Tim

Yeah I'm all in on San Diego and Toronto this year now that we're returning to the time where I pay more attention to the Cub prospects than the mlb squad. *If* we can get good starting pitching this year, I still think we easily win the division and are at least competitive with the better teams. We won't have any real weak spots in the lineup and are a bounce back or two (primarily from KB) away from being a really good offense. Now...how we get the good starting pitching is a really good question at this point.

From a baseball perspective, I really don't mind trading Darvish at this time. His value will never be higher and he's not likely to replicate the same type of success going forward. Not to mention the injury risk there. I'm okay with cashing in on pitchers and getting value than holding on to them for too long. Of course, I also would have enjoyed watching Darvish dominate for another year or so, too. Let's just hope they pick the right players to get back. (and I might also have to adopt the Padres as my "b" team when they're not playing the Cubs)

Panthers really have no incentive to tank. They could take a QB, but still should be in Zach Wilson range (if he doesn't go 2). But since they don't necessarily NEED to take a QB, they won't be pressed to move up. They can sit back, take Wilson, the best lineman, any defensive position, or Kyle Pitts. They had no incentive to win either. They went from drafting 3rd to 9th with that win. The players & coaches always have incentive to win. They want jobs next year.

Still want to say that Glennon looks much better than he did on the Bears? Down by more than one TD, needing to drop back in the pocket and survey the field, in an attempt to load the team on his shoulder and engineer a comeback? No. He looks exactly like he did with the Bears needing to play like that. Never said he would suddenly better in that situation. He had about two good drives in the first quarter and has basically been ass since then (until we put in the 3rd/4th stringers)

No affliction, just bad through and through. Glennon never looked like this and they kept dropping him back to get clobbered. No thought given to this kind of scheme with quick throws. He’s decent at it. Nay, not buying the standard explanation anymore. Bears can’t coach QB, can’t scheme QB. It’s not the entire problem, but a significant part of it. That said, at the moment it looks much better in terms of scheming to Mitch’s strengths. Maybe this is where we finally take a serviceable guy and give him a shot to hang in the league. Still want to say that Glennon looks much better than he did on the Bears?

Jacksonville is really, really bad.

btw - Raw - 3Q touchdown!

glennon looked fine at times on the bears too there isn't some magical affliction that gets coaches and quarterbacks to suddenly forget how to do their jobs here. bad quarterbacks are easy to find. good ones are hard to find. the bears have had lots of bad ones, and mike glennon is one of them. No affliction, just bad through and through. Glennon never looked like this and they kept dropping him back to get clobbered. No thought given to this kind of scheme with quick throws. He’s decent at it. Nay, not buying the standard explanation anymore. Bears can’t coach QB, can’t scheme QB. It’s not the entire problem, but a significant part of it. That said, at the moment it looks much better in terms of scheming to Mitch’s strengths. Maybe this is where we finally take a serviceable guy and give him a shot to hang in the league. Did you see the Glennon pick? He's bad, too.

I turned it on for the kickoff at 10-3. Watched them march straight down the field and then the bears go three and out.

Alright I'll bite. Oversimplifying? Sure. But the players and the businesses both received less revenue than expected (and contractually guaranteed) while maintaining a certain level of fixed expenses. Where is the 'massive misunderstanding'? Happ is comparing players taking a reduced salary (there are no "fixed" expenses there) against a business where there are massive fixed expenses for stadiums, front office personnel, coaches, minor league operations, scouting, etc. All this said, I'm for the players getting a much bigger percentage of the sport's revenues. Screw the billionaire owners. But it doesn't help to have a union representative showing a basic lack of understanding of the difference in finances for individuals vs businesses.

While I applaud the general attitude, he's displaying a massive misunderstanding of the most super-basic business finance.

I need to browse better sites so I can get better ads.

I'm really curious about how the layoff will impact the development of hitters vs pitchers. I would think that the pitchers were probably just fine for the most part - as long as they were able to establish some mechanism for the coaching to create a feedback loop for improvement. It's just a different situation for hitters. They need to see live pitching to continue development. I'm wondering if we'll see a small generation of prospects where pitchers are better developed than hitters to some small extent.

I'm not familiar with SEC football but firing Gus strikes me as a horsefeathering stupid decision. I'd be thrilled if Illinois hired him.

Because USC is ambiguous, so the votes get split. Sorry for the flippant answer, but is this a real question anyway?

If it was regardless of demand then demand would be unable to support arbitrarily higher prices If the higher prices are on necessities, then people don't have a choice as to whether they pay the higher prices or not. Right - price has differing levels of elasticity on different items based on a number of factors. As a "luxury" item, I would suspect that tickets are one of those items that have a demand that is somewhat sensitive to the price and is also sensitive to the overall economic conditions.

So after the historic sucking of the NFC East all year, the Giants beat Seattle in Seattle and the generic football team beats Pitt? How weird.

Given that the players want it as part of the next CBA, they had to take it away again so that they have one more thing to "give" the players

Maybe they’ll change their tune when the Lions come back and win this. lolololololol Bears

So...I just turned on the game. Why don't they throw to Kmet more often? He seems about 3x as good as Graham at this point.

At this point, I'd prefer some short term sacrifice in the draft. We're not one draft away from being good. Trade back whenever possible, build capital, don't get too hung up on particular guys. So, be the anti-Pace.

Hope you're correct, regardless of Packer fan' post they've had horseshoes up their asses with Farve and Rodgers. I'm not saying Farve and Rodgers were shots in the dark but, as great as they turned out? No. Which is kinda what I said. They deliberately traded a #1 to get an unknown in Favre. And deliberately took a QB in the 1st round even though they had a HoFer currently on roster. Of course it worked out better than expected. But I'd hardly call it a horseshoe. Of course there's a massive horseshoe there. How many teams invested a mid-first round pick in a quarterback between Rodgers and today? How many have turned out nearly as good as Rodgers? Horseshoe. How many teams have traded serious draft capital for someone else's young quarterback? How many turned out nearly as good as Favre? Horseshoe.

We'll have to see how the recruiting continues, but it's definitely on the upswing.

But part of the problem is how much these guys are making now. A few years ago it might have been the difference between 20 and 30 million. Now it’s the difference between 40 and 50 million. Durant’s last year with the Thunder he made $20M. This year he’ll make $39M. Harden made $15.7M in 15-16 and will get $40M this year. Eventually, that extra money doesn’t matter as much and they’re just going to play where they want to play. I suppose if it was, say, double, some guys would stay. But others would rather win, live where they want to and make $30M than not win, live in a place they don’t like as much and make $60M. I don't think the absolute value matters as much as the relative value. Those max salaries have exploded with an exploding cap, but it's still only 25-35% of the cap space (a soft cap, so even less as a % of actual spending). If the top 10 players were paid what they're worth they'd probably make 50-70% of the cap, double what they make now. Freedom of player movement has created more parity for teams, it's just that the parity moves with the players now. Shorter contracts play a big role here. Guys used to lock into like 8 year deals with regularity. Now most max mength contracts are capped at 4 years, and for the rare 5 year contract those players pretty much always get an option after 4 as a standard term. So no more Scottie Pippen getting locked into severely underpaid contracts for a half decade anymore. Thats good for parity. The really only other area I think they could improve is to try and fiddle more with the tannking incentives. If more teams simply tried it would create a more competitive environment for player acquisition. Just remove the individual salary cap. Then the biggest stars would make enough that secondary stars couldn't get paid on the same team.

To be fair, I don't think Derwood's dumping PSU at this point. I just thought the way he phrased it initially was poor, all things considered.