Soul

With the 3 INTs Romo threw in basically 2 quarters of play, one would have to wonder what that purpose might be. I think the Boys are just overrated. They clearly can't stop a good running game on D, and their O Line is quite possibly the worst in the league. Very few teams indeed can be considered good football teams with a poor OLine and an inability to stop the run. Much as the national media doesn't want to have to admit it, the fact is the Cowboys are one of the weaker teams in the NFC East and have little chance at the playoffs.

that's a lot of points for looking pretty bad on Monday night. Classic bounce back game expectations. I'd like to think the bye week will help the Bears but they are 0-2 in Smith's career after a bye, including an embarassing loss at Cleveland last year. Not the biggest sample size ever. I think it'll be more the bounce back game than that the game is after a bye. Yeah, the first year the team was terrible, so a loss after the bye didn't really mean much. And last year's team was quite shaky, and 1-2 going into the bye, so I'm not sure the bye was going to help anything. I'd take the 49ers and 16 points, thank you very much. I don't believe in spreads > 14 points. When you look at the history, the dogs usually take those. I think we would all do well to forget about margins of victory, and just celebrate wins however they come. This isn't college football. Any win in the pros is a good win, period.

I'll be in Vegas... Hopefully, I can find a good sportsbook to go watch it at. LOL. I don't think you'll have too much trouble. Have fun :)

He probably would have if the Lee deal hadn't materialized. I will say at least Hendry was good enough to pull that deal off. But back then, he was dealing from a position of strength. Now he's not, and I don't see how he rebuilds this ballclub in its current state, with precious few chips to deal with, and real limits on the amount of money he can spend.

I think you're reading a bit too much into it. Did you read the last Tribune article? He didn't want to leave Seattle with Pieniella, but felt he had no choice. Him and his wife prefer Seattle. He wants to manage and wants to get from under Pieniella's shadow and Hargrove is likely out the door after another poor season. Nothing to do with Hendry, just a better opportunity. That's probably a pretty accurate assumption. He loves working with Piniella, but his family really enjoyed Seattle. He's also closer to a managerial position in Seattle. I'd hoped McLaren would have come here, but I don't think it had anything to do with how McLaren sees the Cubs' future. It's not as if the Mariners have a bright future either. I doubt coming to Chicago would preclude him from returning to Seattle if a managerial position opened up. Think of it this way: if it was the Yankees, McLaren is so in NY it isn't even funny. OK. You want to be a manager. You get a call from the GM of a team that you know the manager is on the way out. You love the city. You realize that you have been labeled as part of Pieniella’s posse and know it would be a good career move to make. You are pretty much guaranteed to be a manager within 12 months. Why would you accept the same job without any possibility of managing somewhere else? Why would you take the chance of potentially burning a bridge? Pieniella, Girardi, Sandberg, Brenly and more wanted the manager job, but this guy is turning down a coaching job because of the orginization. I don't think so. But of course it’s Hendry’s fault; as are the Iraq war and global warming. :D He would still be a manager in 12 months regardless of whether he left Seattle to bench coach Piniella or not. It's silly to think he has to hang around the Mariners to get that job when Hargrove is fired. And yes, a large part of our current woes are due to front-office incompetence. That's a man named, oh wait did I forget his name-----nope, try as I might I can't------HENDRY. Like I said, if this is the Yankees? McLaren packed his bags and is in NY the day after Piniella signs. And I dare say you know it, sir.

Wow, a veritable cornucopia of negative vibes!! I suppose the Hawks have earned that much over the years. I'd still like to see what happens (if anything) when Havlat & Ruutu both come back, which should be at about the same time in early November.

Beagles = Eagles.

