champaignchris

College HC and pro HC seem like they require different skill sets. It seems like the guys who’ve washed out transitioning from one to the other far outweigh the success stories, but maybe not. Maybe it’s just that all coaches wash out at a really high rate. The NFL HCs who went directly from college to the NFL and who have over 100 career victories: Tom Coughlin Pete Carroll Dennis Green Sid Gillman Don Coryell George Allen was a college HC before he became a pro HC, but spent 8 years in between as asst and DC with the Bears under Halas. Halas letting him get away to the Rams and then promoting Jim Dooley instead when Halas retired is one of the big turning points in Bears history.

This has been the issue with NBA basketball for generations... At any one time there are maybe a dozen basketball players in the world that are heads and shoulders better than everyone else. The smaller teams compared to other team sports means that these elite players have a disproportionate impact on the game in comparison. This is why Bill Russell's Celtics went to 12 finals in 13 years. Or MJ's Bulls won 6 finals in 8. Or whatever team LeBron happens to be on has gone to the Finals 9 years in 10. Wilt was in 6 Finals in 10 years. Shaquille was in 5 Finals in 7 years. Etc., etc. The generational talent almost always wins out. It's not like baseball where the greatest pitcher of all time still needs other pitchers to go in games he's not pitching and guys to score some runs for him. There aren't enough elite players to go around. The NBA could eliminate about 10 teams, disperse those players throughout the rest of the league, and the only people who'd even notice are the fans in the cities that lost teams. (As a Pacers fan, I acknowledge that this is a pretty dangerous stance to take - My team would absolutely be one of those teams that nobody missed.) NBA players have figured this out and have figured out how to leverage themselves onto the teams they want. Guys who don't want to be Charles Barkley or Steve Nash - all time greats who just happened to not be the single greatest at the time they were playing - go looking for an opportunity to win championships.

If the Pacers just traded 1 year of Oladipo and nothing else for 3 years of Lavert, I'm fine with that. Oladipo wasn't going to re-sign with the Pacers at the end of the year. Not much difference between the two in performance at this point anyway. Lavert is 2 years younger and probably more reliable from an injury perspective.

Yes. But... you could argue that the team essentially already fired its offensive coordinator back in week 11.

The Chiefs were pretty darn good before Mahomes got there. They had five straight winning seasons and went to the playoffs 4 times before Mahomes became their full time starter.

I’m probably the only Pacers fan here. I’m glad they brought back the whole team. I’m really curious to see what they can do with any health at all. They didn’t have Brogdon, Sabonis, Oladipo and Warren all on the court at any single time last year. I think 3rd in the East is a realistic goal, but blowouts of the Bulls and Knicks don’t tell us much yet.

Won’t matter if the Cardinals lose to the Rams, which they will if they play anything like they did today.

that was the first season i followed sports/the bears and, while i remembered narrowly missing the playoffs, i forgot about that whole scenario That was my first year as a fan too. The Bears have made the playoffs 5 times in my 25 years as a fan. Yeesh. I started watching football when I was 8. The 1981 Chargers-Dolphins playoff game followed by Montana hitting Clark in the back of the end zone the very next weekend. Two of the greatest NFL games of all time. I was hooked. From the time I was 11 until I was 18, the Bears made the playoffs 7 times, won 6 division titles, went to the conference championship game three times, and won a Super Bowl. In the 29 years since, they’ve made the playoffs 6 times.

rawaction mentioned in the Detroit thread that Mitch was now the Bears career leader in QB rating among players with at least 300 pass attempts. He’ll pass Ed Brown for 7th in all time passing yards this next game, Billy Wade for 6th if he starts another game after that, and probably Erik Kramer for 5th if he plays out the rest of the season. Of the four guys still above him - Cutler, Luckman, Harbaugh and McMahon - he’ll have a higher completion percentage and lower interception percentage. I realize all of this is way more a testament to how bad the Bears qbs have been than anything Mitch has achieved. That said, the biggest problem with Mitch remains the fact that the Bears traded up to get him with the 2nd overall pick. If he’d been taken with the 52nd pick, his performance would be deemed “fine.” You’d still want to bring in a better qb, but no one would be particularly disappointed in Mitch’s performance.

