Soul

Definitely. Hendry's been doing this a long time. Firing him shouldn't carry with it the same meaning as it would a GM who didn't make it past a couple years. It should be easy to cast this thing as Jim moving on to the next phase of his life. Which is probably exactly what it is.

Hah, yeah. Kind of hard to have good footwork when you constantly have a monster ready to pounce on you. Remove the monster, and presto! Great footwork!

Wait. This is what I essentially argued a couple weeks ago and was told to seek psychological help.

Will take.

Damn it.

What record? Team record for most home runs in a game. They hit 6 tonight and Colvin missed one by inches when his double hit off the top of the wall. The record is 7 which they last did in 1977. Starlin about to do it, right here. RIGHT HERE.

It's like we can do no wrong. Colvin's hitting like a star. Barney reaches badly and whacks something weakly over the shortstop. Is there a full moon tonight?

I can't believe this bizarre arrangement is in place where there's nothing that can be done about it.

Nobody told you? We're in a rain delay. This is a replay from 2008.

This was my pre-emptive strike against .500 - ism. I thought you wanted me to reach for the skies?

When I hit "submit," I said to myself, "N&G will be all over this"

I don't get how peeps forget that. It seems to get brought up in every Cubs-specific thread here. I guess we're down to that. Hoping for .500, and hoping it will be good enough to get lucky.

The article mentions this, but there are examples of natural turf in cold climates done better than Soldier Field. Lambeau is one of them. I imagine it would cost a lot to retrofit Soldier Field with the technology necessary to keep up the natural turf to those levels. Frankly, I like natural grass so much I'd be for spending that money, rather than putting in more field turf like the rest of the league. I'd like to maintain bastions of natural turf, and I think Chicago is one of those places where it should stay in place --- but done well, not done poorly like it currently is.

If it isn't tied to an individual team, then I wonder how it would even be enforced. If they come in under the total number, who has to go out and spend more, and who decides which teams need to do it?

ROFL It is funny, but sometimes I wish Bernstein would turn down the condescending tone a bit. Let guys like Chris Harris have his couple days of feeling bad about losing a long time teammate. They will get over it. Everyone will.

We're going to be screwed/and/or/transitional at OT. I've given that up. Just sign me one more decent OG. I'll take that as "good as we can get" right now. Stellar OTs aren't going to be falling out of the trees at this point. We go to war with Carimi and Webb, come what may.

LOL. In that case I can't wait to see Spencer vs. Suh twice this year. I don't think Olin was really all that great at pass protection anymore either. Maybe it was the stronger of his two phases.

Kreutz was a good Bear, all in all. I'm eager to see what Spencer can do, though. I'm glad they went out and jumped on a replacement player who has experience. Get me one more OL and I'll feel a lot better about things.

I don't really mind going after reclamation projects as long they aren't going to cost us if they fail. We just really need to sign OL, that's what is making me most nervous. Well, that and I'm disappointed we haven't gone after DB help.

I doubt that's "mainly" the reason. It's mainly that he's not that great. His star has faded (wasn't all that bright to begin with). Still, I believe he can do more than Devin Aromashodu.

Whoa, whut?

2nd most wins in the NFC in the last 6 years. The problem is consistency. 3 double digit win seasons. 2 sub .500 seasons in the last 6 years. Even the good teams in 2005 (29th ranked offense), 2006 (Grossman), and 2010 (30th ranked offense) had major flaws and won because unsubstainably good defense and special teams. I'm a big believer in the 3 phases of football, because the Bears have shown that you can win with substandard qualities (mostly on offense). But alot of this is perception: people value offense above all. The fact is, building a team on defense is valid. The Bears do really well in everything *except* offense. I do believe we need to succeed on the offensive side of the ball to be a consistent winner like the Patriots. But casting this team as a bunch of bumbling idiots is what gets me. We all like to complain about Angelo, complain about Lovie's decisions. But let's not take it too far. There are real accomplishments on those resumes. Would I like it to be better? Of course. But it's not......the Texans (sorry to pick on them). Or the Browns. But great defense has not shown to be sustainable. After the SB year, the Bears were a bad defensive team for 2 of the next 3 years, with the same coaching staff and pretty much the same key personnel on D. They were 28th, 21st and 17th in D from 2007-2009, after 2 years of a top 5 defense. Can argue that guys like Mike Brown and Tommie Harris got hurt and never were the same or guys like Vasher fell off. But that's what happens on defense. It becomes very player dependent and if those players don't play well, the D is bad. On offense, it's scheme that sustains production. We've seen NE win 11 without Brady. We've seen Manning win with WRs nobody has ever heard of until they're on the field. We've seen SD and Philly change franchise QBs while they were a double-digit win team and come back and win 10 again. Not as sustainable, true. But do-able for some peak years. For a team that hasn't shown a lot of competence building around offense, at least they've done well in the other areas. I'll withhold comment on the Williams deal until I know the dollars. It's going to be weird seeing him do that first down thing in a Bears uni. But hopefully he does it a lot.

2nd most wins in the NFC in the last 6 years. The problem is consistency. 3 double digit win seasons. 2 sub .500 seasons in the last 6 years. Even the good teams in 2005 (29th ranked offense), 2006 (Grossman), and 2010 (30th ranked offense) had major flaws and won because unsubstainably good defense and special teams. I'm a big believer in the 3 phases of football, because the Bears have shown that you can win with substandard qualities (mostly on offense). But alot of this is perception: people value offense above all. The fact is, building a team on defense is valid. The Bears do really well in everything *except* offense. I do believe we need to succeed on the offensive side of the ball to be a consistent winner like the Patriots. But casting this team as a bunch of bumbling idiots is what gets me. We all like to complain about Angelo, complain about Lovie's decisions. But let's not take it too far. There are real accomplishments on those resumes. Would I like it to be better? Of course. But it's not......the Texans (sorry to pick on them). Or the Browns.

Cutler has progressively accomplished what people said he couldn't. First they said he would flat out fail period. Then it was that he couldn't get to the playoffs. Then it was that couldn't win a playoff game. He's progressively knocked down all this BS. Yet people still cast him as a devil. This is just media types & fans who don't like his personality, wanting him to fail because he rubs them the wrong way. The fact is, he's on track and progressing. Yes, there are challenges on the roster. But he's dealing with them. Defensively, have the Bears not shown over the years that they can put together a solid defensive roster? Of course they are aging, because they are attempting to put a little more focus on the offensive side of the ball as well. But in terms of competence, defense is right in the pocket of the Bears' core.

Bottom line for me (and I've felt this way for awhile): there are too many people casting this team as a perennial loser, and too many people buying into it. We've been either in the Super Bowl or on the the brink 2 of the last 5 years. This team isn't doing badly AT ALL. If not for struggles with the management of the OLine, I'd say we are in damn fine shape compared to the rest of the league. Defensively, few would argue the Bears are one of the better franchises in the NFL.