I think you're reading a bit too much into it. Did you read the last Tribune article? He didn't want to leave Seattle with Pieniella, but felt he had no choice. Him and his wife prefer Seattle. He wants to manage and wants to get from under Pieniella's shadow and Hargrove is likely out the door after another poor season. Nothing to do with Hendry, just a better opportunity. That's probably a pretty accurate assumption. He loves working with Piniella, but his family really enjoyed Seattle. He's also closer to a managerial position in Seattle. I'd hoped McLaren would have come here, but I don't think it had anything to do with how McLaren sees the Cubs' future. It's not as if the Mariners have a bright future either. I doubt coming to Chicago would preclude him from returning to Seattle if a managerial position opened up. Think of it this way: if it was the Yankees, McLaren is so in NY it isn't even funny.

....only if Wale can play and somebody steps up to take Mike Brown's place. Otherwise, we will be giving up more points in future games if we must play minus 2 pro bowlers every week.

Anyone worried about the division? If they can beat NE next week in the dome, they can breeze to a 13-3 or 12-4 record As the resident Vikings fan on this board (are there any others?) don't be worried about the division. We're looking good and our schedule looks nice after next week, but we have a 2 game hole and that Bears schedule is just too nice. Like someone else said we're between a 9-11 win team and the Bears won't fall back to that. Now had we simply not fumbled a handoff in the last minutes of the Bears game and if the Cardinals don't completely melt down Monday night, you would have reason for worry. I think there's a few other Viking fans lurking on this board somewhere... Anyway, I'm of the opinion the Vikes lose today if they don't get lucky and Hasselbeck goes down. I'm also of the opinion that the Bears have a 3 game lead on the Vikes, because they've shown the only thing they can do in Soldier Field is get their collective butts handed to them on a platter, served up medium-rare. The net result is positive for the Bears, provided we take care of our business. With Hasselbeck out, and the Beagles looking weaker each game, there's fewer power-contenders in the NFC than ever before to stop the Bears. If we take care of our business, everything goes through Soldier Field, were it looks like only Steve Smith has the magic key.

Don't you love how every team ESPN tries to crown as the "best in football" suddenly looks bad? I think 2 things: 1) Lovie should ban ESPN watching. It's bad for your career, just from the flood of hyperbole and illogic alone. 2) I'm damn glad we escaped our "crowning" with a win @ Arizona. This week, the Chargers weren't so lucky. And before that, the Bengals went on a losing tear following their coronation that they still haven't really recovered from.

I just think they'll lose. Cards have the luck now. Nothing will stop this turd of a team from being the most ridiculously underpowered World Series champion of all time.

You would be unwise to do so. Come on UM. You know it's the Cards. Put Neifi on the Cards and he would be suddenly great. Not sure what kind of drugs LaRussa gives his team, but somehow the Cards just always have the magic pixie dust on their side.

Interesting, Nebraska #15. They are good, no doubt, but they haven't impressively beat anyone in conference. A bad KU team by only 7, a bad Iowa State team by only 14, and a meh K-State team by only 18. They are good, and I'd rank them higher than Missouri at this point (just because they have played USC and UT tough), but I don't think they're a top 15 team. I see them losing two of the next three games: on the road against a solid Oklahoma State, home vs. Missouri, and on the road against A&M. Wasn't Nebraska #17 this week? You don't go up 2 spots by losing, IMO. Yes, I know they played a top team. I still don't think they'll go up.

Watching what Seattle did in the NFC Championship, I kept thinking why didn't the Bears do the same? It appeared Seattle double-teamed Smith and dared Carolina to throw to anyone else. ....which is all you have to do to stop Carolina. It's really very simple. They stink without Smith. Double him and they wouldn't sniff the endzone against us. I mean, having a philosophy and sticking with it is fine. But there's a limit. When you have one player who can blow you up, you've got to make the adjustment. If this is how Rivera plans on running his own team next year, then I fear he won't experience much success.

