Soul

That would be incredible. The Vikes have been stuffing everyone. They have the #1 run D in the NFl.

That's a real good rotation...when healthy. You really can't count on Beckett being healthy for a full year and Schilling has had some pretty serious injuries the last couple of years as well. But when that rotation is 100% and if they were to make the playoffs with all of those guys healthy, that would be an extremely dangerous rotation to face in a best of 5 and a best of 7. Their offense would take a huge hit if they trade Manny, though. Ortiz, Drew, and who else?I can't remember what's going on with their lineup, but I think they'd need a great staff. True, but they always seem to manage to get the runs they need in Boston. If they did pick up a bona-fide starter + another solid player for Manny, I think that's a brilliant deal for Boston. Not sure what it does to SD.

Is he really likely to improve much though? Seems like he's been around that area for quite awhile. I guess I'm hoping one of the AL targets Hendry is looking at will gain a little bit from moving to the NL. Not that I'm against Batista completely.

It depends on the length of the deal. I have no doubt Schmidt's best days are behind him, but that doesn't mean he can't still be very effective for a few more years. Plenty of pitchers are still pretty darn good after their prime years. I think Schmidt has a decent shot at falling in to that category, though no one can be sure.

I'll believe it when I see it. They have been saying all year they would bring Benson in the gameplan more, and it hasn't happened. I would love to see Cedric in there. His ability to make the defender miss the tackle or blow him up are impressing me the most this year. The Vikes "D" is pretty good against the run this year and terrible against the pass, right? Yes, they are 31st against the pass. And according to some of my Vikings fan friends, their pass rush is marginal at best. Might be the perfect time to give Ced an increased role. Maybe even a few more passing downs. I question whether TJ is the right back against the Vikings' DLine anyhow.

Awesome. Yeah, I think most Chicagoans have the wrong impression of Rex. They think he's quiet and shy. And that's just dead wrong. He's actually pretty cocky. Hilarious that Sharper is crying about Rex trash talking, considering that's all Darren ever does.

It is a silly rule. I know Ben has to follow it, but there's no reason for it. I know, let's have a new rule: No more drinking from straws. You must drink from the glass itself. If you don't, then no cake for you!!

If Dallas doesn't win out that makes their maximum record 11-5. We'd have to lose 3 of our last 5 to sink that low, not gonna happen. And I think we hold the tie breaker with them. Same for Seattle....if they lose one more, it's 11-5. We definitely have the tie breaker on them. Who else is out there as a threat for HFA? N.O.? Naw, they're gonna lose to someone somehow. If the Bears blow this thing I'm gonna scream. It's so set up for us right now it isn't even funny. There should be home games throughout, and the first one should be against the weaker of the two first-round winners. I just want to figure out what's wrong with our DLine, and have Turner and Wilson start getting Rex to use just a little more judgement out there.

What is it? Not sure.... As you know Bruce says no deal was offered, the Trib says no deal was offered........Rotoworld say no deal offered. I think no deal was offered.

They are "trying to get rid of Manny" because Manny has asked to be traded out of Boston, again. He's asked about 4 times now. It's not just a matter of a guy having a bit of an attitude, it's a case of the guy not wanting to be on the team. To be fair to Manny, he's been a good sport about it the last few years. As long as they make an attempt in good faith to trade him, he works hard for them. That's debatable. Has there ever been an established reason why Manny wants out so badly? I mean, I'm no Boston fan, but great baseball town, pretty good ballclub year in and year out, great classic stadium to play in, owners who are genuinely trying to win.... Doesn't seem all that bad to me.

I don't think they're the prohibitive favorite, but they've got an easy schedule the rest of the way: @Denver (against a QB making his first NFL start) @Arizona SF SD @TB I think they go 4-1 with that schedule and win their division going away. Dallas has three fairly tough games (@NYG this weekend - don't underestimate the difficulty of a big divisional game; vs NO, @Atl) and two cupcakes (vs Philly, vs Detroit). NO should beat SF and Washington at home, but has to play @Dallas, @NYG and vs Carolina. So, it's certainly possible that Seattle could get the bye and only have to play one game at most on the road. Hmmm...I don't view that schedule as being easy. I think Seattle will lose to Denver and SD. On the other hand, I feel Dallas has a good shot at winning out. I don't see any way Seattle goes to Dallas or Chicago and wins. But hey---I've been wrong before.

The stupidest network in the land, ESPN (although they may have them behind Dallas, since apparently Tony Romo is a god... hmm he's started 5 games so far... Grossman had 5 games for the Bears before things started to have issue... maybe we should keep his bust away from the Hall for a little longer?) Romo does have a pretty easy schedule in front of him as far as defenses he will face. There aren't any Patriots or even Phins-quality D's to face, so I guess the Romo praise is likely to continue. I actually think the Boys are good ballclub though. Seattle is much more marginal in my book. That defense leaks like a sieve, they have the worst TE in the league, the right side of their OLine is junk.....I could go on.

Who is saying the Seahawks are favorites? We absolutely destroyed them even with Hasselbeck. They'd be coming to Soldier Field. They barely staved off the Pack--Packers were winning that game well into the 3rd quarter. No way that ballclub beats either Dallas or Chicago.

Murt - Soriano - Manny Is this Jim's master plan? Or could it be Manny - Lugo - Soriano (Murt off the bench)? Wowow.

He'll definitely get more run support. It's the Cards. They'll manage to get solid performances out of him. Only Ankiel can claim to be immune from that magic St. Louis pixie dust.

You know, this is starting to concern me: I hope he doesn't have some kind of hidden physical problem, but that just doesn't sound good. I hope the Bears are on top of that, because there really is no reason for Harris to be playing this poorly, despite the double-teams. He has the speed and jump off the ball to split most double teams, as he was able to earlier in the year. It's definitely a good article. Where the hell has Ogun been? That guy has been invisible pretty much the whole year other than solid run coverage.

