XZero771679666304

Yes. Turner is clearly goat #1 at this point. Grossman will get all the blame. All of it. Yes, and the defense for "not being physical enough". Hard to be physical when you are on the field for 90% of the game. The Bears could EASILY be up 14 points right now with competent playcalling.

Yes. Turner is clearly goat #1 at this point.

This is going to get out of hand. The defense is too tired to compensate for this crap.

This is exactly what I was thinking. It's just like the Chiefs/Colts game. Rex has been scrutinized, and the Bears have a great running game. Play action would have really opened things up in the first half.

They've already tried going to Berrian down the sideline at least twice. They need to get Clark involved. Agreed, they've got to try and get some production in the middle of the field try and prevent the safeties (Sanders) from cheating so much in the box. Some play action might open up the middle.

If Turner and Co. keep calling plays like they did in the first half, we're going to get blown out. The offense isn't picking up any first downs, and the defense is getting tired. If we the Bears would have made just a few more first downs, they'd be winning.

The most disturbing thing happened today. I found myself rooting for Iowa, something I have never done before. To put it in perspective, it would be like J.R. rooting for the White Sox. I know it's kind of petty, but the Eric Gordon/Sampson thing has instilled in me a new hatred for Indiana that I didn't fully recognize until today. Screw you, Kelvin Sampson. I feel dirty for rooting for Iowa.

I am a Bears fan, but the whole "who cares about his stats, he wins" argument is the most [expletive] thing in the history of retardation. Having a great supporting cast that bails you out does not erase your mistakes. Sure the bears have won 15 games this year, but what would their record be had Rex been consistently good? 17-1? 18-0? Possibly. When the Bears have lost, Rex has been primarily responsible. This being so on a team with a great running game and great defense, making his poor performances look even worse. As a QB on the Bears, you have to be pretty abysmal to single handedly lose a game. Listen, I think Rex is capable of coming out Sunday and being more than adequate, even throwing for 250+ and a couple TD's and no picks. I believe he just might do that. But let's call a spade a spade. Let's not use platitudes like "but we won" to excuse poor play. And 4-18 in a half, no matter how you want to dissect it, is poor. Let's just hope Rex is better than that Sunday, or we're boned.

You weren't paying attention if that's what you think. There were a probably a handful of times in the first half where Grossman threw balls away intentionally in an attempt to be extra cautious. He certainly missed some throws (one in particular to Clark in the endzone) but I didn't think he was wildy erratic or anything. That's why I couldn't understand why Aikman and Buck were harping on his slow start, percentage-wise. Throwing a few balls away shouldn't reduce a QB's pass percentage to less than 30 percent. At least 5 or 6 of his missed passes would have to have been intentional for that argument to be valid. I watched the game, and maybe 2 or 3 were. Also, I wouldn't confuse his inability to throw under pressure with intentionally throwing the ball away. Rex was just bad in the first half.

Some of those quotes from Butkus irk me What was the avg size of an offensive lineman when Butkus played? 250-260? What was the avg size of a RB? 180-190? Urlacher is going up againts athletes alot bigger than Butkus faced. I have to admit that I have found myself thinking the same thing from time to time. It's probably just not his style, but Brian doesn't seem to relish punishing guys like others around the league. I too would like to see him really obliterate guys more often. However, I don't think this makes Urlacher any less of a player, and I think he is the best LB in the game. Also, I don't think relative player size has anything to do with what Butkus said. There are smaller, slower guys who are more notorious hitters. John Lynch, for example.

Whipped, allergic to superior technology, or both? Figures. This is spectacular news.....Kerry...you get this fixed and I'd consider supporting you for President....or better yet...get this fixed, and Don't run for president...let someone who can actually win have a chance. Excuse me, but Kerry actually won in 2004. He had the election stolen from him just like Gore before him. BTW He's already said he's not running anyway. I don't blame him after the injustice that was done to him, and all of america on that day. :-({|= Well, other than the fact that you are wrong on every level I agree with you. Bush won in 2000 Bush won in 2004 Get over it. Get a history book. This isn't the time or the place for this.

