Soul

I still can't understand why people bring up the idea of priorities when it comes to letting Pierre go. Pierre is not productive. Pierre costs a lot of money. Letting him walk is the smart thing to do. It's not a matter of moving CF up the list of priorities. There's about 5 quality consistent closers in baseball, and none of them are available. The Cubs need to stop putting money into the bullpen, they've got more than enough dedicated to that department, and plenty of arms to shuffle in and out of there. Starting pitching is a priority, yes. And it will be all the more easier if the Cubs let Pierre walk, and save that money to spend on a better pitcher. You think Hendry has enough bandwidth to search for a Pierre replacement, plus take care of the starting pitching? Alright, if that's the case, then I won't mind. Like I said, I'm not happy with Pierre either. It seems like Hendry's been unable to get a whole lot done in the past couple offseasons. Maybe that's not indicative of what will happen this offseason.

And yet, despite the fact that Gardenhire doesn't have "all his horses," the Twinkies continue to put up wins. :-k

3 starting pitchers isn't going to happen. 2 at most. Closer isn't going to happen. Another reliever isn't going to happen. RF is most likely not going to happen, and there's no way that LF and RF is going to be replaced. There's nothing unrealistic about letting Pierre walk. It blows my mind how many people think that would be a bad move. 2B, or at least a middle infielder of some sort, is the biggest need, aside from a solid starting pitcher. CF probably ranks 2nd on that list. The Cubs are getting the 12th highest OPS out of CF among all NL teams. CF is a problem on the team. Letting Pierre walk is not creating a new hole, CF already is a hole. And since the only way to keep Pierre is to overpay him, you'd simply be maintaining a hole at a higher cost, probably longterm. LF has let the team down, but Murton should outproduce what the Cubs have gotten this year from that position. Pierre, on the other hand, can only be expected to maintain his poor production next year, and maybe even take a step back. I'm not saying it's a bad move to replace Pierre with something better. Please don't lump me into that category.... I'm talking priorities. I think the pitching is a higher priority than CF, that's all. If we can't come up with some serious starting pitching this offseason, then IMO this team will be bad again in '07. Maybe that's just the way it's going to be. No closer either? Dempster's not going to go back to what he was during his little run. He is what he is. Not much starting help and Dempster again next year? Look for a long season if that's the case.

It's not his fault he's not good. But that doesn't mean the Cubs should compound the problem by bringing him back. What are the other viable/better options for CF and/or leadoff next year? Leadoff is not a position, and does not need to be addressed specifically. The Cubs need to find the 8 best position players they can get. There are several non-Pierre options out there. We've got a TON of holes to fill on this club. How many acquisitions do you think Hendry can realistically make? We need 3 starting pitchers, a closer, and another reliever. Then we need a LF, RF, 2B. That's 7 players. Now we should add CF into that mix? Sure, I'd like to overhaul the entire team with a million FA's too, but it's not realistic.

No, but I heard some others will be coming back from injury, most notably Mark Bradley.

I'd rather be cursed. At least there's hope of it being lifted one day. Being dumb is forever.

Bobby Wade. Bobble Wade had a good game for the Titans yesterday: 5 rec/76 yards. Didn't know he was even playing... Yeah, Titans picked him up. Good for Bobby. Too bad it took getting fired for him to learn it's important to, you know, actually hold on to the ball occasionally.

No offense but you had the 10 years prior to last. We sat there and listened to people say how the rivalry didn't mean anything anymore because only one side was keeping up their end of it. We listened to all the Packer love from the national media and took it. We watched Chicagoans like Mark R grow up and become Packers fans (in our own territory!). Even if this reversal is only temporary, it was worth the wait. EXACTLY No offense erik, but we've had to put up with obnoxious Packer fans and their "Bears still suck" song over & over again for over 10 years. It's about time the shoe was on the other foot. The shock and awe in Lambeau yesterday was a thing of beauty. It's ok. For 12 years the Bears were like a pesky fly. They would come around every so often, but would be easily squashed until the next time they showed up. The Packers had an unusual string of seasons at or above .500. It finally caught up to them. They'll be bad for a few years, then hopefully all the high draft picks will pan out and mature and we'll be contenders again. Enjoy it while it lasts. And even though you're the better team, I still hate the Vikings infinately more than I hate the Bears. I intend to, but my optimism is of the cautious variety. I still see problems on the Bears; problems that can be exploited fairly easily. Nothing can be determined from one game. The Packers continued having good seasons because Favre was holding that team together with Mississippi chicken wire. Most folks have realized the Pack were fielding teams that didn't match up to the records that were being produced. It's a testament to Brett Favre -- he's been amazing. What's really caught up to the Packers is just the fact that Favre is older now, and can't produce all those amazing comebacks any more. AJ Hawk is a good start to the rebuilding plan, IMHO. The next logical step is to trade Favre, or politely ask him to retire. Aaron Rodgers has been wasting away on that bench for far too long already.

Lions D looked very good against Seattle. Alexander couldn't run and neither could we, so needless to say the Bears will need to overcome that and establish the run game. On the other side of the ball: the Lions offense looked really mediocre for the most part. Could be a defensive struggle? Lions are always tougher @ home, so hopefully that holds up and they aren't quite as good in Chicago.