The Bulls haven't had a young player with this kind of ceiling since Pippen, and Thomas looks more polished than Pippen did his rookie season. Are you saying I was wrong for ripping im as a draft choice? :D yeah, i was pretty anti-tyrus, too. i'll gladly accept being wrong. The kid has the skills, and everyone knew it. I'm always careful to just look at athleticism, toughness, and character in college players. Nobody knows what will happen when they reach the pros, because what people don't understand is there are limits to the amount of practice players can put in in college------in other words, once they reach the pros they have plenty of room for development left in the tank. Jury will still be out on this kid until regular season games start, but needless to say so far so good.

It's not just a weak NL Central. It's a weak MLB baseball period. None of these ballclubs would have sniffed the playoffs most years. I mean come on, WS game 1 features two rookie pitchers on two ballclubs that both limped to the playoffs on massive losing Septembers. This is just terrible. I watched college football tonight.

Not sure how anyone would get so much as a chukle from the Kerry Wood site. Boring and stupid. That telemarker thing though-----hilarious :lol:

I doubt it will be the bench coach that sinks Piniella. Look to Hendry's incompetence as a GM instead. I'm sure McLaren saw that, which is why he stayed away. Lord knows why Piniella couldn't see it, and why the Trib doesn't, either. Hendry will be fired from this job when his contract runs out. I ask anyone who will listen: he's not going to succeed. Why are we going through this charade, when we could have just fired him now?

Clemens played for the Yankees and Red Sox. In the national media's mind, no player from either of those teams could ever do any wrong. Look at the free pass Giambi, a confessed steroid user, and Sheffield got from the leaked grand jury testimony. Giambi got a free pass? Compared to every other roid boy. He went through a rough couple months, but has been completely forgiven as soon as he started producing again. Agreed. Now Giambi's the golden child again---the face of the Yankees coming down on ARod because he just doesn't "fit in." Oh, how wonderful it is that the Yankees got their butts handed to them by Detroit. Thanks be to God. An oh, by the way: I still believe Clemens isn't clean. I don't care what anyone says, either. And I don't care if there's no proof. It's intuition. I had it regarding Palmiero, and it was eventually proven 100% right. Got that same feeling regarding Rocket. Put it this way: he's not doing what he's doing at his age on Flintstones vitamins.

Rivera has already said he's not going to alter the defense for anyone. If they go up against Steve Smith again, it's going to be the same defensive alignment---count on it. This scares me too, because Seattles' defense really isn't all that special, yet they shut down Carolina and Smitty with no trouble because, well....Carolina is a one-trick pony and can be easily stopped with a few defensive tweaks. But we won't make those tweaks, so we struggle against some teams.

Are you doubting Mr. Hendry in that regard? :lol: It wasn't 100 million because nobody had a payroll that high back then, but I remember quite a few years where the Orioles were spending with the big boys and putting out just *horrendous* baseball teams. It does happen. Haven't the Mets had a few high-priced stinkers, too? That said, I think the Orioles kicked a few front office guys to the curb for their debacles, and the same should have happened to Hendry. But it hasn't----because the Cubs are stupid, and that's why we just continue to wade in a morass of failure. Failure continues because it is tolerated.

Yeah-----that and the fact that back pain usually just gets progressively worse as time wears on even if you do stay in shape.

How many teams want him for 2nd base. How many teams NEED him for 2nd base? When was the last time he PLAYED second base. I say if the Cubs tell them they want him to lead off, but might need him at CF for 1 year before he goest o 2nd, and the price is right. Then I don't see how a cow would have to jump over the moon, before he joined the cubs. . I'll also see a cow jump over a moon before a team signs him to 5/20. NO TEAM in MLB is going to offer $100 million to Soriano, not even Texas. Best guess....Soriano ends up at 5 and $75. $75 million IS the better part of $100 million.

LOL, Soriano will agree to play CF for the Cubs right about the time cows jump over the Moon. You guys do realize he's one of the most prized F.A.'s out there, right? Not only is he going to cash in to the tune of the better part of $100 million, he can pretty much choose his team. Sound like a player who is begging for a job so much he's willing to switch positions? Not to me.