Soul

Yeah, that Cabrera guy is a hack. ..and Cabrera :) You know what I meant, smarty pants.

Jason Stark said this morning on Mike & Mike that the Girardi interview went very well and "allayed any fears" the Cubs had about the Florida situation. However, he also said that the Cubs are very intrigued with Piniella, and that it's his job of choice. I think it's still Piniella in the lead. Seriously? Wow, I'm totally misreading the situation then. I had Piniella/Cubs pegged as a total mismatch of personalities---something that would never happen. I also didn't figure Piniella would be terribly interested since the Cubs were one of the worst teams in baseball this year. I've always thought this was Girardi's job as long as he explained the Florida situation in a way that made sense. The Cubs have had a pretty good experience with Joe over the years. He's obviously got good managerial skills as evidenced by taking the Marlins to a nearly .500 record with basically no players outside of DTrain.

What if you scored on an error? Outpitch and outhit are pretty useless phrases. An error would be defense, no? I agree they are useless -that was my point. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy, in a manner of speaking. If you shut down the other team's hitting, then they say "see? good pitching stops good hitting." If you got blasted, then they just say your pitching stunk. Still, that never stops the pundits from rolling out that particular catch phrase every playoffs. "Good pitching stops good hitting!" Well yeah----because if the other team gets hits, then your Cy Young pitcher just plain stunk.

Unfortunately for Miami, they don't have Marino to lift them to a victory over the Bears this time. Still, I don't think the Bears will be undefeated. Like most people, I'm circling that 3 game road trip as the most likely place where the Bears drop a game. Of course it usually doesn't happen like you think it would :)

Let's hope that Manning Jr. isn't suspended. There's not a lot of depth in the secondary with Harris out. Regarding the secondary, I have a feeling that its (lack of) depth won't tip the scales for the AZ game, and there's a bye-week after that, so as long as Harris is better in three weeks, it should be okay. Right, but if the NFL hires Bob Watson to hand out the suspension, he'll wait until the worst possible time to do it and give Manning Jr. 6 games. Hopefully Johnson and Worrell stay healthy on special teams. Does it matter at all that the charges were dropped on all the other guys for lack of evidence? Those were just normal dudes who hang out with RMJ. There's no way they dropped the charges because of celebrity. I'm starting to wonder if this whole thing really happened like everyone was so sure it did. If that guy really got a beat down from Manning and his friends, I highly doubt the charges would just have been dropped mid-stream. Starting to sound more like a DA who is out to get Manning Jr. Once RMJ cops a plea, all of a sudden the case itself evaporates. Maybe there wasn't much of a case to begin with.

Son of a %$# :x Anyone that thinks that the problem with the Cubs is Tribune ownership just doesn't get it. get what? explain yourself? I dont' care if they authorized a 90+ million dollar payroll. They have no interest in brining in compentant leadership that will spend it wisely. They have also been terrible managing the leadership/vision of the farm system. I disagree. I think they THOUGHT MacPhail would be a big winner here. he has a long baseball pedigree and some success in Minnesota. They can be criticized for not putting him on the hot seat earlier, but I almost think, by the sound of his resignation, that he felt a lot of heat from above for a while now. IMO, the Tribune gave him what was required to win, he and his hires (and their hires) just failed miserably at it. The best news for us, as fans, is that the Hendry was "his guy" and hopefully will be on a MAJOR hot seat this season. Philosophy and farm system is not the fault of the Trib, aside from not firing MacPhail. That's all baseball operations- which means it's a management issue (Andy), not ownership (trib). All the trib really does is budget and hire the president. From there on down, that's the President's responsibility. The Tribune doesn't care about baseball, and therein lies the problem. You can't run a ballclub effectively in committee. Providing the cash isn't the whole story. Anyone who doesn't realize this------well, they're the ones who don't "get it."

I have a feeling Hendry is gonna do some big things this off season....knowing his job is in serious jeopardy. Don't count on it. Agreed. What bargaining chips does he have to work with now? He's completely drained the minor leagues, and his major league ballclub is chok-full of junk nobody wants or bad contracts. The Trib's not going to open the coffers so he can spend his way out of this hole, that's for sure.

I'm going to be at the game this weekend. No letdowns now! This is going to be fun. I wouldn't expect the return of Jauron to be much of anything. We're much happier with Lovie than we ever were with Dickie and his "sacks don't matter" crew.

You're gonna have a hard time coming up with your reverse jinx for this next week... :D I'm waaay ahead of you. Let's just say it will involve the Curse of Dick Jauron... I can hardly wait.

Of course. You've got to like ANYONE's chances. Because there's no good teams out there that anyone can have confidence in to dominate. I'll bet the odds makers are in hell right now, LOL. Who can say they've got the upper hand? Certainly not in the NL. All those teams are basically sitting at home watching most years. You know, I like parity. I really do. But there's two kinds of parity: good parity, and bad parity. This is bad parity.

I think it's time to give up some props to Wade Wilson too. Finally a good QB coach, and it's paying off. And the pass blocking against a heavy-blitz scheme. It was just a thing of beauty tonight. We even started to run the ball a little bit, too.

I would tend to agree. The logic isn't going to work on that one. Didn't "come to play" in the big game? Didn't come to play against the toughest team on the schedule? Then what does that really say about the team? I don't think anyone can make that argument. It's not fair to the Hawks. They came to play. They cared. They just lost. It happens, even to the good teams.

I know. I admit, I doubted him. Fortunately I went to training camp this year. And he was just booming stuff everywhere! I knew right then he had raised his game about 10 notches. Dez Clark too. The difference was immediately obvious.

I'd love it if the fans cheered when it starts raining. That would be a nice cherry on top of the evening.

QFFT. There is no question.

I'm pretty much speechless right now. I never expected this. This Bears team is starting to just blow any and all expectations to the wind. It's amazing right now.......really.

Well, can't stop us with 11, try 12 players! Nice strategy, Holmgren!

He's a nasty fumble waiting to happen now, I just feel it. He's trying to think too much out there.

Need pass rush? Got Anderson? Mmmmmmmm.....GOOD!! 8)

Alright, that's too scary. We'll let them back in like that.

Need to run the ball in that situation. No reason to throw twice there. Getting too greedy.

On the replay, it looked legit. If he wasn't interfered with, he could have been able to jump more vertically. It was still catchable. McKie has a hand injury and Mushin is also out. Whats wrong with Mush? Eh? Players are hurt?

Yes! \:D/

Ummmm, Bears? Punch it in please?

Refs just paid us back for that bogus personal foul on Brown.