The Cards score more runs than the Cubs. Their rotation can afford to be worse than ours. Also, 2/5 of our rotation is composed of an injury riddled Miller/Prior and Jason Marquis. After losing Weaver and Suppan, their rotation will probably not match last year's, however, and the Cards haven't really added much on offense or pitching wise, other than the aforementioned Wilson. The Cubs should have a somewhat better starting rotation but the Cards should have a significantly better offense. Honestly, everyone in the central looks pretty mediocre at this point (save the Pirates, who still suck, and Houston, who will only have a shot if Clemens comes back again). I think everybody other than those two teams could win the division if things break their way. It will probably come down to who is healthier. I'm going to need some convincing that the Cardinals offense is even slightly better than the Cubs, never mind significantly better. Their approach to the rotation should be familiar, because it's what we've done the past few years with a different variable. Instead of "if these guys stay healthy" it's "if these young guys progress/if duncan can turn these guys around". They scored around 65 more runs than us last season, despite Edmonds being injured for a good part of the season. We've added Soriano and subtracted Pierre for an upgrade, but everything else has been kind of a lateral move. DeRosa may or may not be better than Todd Walker offensively. Izturis is no better than Cedeno or Perez offensively. If Lee stays healthy, we'll be better at 2 positions. We may make up some without Dusty giving all those ABs to the likes of Perez and Bynum. Our offense will be better than last year's, but last year's was terrible (ahead of only Pittsburgh), and St. Louis's offense was 6th in the NL. I think the Cubs move up, and finish maybe 8th or 10th in the NL, with St. Louis about where they were last year. If you go position by position though, it doesn't work out so well. The Cubs have Izturis while the Cardinals have Molina-that's a wash. DeRosa and Belliard are probably about the same. That leaves Lee, Aramis, Soriano, Jones, Barrett, Murton vs Pujols, Rolen, Edmonds, Duncan, Encarnacion (am I missing a Cardinal OF), Eckstein Pujols is easily the best on that list-but Encarnacion and Eckstein are worse than any of the Cubs hitters as well. I'd take those Cub 6 hitters vs the Cardinals 6. Belliard isn't a Card anymore, Adam Kennedy is their 2B. But I still agree.

Yep. Oh, and yes - our defense is crappy. There's Lee...and...that's about it. Can't follow you there. We were 6th in defensive efficiency in '06, and 13th in '05 and '04. I simply can't follow you there. In a sport like basketball, a team can have good team defense without having good individual defenders. In baseball, one must have good individual defenders to have a good team defense. Last year, the Cubs didn't really have it. Murton was average, Pagan was below average. Pierre and Jones were good at getting to the ball, and terrible at throwing. Ramirez was better, but still not great. Cedeno was below average. Neifi was very good at second, Theriot was average, and Bynum was terrible. At first, Walker, Mabry, and Nevin were average, with Lee being very good for his few games. Barrett was below average, while Blanco was above average but slipping. How can you have a significantly above average defense when there are very few plus defenders on the field? Let's tackle this another way. The Cubs are ahead of the Cardinals last year. The question is-how can that be? Molina is much better than Barrett. Pujols is better than the Cubs first baseman that were there last year. Eckstein was better than Cedeno, and Rolen is better than Ramirez. The Cardinals OF defense isn't great, but they are probably about the level of the Cubs. With all these advantages-how does it turn out that the Cubs have a better defense than the Cardinals? Unfortunately, there isn't any defense metric that is really accurate at this point. Unlike some batting stats, defensive stats don't hold a lot of water as of yet. It's nice to be able to quantify things statistically, but defense is still something best evaluated through observation.

+1 +2

Far, far worse.

Exactly.