Actually his QB rating is worse than Delhomme and Pennington, and he has more turnovers than Mr. No Mistake. And Eli's backup is Jared Lorenzen, who I don't think has ever played an NFL down. If you think people haven't been killing Roethlisberger this year, you haven't been paying attention. The only reason people aren't talking about him now is because the Steelers have rendered themselves irrelevent. The Bears are a playoff team. Anyway, I think the reason people are criticizing Rex Grossman is because he's had three games in which he has totally killed the Bears. Pennington has had a couple of lousy games, and Delhomme hasn't been great, but their lows haven't been as low as Grossman (ratings of 10, 23 and 37 in the three worst games). Like it or not, he's younger and hasn't proven what either of those guys have proven. I think what everybody notices is that if come playoff time, Grossman lays an egg like the ones he's laid against Arizona, Miami and New England, the Bears are done. Even Rex said it himself - he can't be AS bad when he's not on. The guys i mentioned are pretty much in the same boat as Rex is when it comes to QB ratings. Rex needs to get better and eliminate the lousy games, i wont agrue that. I hate QB controversies and this one is toatlly unnecessary. Well today i at least heard media talking about Eli and what to do with him. Maybe the Pillsbury Throw Boy will subplant Eli. What also i dont like is all this talk about last year. Last year the Bears barely frickn won almost every game and people are talking like it was glory days last year and we should try that again on offense. It's silly. Grossman has been better this year than Eli. Eli's only saving grace this season has been the ability to just toss it up to his 6'6" bail out man and pray he makes him look good. Once Plaxico starts to suck, magically Eli starts to suck too. Funny how that works. Rex is working with what I still consider to be no better than a middle-of-the-road WR corps, probably a bit below average. He can't get away with the prayers, they usually come back with three letters stamped on them: I.N.T. His TE is not as good as Shockey, either (though I think Shockey is a tad overrated). Also, the pass blocking of this offensive line hasn't impressed me. I don't care if teams are blitzing. Teams blitz everywhere in the NFL. There's way too much pressure coming up the middle and into Rex's face. There's going to be criticism, I understand that. But to hear guys like Doug Buffone calling for Griese like he did last night is disappointing. Doug should know better than that. We know what Griese is, and it's not a Super Bowl champion: he's a guy who has played 9 years and never once in the playoffs. He's also had a nasty INT problem himself through his career.

ALL WHILE WEARING A HEADBAND :D So that's why Curry stunk as a Bull. Anyone surprised he hasn't had any heart problems since? No, not suprised at all. The guy went to many doctors, and all but one said there's no problem. The other doc said it's very unlikely there's a problem, but you might want to get a genetic test to be sure. The Bulls seized on that instead of going with the preponderance of the other opinions. Still -- I like having those 2 first round picks. Glad it was the Knicks on the other end of the deal when the Bulls dumped Curry.

Most interesting thing you can take from this situation: ESPN doesn't do a real good job of checking its facts before putting out their reports.

See my above post about agents floating info. You'd be surprised at how many national (and some local) reporters run stuff without ever calling the club for confirmation. don't the clubs pretty much not provide information anyway? I am pretty sure we can all recall GMs denying reports and then they turn out to be true. This rumor doesn't matter to me because I don't think that contract will get Schmidt signed anyway. Really? $15mil/yr is a lot of money.

yep yep. would be nice if we could acquire some serviceable players at decent prices and then just get good performances from them. But no. It's the Cubs, so we must pay through the nose for premium players and hope they just lift us to the playoffs on their own.

Not one chance in hell it's us. You can flog me later if I'm wrong. If I am, then Hendry is even more desperate for pitching than even I thought.

Jason Marquis is the really puzzling one. He's always been way too hittable for a sinkerball pitcher, and last year he was a train wreck. Plus, the Cards, who are an intelligent and well-run organization, apparently have no interest in him. That should tell the Cubs (a stupid, poorly-run organization) something. My experience with watching the Cards, when they decide to give up on a player the rest of the league should run screaming. How is that JD Drew guy doing? The exception that proves the rule. And from an attitude standpoint, the Cards were vindicated on Drew. There's a reason he keeps bouncing around.

Jason Marquis is the really puzzling one. He's always been way too hittable for a sinkerball pitcher, and last year he was a train wreck. Plus, the Cards, who are an intelligent and well-run organization, apparently have no interest in him. That should tell the Cubs (a stupid, poorly-run organization) something. My experience with watching the Cards, when they decide to give up on a player the rest of the league should run screaming.

Source: http://insider.espn.go.com/mlb/features/rumors Hendry will bid 4/60 soon. Would rather have written off 2007 and given our stable of 4A pitchers a chance to earn a rotation spot, then evaluate and address needs in the offseason. Sadly that ship has sailed(sigh). Was there even a ship to begin with? Outside of Hill, our current crop of youngsters ain't too pretty. I'm thinking some of them will improve, but do you really think any of them until Veal and Gallagher would improve THAT much? I don't know, but it would have been nice to find out. Not having humongous bubble-year contracts on the books for the next half decade would have been cool too. Hopefully you weren't one of the people saying "please I don't care what you have to do, just win a World Series" during last season. Look the fans want to win now, and that is what the management is trying to do. I know its completely short sighted and we'll regret it, but within reason, I'll worry about the future in the future. In terms of our 'crops' of pitchers, I saw enough of that last year. Yeah, really Marshall is the guy who impressed me most, and only marginally. I don't think guys like Marmol and Mateo can be counted on for much. Gooz either. It's a stable of very shaky back-of-the rotation guys, and if we roll the dice on 'em again in '07 it's quite likely to come up snake eyes.