i don't disagree, but they'd never do that (and len would probably want nothing to do with forcing him out) aren't you my anti-vin scully buddy too? Vin Scully was doing the Brennamen meme for years unironically and people thought it was folksy because he was lucid in the 50s. Dan Bernstein’s Scully impression is grimly hilarious... “And now I’d like to say a few words about the Jews...”

eh, they had Cutler, he was decent. unfortunately he was just overshadowed by GB pulling HOF QB's out of thin air. I think the key for the Bears is they simply have to take a "quantity is quality" approach and draft qb's nearly every year until they find one that can stick. I don't mean in the 1st every year either, but in any round where they find someone who has potential and makes sense for that round (ie, not a reach). I would say Cutty, as much as I loved him was decidedly average, but also the best QB I've seen on the Bears since maybe Kramer's one season in the early 90s. At his best he could lift the Bears offense up to win games. At his worst, he was the reason we lost games. We saw more of the latter than the former, but he did have quite a few games where he played good enough for the Bears to win. Clearly he had some issues with coaching staff and personnel put out there. Maybe he could have been a lower rung pro bowl guy with the right coaching, but probably not. Cutler brought a lot of issues down in himself with his media-unfriendly attitude and seeming nonchalance about his play. But he had a horrible o-line during the first half of his Bears career and a miserable defense during the second half. The Bears had 3 head coaches and 6 offensive coordinators in his 8 years in Chicago. Show me the qb that’s succeeded in similar circumstances. He was hardly a superstar, but he put up pretty similar career numbers to Eli Manning and Joe Flacco.

Fred Taylor was picked 9th.

I forgot how much they paid for Chase Daniel. The same year the Bears signed Daniel to that 2 year/$10MM contract, Ryan Fitzpatrick signed with the Bucs for i year/$3MM. But you can do that with that entire list of qbs. They overpaid for Glennon when they could have gotten Case Keenum (among others) for half the price. They traded up for Mitch when they could have traded down for Watson or Mahomes (or Mitch). They spent a draft pick and a ton of cash for Foles when they could have gotten guys like Dalton or Bridgewater for just cash. And none of this is 20/20 hindsight. People were saying these things at the time they were happening.

They’ve had about 3 great recruiting classes in a row and have two likely lottery picks in their starting lineup. They’re long, deep, athletic, defend well and can handle the ball. The only real weakness might be outside shooting, although they’ve looked fantastic in their first two games against lesser competition. They play Baylor on the 2nd for their first real challenge of the year.

I don't think you understand this board if you think people here will care about the standings during the first year of a complete teardown. Or I guess maybe I don't understand the board. It will depend, right? Trade Hendricks and Darvish, have a top 10 system heading into the season, and no one will care what the standings are, especially if guys like Marquez debut. Do a blatant salary dump without adding any significant young talent, and yeah, people are going to scream if the team is 20 games out of what looks like it’s going to be a winnable division.

I think, more likely than the Cubs just sending cash with Bryant is them taking back a bad, but cheaper contract in return. So, in the Braves’ case maybe Ender Inciarte.

If the Cubs are going to tear it all down, Darvish and Hendricks would easily be their most bankable commodities in terms of prospect return. But there’d be no reason to tie one of them to Kimbrel and reduce the return.

That’s more likely than not. They need to win 94 games not to have a worse winning percentage.

That’s close to what I was looking at. To Descalfini and Hernandez I added... JBJ 2/16 Archer 1/4 Melanson 1/4 If these contract estimates are close to right, the Cubs can probably fill in their holes for about ~$25-30MM and not have to shed much other salary to do it. Unsexy and unlikely to lead to a 95 win team. But will probably get you an 85 win team and a reasonable shot at the playoffs.