How things have changed in the last 6 months. 6 months ago, I would have wanted Illinois to kill Purdue, but this IU-UI rivalry has become so intense very quickly, and I found myself rooting for freaking Purdue to win a game. HA HA HA you have beat us once in the last what, 5 years now? I wouldn't say it is too intense just yet. Whatever this rivalry is between IU and UI has nothing to do with any games in the last 5 years. It's all about EJ. We got him, and craziness ensued (By the way, he scored 50 points again tonight in high school). There was no IU-UI rivalry 8 months ago. IU's rivals were UK and PU. UI's rival was Mizzou, I guess. All the real bad blood between these two programs surrounds a recruit, who decided to go to IU. Remember when we just beat you. That was fun. Wow, it's going to be like that, huh? Ok, remember what the standings look like. Remember that when Kelvin has the Hoosiers on probation. I think Illini fans can handle being below Indiana in the standings, seeing that it is truly a rare occurrence of late.

The worst uni in the history of sports, IMO.

Hendry's job depends on winning this year. That's the impetus behind everything, along with the ratings/popularity slippage and possible sale. Big moves were going to happen one way or the other, and rebuilding was never an option for 2007. Not saying I like it, but it is what it is.

That would be a great argument if it was true. In Sept the team had a .414 winning percentage...better than their season total of .407. Who did we play other than Theriot, who was awesome? Well, it extends all the way back to the trading of Maddux and Walker-when most people talk about last years team, they talk about those two being on it-the team could have been a couple games better with those two. Lee would have come back and stayed if they were in the race. Z was held out one more start then he normally would have when he hurt his back. Aramis sat a couple more days then he normally would. There were a few more things with pitchers, but the biggest things were the trading of Maddux and Lee coming back late, and then leaving early. This is a team who had Henry Blanco playing first base for multiple games-that doesn't strike me as a team trying to win. Their winning percentage after Maddux got traded was .404. Right inline with their season total. Whether they were trying to win or not, they still ended up being just as good in Aug and Sept as they were the rest of the year. The winning percentage was the same in the second half because players like Ramirez, Hill, Theriot, Jones and Murton were much stronger post-ASB. It was clear the team had phoned it in as far as winning goes for most of the second half.

Those are all fine premises for articles, but they arent what this article is about. However, the fact that this article states that there are no favorites for the NL central, implies all of those things you've said above. I guess some people just blindly hate certain journalists or anyone who says anything discouraging about the cubs. Thats your perogative, but the fact that you're argument against the article does not actually mention anything in the article, says a lot. I think the point is that Perry writes a disproportionate number of articles dissecting the Cubs. He is an admitted Cardinal fan, and that skews things a bit. If you check Fox Sports' MLB page regularly, you will see what I am talking about. What he says in the article is fine. The fact that he is always the one on that staff that regularly writes regarding the Central is not. This article is right on the heels of another criticizing the Cubs for the Samardzija signing. Add to that he always makes sure to besmirch the Cubs whenever the opportunity presents itself, and its hard to read his stuff without getting defensive.

Yeah, it's simply a mammoth game. Lose, and the best IU can really hope for this season is 3rd. Win, and they are right back in the chase for one of the top 2 spots. It will be interesting to see if IU can contain Wisconsin's size. It's just my opinion, but I think OSU and Wisconsin are on another level than Indiana (or anyone else in the B10, for that matter). Hoping for a 1 or 2 finish is being very optimistic.

Godawful.

The network allows one to call its nationally televised games. True enough. But as bad as that is, Buck's allegiance is less obvious than Perry's, IMO. It's poor form in both cases, especially teaming Buck with McCarver. It would've been like having Harry and Santo call a nationally televised Cubs game.

I am surprised FOX lets and unabashed Cardinal homer like Perry write articles about the NL central. He's incapable of being objective. I guess it's typical of the company, though. Plus he's a moron. Also, wasn't Soriano given assurances that he would bat leadoff? I thought it was a done deal that he would bat 1st.