Tim

hahahaha Bama sucks

Ross is amazing.

SEC sucks

Honestly, they're in pretty good shape for 2019. Those aren't horrible losses or guys that are tremendously difficult to replace. It really comes down to Amos, Callahan and Massie. If they feel Coward is going to be ready, then you let Massie go, pay Amos and Callahan and you're pretty well set. Maybe you keep Bellamy if the downgrade to Wims on special teams would be too large. He's not going to cost much, anyway. I suspect we'll largely see the same team in 2019 as they try to keep cap flexibility for the following seasons when the crunch really hits.

We: - rushed for more yards (65 - 42) - passed for more yards (291 - 258) - averaged a full yard more per play (5.7 - 4.7) - won the turnover battle (2 - 0) - only had three penalties (3 - 3) The biggest key I can see going against the Bears was third down efficiency. Looking at all that, we really should have won this football game.

On the bright side, my friend brought both Johnny Walker Blue and 17 yr Hibiki tonight.

Just got back from watching the game at a friend's house. First off: I argued to overlook the one game with the four uprights. While the argument was perfectly logical, I now hate myself for having made it. Second off: Having read through the whole thread, Nagy doesn't seem to be taking enough share of the blame for the horrible play calling in the first half. Third: Goony, wtf? You're smarter than that. Fourth: Theo better come up big with something to distract me now.

I don’t believe this scenario lands them anything worthwhile anyway. He’s 34, missed all of last year, and hasn’t hit since 2014. Maybe the Jays send cash but any team trading for him is probably paying more than the league min and has him under contract through 2020 off of a partial season. Maybe the Jays cost themselves a Jeferson Mejia type “prospect” but most likely they saved all sides lots of nonsense drama by cutting him during the offseason rather than in-season What I'm saying is that if they thought he was 100% healthy, they'd keep him and play him until the trade deadline. If he's healthy, he proves his value and someone will pay up. If not, they've literally not cost themselves anything but playing time on a team going nowhere. Toronto doesn't let him go for nothing unless they are pretty confident he's toast.

I'm guessing that if Toronto thought he was 100% healthy, they would have kept him to start the season and then try to trade him. Even if they ate most of the salary to get a decent return, that's what they're doing now anyway with no payback at all other than goodwill.

What, now we want second round picks?

Pythagoreum wins for playoffs teams. Chiefs 10.7 Chargers 10.4 Patriots 10.7 Texans 10.2 Ravens 10.8 Colts 10.1 Saints 11.2 Rams 10.9 Bears 11.5 Cowboys 8.4 Seahawks 9.9 Eagles 8.5 Stupid hangover making me overlook pythag wins. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I might as well post this here, too... While a team's point spread is a better measure of their dominance than the record (and better predictor of future success), I'd argue that there is a better measure than pure point spread. A point spread has to be placed in the context of the point environment for that team. A 100 point spread when a team only allows 10 points in a year (so 110 points scored vs 10 allowed) is a much, much better result than when they allow 500 (600 ps vs 500 pa). A better measure of success is the point spread divided by the points allowed for each team. Here are the NFL leaders by that measure. The Bears just might be the best team in the NFL by a reasonable margin. NFL Team NPP Chicago 48.8% New Orleans 42.8% Los Angeles Rams 37.2% Baltimore 35.5% Kansas City 34.2% New England 34.2% Los Angeles Chargers 30.1% Houston 27.2% Indianapolis 25.9% Seattle 23.3% Pittsburgh 18.9% Minnesota 5.6% Philadelphia 5.5% Dallas 4.6% Tennessee 2.3% Carolina -1.6% Atlanta -2.1% Denver -5.7% Green Bay -6.0% Cleveland -8.4% Detroit -10.0% New York -10.4% Tampa Bay -14.7% Cincinnati -19.1% San Francisco -21.4% Washington -21.7% Jacksonville -22.5% New York -24.5% Miami -26.3% Buffalo -28.1% Oakland -37.9% Arizona -47.1%

