Soul

Giants have us right where they want us. They can play this field position game all night long with a 7 point lead and there's nothing we can do about it.

This offense has become as bad, or worse, than last year's. Amazing.

There's a little pressure. Too late to stop the Giants from getting points though. But notice Manning knows how to quick throw the ball away. Rex doesn't.

True. We could use an offense that holds on to the ball much more though.

Well, you can't blame this one on Grossman. Wow, what a nightmare. If you can't run on this decimated DLine, then your run game is terrible.

Would be fine if someone would block their man.

Shotgun sighting! Gee, I guess Kreutz CAN do it.

Hoho! I was wrong! I'll leave it up there----I really thought he would miss in this weather. Nice job.

This is a decimated defense and they are literally punking our run game. First miss for gould coming up.

Actually, it could be a short night, because I'll turn it off... Me too. I've got a good Bradbury book I could curl up with on this cold night. I'm not going to watch the Bears unable to pick up a blitz and Grossman unwilling to throw the ball away for much longer. I had a feeling this was going to be a rough game, but oh well.

It's a nice deal, nice price.....one year so nothing set in stone.

However you cannot argue, we have started this offseason on a high note. Improved manager and coaching staff. A much improved hitting coach, and got some good deals on Miller, Wood, and Ram. Now it's time to bring in the new guys. It's still a team coming off a nightmare season, and we have so far resigned players who were a part of that ballclub. Let's not overreact here and start celebrating or anything. As for improvements to the coaching staff, that remains to be seen. How many "good" managers and coaches from elsewhere have we brought in only to find out they stunk? Rothschild, anyone? How about Mr. World-Series himself, Dusty Baker? Nothing can be said about Piniella and his staff, other than they are now here and it won't be the same as when they were elsewhere.

This is some seriously good news, for a change. Not only do we have Aramis back, but I feel this gives us a shot at having a productive offseason. If Aramis left, I was really afraid it would snowball into *nothing* getting done.

How about all of the posters who were jumping all over Hendry? I think a whole bunch of people need to apologize for the things they were saying about Hendry. Don't hold your breath on that one.... I'm not sure that Hendry cares. In the end, it looks like Hendry pulled it off. Hendry's being paid to win the World Series. Last time I checked, he's been piloting a ship that went from the NLCS to worst in the NL in record time. Hendry should apologize to the millions of Cub fans he has let down. Not the other way around.

I love the pine tar helmets!!! Ugh, you can't be serious. It looks someone used the helmet as a receptacle for their copehagen spittle. Makes me want to throw up every time I see it. The league needs to mandate better uniform standards. Christ, it's terrible to look at.

The Tigers are thinking NOW.......they figure their window is open next year, so they're trying to add a piece to put them over the top. That's a large piece of your future to mortgage, though. The Yanks continue to get what they what, year in and year out. Let's just hope the bad karma continues to hold and they chokarama once more.

Not that I'm convinced it would happen, but what is the likelihood that a platoon of Jones/Jose Guillen or Craig Wilson or a comparable player could outproduce Sheffield? Ignoring the likelihood that we'd ever see that happen, the odds are probably decent. But you can't assume those guys would only hit in the perfect L/R platoon. Plus, I don't see it happening at all. Is it a little early yet to be expecting movement on some of these options? When's the GM meetings and the owner's meetings?

I'm not just saying him. I'm saying with Ramirez too, and eveyrone else. Not just Matsuzaka. Just the overall feeling I'm getting from this offseason. I could be way off, by the way. Last offseason I was ridiculed for stating early worries about the direction they were taking. I was still getting the "it's early" comments in December. Same thing happened before the 2005 season. At this point, I'm not ready to write off the offseason. But going on Hendry's track record, I wouldn't expect it to get much better than it has been in the past. I'm in the same boat. Looking at Hendry's record, I'm starting to wonder if the best we can hope for is a resigning of ARam, maybe a journeyman starter.........and done. The nightmare scenario: ARam leaves, no FA's of note show up in Mesa in March------is still very much on the table, despite the supposed loosening of the purse strings. I still wonder if Hendry thinks he got the steal of the decade with Izturis so he doesn't have to do much now.