That works too. I just have Sunday Ticket and watch them at home. The way I am watching Bear games, they'd probably throw me out of most bars 8)

Wait. Is this the same team Favre just said was "the best I've ever played on?" :wink:

No offense but you had the 10 years prior to last. We sat there and listened to people say how the rivalry didn't mean anything anymore because only one side was keeping up their end of it. We listened to all the Packer love from the national media and took it. We watched Chicagoans like Mark R grow up and become Packers fans (in our own territory!). Even if this reversal is only temporary, it was worth the wait. EXACTLY No offense erik, but we've had to put up with obnoxious Packer fans and their "Bears still suck" song over & over again for over 10 years. It's about time the shoe was on the other foot. The shock and awe in Lambeau yesterday was a thing of beauty.

I disagree. First of all, for your theory to work, we have to assume EVERY player is juicing. Otherwise the balancing-out effect just doesn't hold up. Secondly, even if it *was* every player doing it, it's still fruit of the poison tree. Once you pollute the game, there's no longer any basis to judge what the statistics mean. And without that basis, the stats themselves mean nothing. No we don't. I never said it makes it completely equal, but it certainly does level the playing field somewhat. We don't know how many homers Bonds hit off of pitchers on performance enhancing drugs...especially BEFORE 1998, if you go by the assumption that he started taking them that season. I agree that steroids should be out of the game. But there's no way to go back and test players from the past. If we could, we might as well go back several decades and test for amphetamines and other things. More players than we'll probably ever know have done something against the rules to gain an advantage and were never caught, simply because there was no good system in place to catch them. Now, we have drug testing. It might not be perfect, but it's a step in the right direction. Punish the guys who get caught. That's all you can do. Edited to add the word "somewhat." Stupid of me to leave out a key word. I know there's no way to go back---that's my point. And there's also no way to apply faulty logic to "level" the playing field and then say "oh hey well it was juicers against juicers so therefore Bonds' 72 can be judged on the same basis as Maris' 61." I just don't agree with that, and I never will. What I *DO* agree with is that the steroids era has tainted the stats of baseball for this time period, and nothing that happens during this era can be compared honestly with another era, where there weren't performance-enhancing "designer" drugs available en masse. I certainly agree the only thing we can do now is punish those who are caught. Did I suggest somewhere that we shouldn't?

I really think MLB has to start penalizing teams for lying about player injuries. The NFL does it, and it works fine.

how can he say that with a straight face? Probably thinking of all the millions he produced for himself managing the Cubs into the cellar.

QFT Huh? How can you quote a boo for truth? :lol: Nice win by Ohio State. They answered pretty much any critic remaining. Clearly a favorite to go to the Championship game now. I see them ripping through the Big 10 like a hot knife through butter.

I was incredulous too...that was just one person standing straight up tackling another person standing straight up-it was not leading with your helmet whatsover. It's pretty clear OSU will not be getting any of the close calls. No, I'm not an OSU fan.

Wow incredibly bad hometeam call by the refs against OSU.

OK LSU has won 8)

He looks like a computer-generated kid or something. Either than or he's a 10 year old on steroids. Something not quite right about that little one.

Terrible fumble by Texas on the goal line, OSU recovers, scores. 7-0 OSU.

Congrats to Texas and Ohio State for scheduling this game at this point in the season. Not sure it was really all that wise though. One team's national title hopes are sure to be seriously harmed tonight. That and Notre Dame: nobody plays a tougher early season schedule year after year. Cudos.

No, it never would have happened because Paterno doesn't run up the score on people. 2005: Penn State 40, Central Michigan 3 Penn State 63, Illinois 10 Penn State 44, Minnesota 14 2004: Penn State 48, Akron 10 Penn State 37, UCF 13 Penn State 37, Michigan State 13 2003: Penn State 52, Indiana 7 2002: Penn State 40, Nebraska 7 Penn State 49, Louisiana Tech 17 Penn State 49, Northwestern 0 Penn State 58, Indiana 25 Penn State 61, Michigan State 7 You're right---JoePa is a classy guy who would never blow out a team. But, I guess as long as you're laying 56 points on someone in the first half (2005, Illinois), its all good. Its just those third and fourth quarter points that lack class! There's only one moral in college football: win by as big a margin as possible. Anything else gets you questioned, and possibly even fired.

They'll be OK if the defense can improve week-to-week. They've lost 6 really good linemen/linebackers in the past 2 seasons and are very young there. Today was definitely ugly, and I don't expect it to be the norm. They've struggled like crazy in September for the past few seasons for whatever reason and turned it on when it mattered. They'll have a really good run if they beat Iowa State next week. Sounds like that Tate injury is lingering, though. I'd be worried. I usually root for the Big 10 whenever possible, then sort of pick my teams when they square off against each other (I went to a smaller University). Definitely not hating on Iowa.......just saying that didn't look all that great. I watched the whole game though, it was exciting.

Cal scores, leads 14-7 over Minn