While a team's point spread is a better measure of their dominance than the record (and better predictor of future success), I'd argue that there is a better measure than pure point spread. A point spread has to be placed in the context of the point environment for that team. A 100 point spread when a team only allows 10 points in a year (so 110 points scored vs 10 allowed) is a much, much better result than when they allow 500 (600 ps, 500 pa). A better measure of success is the point spread divided by the points allowed for each team. Here are the NFL leaders by that measure. The Bears just might be the best team in the NFL by a reasonable margin. NFL Team NPP Chicago 48.8% New Orleans 42.8% Los Angeles Rams 37.2% Baltimore 35.5% Kansas City 34.2% New England 34.2% Los Angeles Chargers 30.1% Houston 27.2% Indianapolis 25.9% Seattle 23.3% Pittsburgh 18.9% Minnesota 5.6% Philadelphia 5.5% Dallas 4.6% Tennessee 2.3% Carolina -1.6% Atlanta -2.1% Denver -5.7% Green Bay -6.0% Cleveland -8.4% Detroit -10.0% New York -10.4% Tampa Bay -14.7% Cincinnati -19.1% San Francisco -21.4% Washington -21.7% Jacksonville -22.5% New York -24.5% Miami -26.3% Buffalo -28.1% Oakland -37.9% Arizona -47.1%

Bears defense ends up #1 in points allowed.

If you search my posts from preseason, I'm pretty sure I was confidently predicting a 12-4 season or better. (not)

That's playing with semantics a bit - I was calling the luxury tax an artificial constraint and even go on to acknowledge that there is a break-even number somewhere. Okay - here's a more rigorous treatment after a solid sixty seconds of googling: https://www.forbes.com/teams/chicago-cubs/ $457M in revenues (based on reading the article, I believe this ignores the $50M one time payout for the sale of the MLB online streaming company) $102M in operating income So, if Ricketts held up his promise from when he bought the team that they would reinvest every single dollar back into the team, the $300M+ estimated income from the past four seasons alone would pay for the majority of Harper's contract.

This is something I have found people with terrible, thoughtless, baseless, and immature opinions like to say. That last bit about spending being against the rules is not even an opinion and is factually incorrect. Same is true of the Harper/Yelich OBP takes Merry Christmas! No clue what you are talking about but that’s ok. If you feel the franchise that blows the most money wins, keep telling yourself that. You’d be wrong and miserable like the yankee fanbase that rarely wins anymore and is never happy although always blows the most money. Listening to wfan this morning and all their blowhards could talk about was adding harper or machado or both as a last piece of the puzzle. It never ends. It guarantees nothing and rarely results in anything but a bigger financial hole You're stuck on this concept of a "financial hole". It is a fictional construct. There is no hole. It is an artificial barrier that league ownership has put in place in order to maximize their portion of the profits. The Cubs could easily run a $250M payroll, pay the associated luxury tax and still run a profit. They could probably run a payroll closer to $300M and be fine. Rough numbers: Ticket proceeds: $58 average face value ticket price * 3.18M in attendance = $184M in ticket revenue alone TV Contract Revenue: $65M in local tv contract revenue in 2016 So right there, that's ~$250M. That ignores the $50M all mlb teams got from the online business. And their share of the national tv contracts. And the radio revenue. And the concession sales. And the concert revenues. etc. Now, from that they have to cover much more than just the 25 man roster payroll. But the Cubs bring in a ton of profit. Is there an eventual limit to what they can spend and still make a profit? Of course. But they are not anywhere close to it.

You know, unless: 1) they move salary to pull it off 2) Darvish is healthy and producing as expected

Wow.. Yea I don't know how much the FS/SS thing matters. Fwiw, Amos was listed as the FS yesterday and Bush the SS. A claiming team on Swearinger has control left too? Forgetting this year, could be a cheap Amos plug for next year? Swearinger would be a luxury. But the Al Swearengen jokes would be awesome.

AZ is tearing down. They want to shed salary and get prospects

Nagy came out strongly in the Athletic that he's playing it straight up for the win. Too lazy to go back and look for the link. Now, he could just be saying that, but it sure sounded like he will be aggressively trying for the win.

I wonder what the Giants have to give up for Belt.

I love this guy.

lol - That was fun.

It's no wonder the niners have had so many injuries. That field is horrendous.