I'm not convinced Sheffield is going to be better than Jones in '07 either. How many games does everyone think Sheff will play? Didn't Jones play the whole year? We'd be giving up a full time player for one who would likely be injured at some point... *sigh* our options just don't look all that great right now....

Man they looked horrible. The concerns are likely to continue to mount, too. We're now a team with no size in addition to having no inside scoring. I'm shocked at the number of open/uncontested shots Cleveland had. It wasn't all Big Ben's fault. But it seems that without a big man---really anywhere on the court---we're collapsing down and leaving guys open. I agree with Barkley's assessment: when we face other teams that are young and athletic, it negates our strengths and leaves us pretty much exposed. I don't see that being fixed this year. Pax definitely has some chips to work with for next year though. But right now I just see us trying to live with it. November is likely to be a rough month for us. I think we only play at home twice more. It's going to be a long haul to December.

I'm a massive Bear fan, but the thing about Plaxico's comments----they aren't that far off. Even I don't think our corners are the greatest. And I fear Burress can destroy cover 2 easily---especially since we have a junk safety in Todd Johnson and and a rook in Manning who will be providing the "2" aspect. Oh yes I said it: Johnson is junk. He's been terrible since he joined the league, and as Ronnie Brown was pasting our run defense all day last week, I couldn't help but wonder how many of his 10+ yard runs would have been limited if Mike Brown had been there. My strong suspicion? ALL of them. Johnson's a concern, and if the Giants are smart, they will exploit it. As for Manning, I'm not seeing the strong nose for the ball and the hard hitting that I need from my safeties.....yet. Hopefully he develops that. He's certainly got more than enough athletic skills. I'd rather play Harris/Manning than Johnson/Manning but I'm not sure if Harris can go, and to be honest he's not all that great either. But I think the point is-----and it's a valid one-----out of this great defense has emerged some very sudden and serious concerns about the DBs in general. Plax may be talking trash, but he's not lying.

Ravaged, you mean? Ravished by injuries, I dont know what to make of that :lol: I've seen a lot worse than this. Plax may well play, so they may have their starting QB, RB and top WR. Toomer really isn't much better than Tim Carter or David Tyree at this point in his career. The offensive line is healthy, and Shockey will play. Defense they're in worse shape, especially on the line, but it's not the end of the world there either. Not to whine about last year, but the Eagles lost their starting QB, top 2 RB, top 2 receivers, 3 starting offensive linemen. On defense they lost 2 DT (1 starting), a starting DE, 1 starting linebacker LB and top CB. Even the punter got put on IR and the kicker missed significant time. That is a bad injury situation. The Giants are really nowhere close to that. I'll ravish your sig ;) To be honest, it being a road game and all, I think the Bears need some help to win this one. I'd rather it not come in the form of injuries. I agree with you, the Giants still have enough of their players to win this game @ home against what I believe will be a Bears team suffering from a slight loss of confidence after last week. We'll see how it plays out. I'd be perfectly OK losing this game if we came back and beat the Jets & Pats. But I fear if we lose this one, it might snowball into a 4-game bender, and that's the nightmare which is in the back of every Bear fan's mind right now.

Maybe. I don't want to disappoint everyone, but from what I've heard Bradley's knee + ankle has slowed him down a little. So I'm not real confident we will be getting last year's Mark Bradley. That's real unfortunate too, because the kid had some good quicks.

Yes, but we've all been shocked by Hendry before, when he turned a great thing in 2003 into the worst team in baseball in under 3 years. So the history of shockage is definitely there.

Market price is what someone is willing to pay. That doesn't preclude Hendry from being shocked into submission if, say........the Cubs think market price will be $10 million and someone says "I'll pay $15"