Everyone but Bauer and Realmuto should probably jump on that QO.

He'd be a solid pickup for second base next year YOU WATCH YOUR horsefeathers MOUTH He is among the most annoying of Cardinals. He’d also be a pretty solid upgrade at 2nd base who might be had for not much money and time.

Their ability to get huge production out of scrap heap guys like Turner, Muncy and Taylor has been the thing that’s impressed me most. I mean, that’s just not fair that they can turn those guys’ careers around AND have the player development AND have nearly unlimited funds to re-sign their players and patch the occasional roster gap with a FA. Betts and Price are the only truly big ticket contracts they have after 2021 and Price is off the books after 2022. Although, I imagine they are going to start extending some of their stars, with Buehler, Bellinger and Seager probably at the top of their wishlist.

Yeah, that's one theory. The other was that they had always planned to get Tua ready over the bye week, but their bye week got changed due to all the rescheduling. I wouldn't be surprised to see Fitz to Dallas within the next day or two. They can still have a bunch of offensive talent and could make the playoffs in a terrible division. Not that it'll do them any good ultimately, but their too proud not to go for it. Dallas is about the only team that makes sense for a Fitz trade unless some front-runner is looking to shore up its #2 spot. Pretty much every other team with qb problems were going to be awful this year anyway. I suppose I wouldn’t put it entirely past the Pats to cut bait on Newton and make the trade. But, with the Dolphins only a game out of the expanded playoffs, I don’t think they’d want to trade him to another contender for that last spot.

Yeah since 15 third most wins in baseball. Same amount LCS appearances as the Yankees. Actually won a World Series which NY & LA (as of this week) havent won. Nobody has dynastied & won 2 titles during this stretch. Goes to show how important 2016 was. Great organizations like LA, NY, and CLE are still shutout of rings during this stretch. It sucks the waves and waves & dynasty didnt happen but hard to give Theo anything but an A for this stretch of consistent good with a few years of great baseball. Right. What are we measuring against? The Cubs’ history? This was the best multi-year stretch of Cubs baseball since the 1930s at worst. The best of anyone’s lifetimes unless you’re in your 90s, and even then we could argue the point - those 20s/30s Cubs went to 4 WSs, but never won one. Measured against other teams during the same time frame? No one won more World Series. The Dodgers, the gold standard during this time frame still don’t have theirs. The Royals have fallen apart and are rebuilding. The Nats finally got theirs and immediately followed up with a losing season. The Yankees haven’t won with their most recent crop of talent. The Indians are still searching for their first win. The Astros cheated to get their win and had a losing season this year. The Red Sox cheated to get their win and have been awful ever since. The Brewers lucked into a couple playoff appearances, but were never particularly good. The Cardinals seem to be stuck perpetually at above average. Am I forgetting anyone? I’d rather be the Dodgers going forward, but I wouldn’t trade the Cubs’ last 6 seasons for anyone else’s.

Taijuan Walker is another free agent starting pitcher that I haven’t seen mentioned yet. Only 28 and had a nice (60 game) season this year. But has significant injury history, only pitching 14 innings in 18-19 combined. That said, I just don’t see Stroman being THAT pricey. Looking at other pitchers contracts from 2019, he’s not getting a Wheeler/MadBum contract. I’d assume Stroman would be getting less than Ryu (4 years, $80MM) and more than Kyle Gibson (3 years, $28MM with incentives). There’s a lot of space in there, but is 3 years and $45MM reasonable? I don’t think you’re getting two of those other guys - Gauseman, Paxton, Ray, Richards, Minor - for that price. I think Odorrizzi - who took the 1 year qualifying offer last year - will be pretty comparable, maybe slightly cheaper, and I’d be perfectly happy if he were the guy instead of Stroman.