heyday. No Metallica/AC-DC theme song needed, just the place going nuts. I believe Kerry is on record as being a big metalhead. So his theme music should be....?? "Balls to the Wall". I'm thinking "Harvester of Sorrow." That, or "Respect"

I guess I don't understand applying logic that assumes the Cubs have any kind of spending limit to what we do personnel-wise. I mean, 9 months ago the assumption was millions and millions lower that what it turned out to be. I don't think the Cubs have any practical limit, any more than the Yankees or the Red Sox do. There would seem to me to be little reason why the Cubs couldn't acquire Andrew Jones if a good deal came along----at least not solely on the salary grounds, or the idea that contracts will be "bad" down the line. Define bad contracts when there's no limit to the amount of money the Trib can spend.

Uh-huh. And your decision to take what I'm saying about a 162 game season + playoffs and try to cast it as saying the same thing about a single sporting event is the very definition of intellectual dishonesty, goony.

The thing that bothers me about Jack Del Rio is the inconsistency that he has had. Look at their schedule. Literally one week they look like the NFLs best team and then the very next look terrible. This is their season: Start out 2-0 with wins over the Cowboys and Steelers. Then lose a close game to the Colts, in which the Jags arguably looked like the better team. The next week they completely flop to a Redskins team that looked terrible to that point. Next week they murder the Jets 41-0 and the Washington game looks like a fluke. Then they go out and get blown out by 20 to the Texans Then the next 2 weeks, they post nice wins against the Eagles and Titans (including a 30 point romp over Tennessee) Which they follow up with another loss to the Texans. It just keeps going on and on. Great one week, terrible the next. The story of the 2007 Jaguars. QB uncertainty also contributes to this. The shock of realizing the Leftwich pick is a bust-----then you throw Gerrard in there, everyone knows he's not a real answer but they have to make it seem that they really believe in him, and it just continues. The Bears have been in that situation so many times, too. I've always wondered, even though there's no way to quantify it, how much just having Orton for almost a whole season from the beginning, and then Grossman for a whole season has helped the Bears gain their footing. Many years we had good defenses but just lost games anyway. I mean I'm sure it isn't the whole story, but having that stability has to help, and not having it just has to hurt.

Yeah not really... I can acknowlege he very likely juiced while still holding on to the admittedly irrational hope that he didn't.

He looked good in some limited BP duty, but ultimately I don't think anyone knows.

Stats show the why. Why was a team good? The game is to stop your opponent from scoring while scoring as many runs yourself. Stats show how well a team performed at each of these tasks. Stats also show why teams performed how they did at these tasks. Did a team get on base a lot, did they hit for a lot of power. Did their pitchers keep guys off the bases, did they keep the ball in the yard. Stats also more deeply show why they were successful or unsuccessful. Did hitters get on base because they took walks, or because they hit for a high average. Digging deeper, longitudinal stastical analysis has given us norms, predictors. Is a high OBP with a low IsoD sustainable? How can average be predicted using contact rate? When a ball is put into play how does the hitter have control over whether or not it will be a hit or an out? Is there a statistic that allows one to predict, eliminating interference, what that rate should be? One of the main reasons the white sox won in 05 and not in 06 IS shown by statistical analysis as I have pointed out, you are just ignoring it. The White Sox rotation was a main reason they won the WS in 05. A main reason the rotation was successful was a lower than expected BABIP. In 2006 their BABIP was as expected and they came in third. Do you not attribute the 2005 BABIP to luck? Especially when faced with the evidence comparing it to 2006. What do you attribute it to? Lower than expected-----what some people expected, based on some numbers. Like it or not, you will never be able to predict with certainty what a team will do based simply on statistics. Teams like the 2005 White Sox will forever stand as a flaming bastion that, try as you might, you cannot quantify teamwork completely into a nice little neat box. They may be used as a very strong factor, but when they fail to predict a team like the '05 Sox one must step back and accept that other factors which can not be quantified in the box score also have an effect. To simply call it luck is not only incorrect, but is actually an amusing irony since it is the very thing that the statistics attempt to dispel in the first place. I love statistics. But worship them as the end of all analysis? That's myopic. Anyhow, I doubt anyone else wants to read us go around in circles for the rest of the evening, so I'm done with this.

Hello Sean Payton?? That's actually a legitimate argument though. I would vote Payton but Mangini has to be second. Although I would consider voting for Art Shell over both of them seeing as he has done an absolutely spectacular job this year. My problem was with the "locks in" argument. Mangini is far from a lock, though he's clearly a strong candidate. I'd put him 3rd behind Payton and Fisher though. Mangini will win it though. Because the national media says so, and many voters will simply watch ESPN and take it to heart, then vote without really trying to analyze the situation. In short, the same way of doing things that made Romo the starting pro bowl QB will usher Mangini in as COY.

I'll never agree with this, it ignores the plain truth. Getting great performances out of guys is just getting great performances out of guys. No stars coming into alignment. No horoscopes with Moons waxing in Scorpio. Just a really good job by a bunch of people all attempting to get those great performances from those players. A success story. White Sox circa 2005 -- great job, great success story. Regardless of the proof I provided above, don't you think the timing of all of those great performances is lucky? If half of their rotation would have had a great year in 05 and the other half in 06, then they wouldn't have made the playoffs in either year. Heck, pythagorean has them missing the playoffs in both years as it is. You think of it as proof of luck, and I think of it as proof of an organization do a great job for a season. Pythagorean is another of these stat analyses that attempts to determine winners while ignoring all the non-statistical things that have an impact on whether a team wins or loses. A team is not a collection of statistics. That's a video game. As easily understood in my tone, I do not base my case on pythagorean, but rather the lucky batting average per ball in play that the rotation had in 2005. Calling it proof of a great job means that you believe that the whitesox had control over the much lower than expected BABIP. If that is the case then why did they not control it in 2006? (Hint: its not the case). Their defense did not change significantly. The disconnect is, you believe stats will prove out who is the best team. When it doesn't, you call it "luck." I know there's more to a team and how they perform than just stats, and so I incorporate statistics into my assessment but don't get frustrated when they don't prove out, and don't turn to luck as an explanation when my set of stats didn't work as a predictive model. The reason the White Sox won in '05 and not in '06 may not have been shown in the statistical analysis, but it most certainly doesn't suddenly become luck just because it can't be explained with stats (or, more precisely, with the stats that people decide to use).

What is your reason for lumping those who think luck plays a part, into the group that is begging for luck to bring the Cubs to the World Series? It's a rather absurd line you are drawing in the sand. Luck plays a part, whether you want to admit it or not. It's not the determining factor. You still need the talent and skill and determination to get into a position where good luck will mean anything. And it's not necessarily true that every WS winner has been the recipient of more good luck than anybody else. But luck plays a part. When an 83 win team wins the WS, and virtually the same pitching staff goes from WS heroes to regular season also rans, you know luck is involved somewhere. Or more likely, they just played better than their opponents in that season when necessary and won the World Series because of it.