Magnetic Curses

kaplan is a demagogue. he's the exact opposite of dan bernstein, whom i love.

Definitely not. All those guys have graduated to the Blackhawks. And this is one reason why I think that Bowman will trade some of Barker, Sharp, Versteeg, Bufyglien, and Ladd for picks and young talent. exactly. people are acting like those players are just going to disappear. well, those players will have multiple buyers, meaning that the hawks, though somewhat over-a-barrel in terms of the salary cap, will have options and won't have to dump those players for nothing. great teams sign their stars and shuffle their good players in and out for other good players. if they draft well and/or are able to routinely extract younger versions of versteeg, barker, buff, etc from other teams, this will be a dynasty.

Keep hoping, there, champ

me, too. but not as a backup. he'd be great to split carries 50/50.

i agree. martz just runs a more complicated and larger version of the turner system. i don't think cutler's a good fit, as he's like the exact opposite of a martz qb. we ran enough 3-step drops this season and cutler doesn't make his progressions fast enough to prove to be very effective in it. the martz system also doesn't move the pocket or roll the quarterback out, which are cutler's strengths. cutler needs to be in a wide-open, non-restrictive system that plays to his arm-strength and athleticism while allowing him to develop in terms of recognizing defenses and changing protections. eventually, as he develops into his potential as a great quarterback in the league, the OC should have less and less of a role.

forgot that marinelli was assistant hc with us, too.

It's hard to say. College OC is not necessarily a direct route to NFL OC. After a few years as an NFL offensive assistant and one year as a college OC, QB coach on a team desperate for somebody to develop their star QB might be the best option to be a OC within a year or two, and possibly head coach even sooner. Unless he's getting a lot of calls from other teams for OC, this might be his best option. maybe offer him an assistant head coach/qb coach position like tampa did with marinelli.

bernstein is no rumor machine.

doing a quick web search, i found that he did indeed call plays in denver, but he also learned under jon shoop in tampa. eek.

Well this Bates guy may never have been an OC, but I'm reading that he called plays in Denver. I would take an unestablished high caliber guy over just another retread OC with experience. I'd prefer a guy who could legimately stand a chance at being the offensive guru this organization desperately needs for the next decade. Although I hope they look at that Pittsburgh guy as well, especially if he was really fired for being too pass-oriented and not enough Pittsburghish as was reported. interesting, i didn't know that bates called the plays in denver. that's cool.

Eh. I don't know. Weis' really isn't all that innovative. His offense is basically the West Coast offense with a few modifications. I think it'd be a lot more similar to Ron Turner's offense than most people would like. coryell vs erhardt, right? i'm not sure how the two systems break down.

i would just like to see an established coordinator who has been a pro OC before calling the plays. preferably, i'd like a guy who runs an offense that is suited to use the pass to set up the run. turner TRIED to do that this year, but it failed because his vanilla offense was outdated before he got fired at illinois.

Well of course. He doesn't get hit in practice. Yeah, a game speed pass rush that consistently cuts through your o-line like a hot knife through butter may cause re-evaluation. haha, yeah. "in practice, cutler was always making his reads and throwing the ball, but on gameday, he was all getting punched in the crotch and falling down and screaming in pain. what the [expletive]? [expletive] coach-killing sonofabitch."

does bates run a lot of shotgun/single back sets? i know he said that he was only going to employ the shotgun on third down at USC, but he ran more shotgun/spread/single back forms in denver.

he must have been changing the plays in the huddle then, because i've rarely seen him change plays at the line. i thought that was something he needs to work on, recognizing coverages and changing protections. it's something he doesn't do well to this point.

Weis >>>> Bates. it would be a typical bears hiring though. they only hire pro position coaches or college coaches/assistants without previous pro experience (unless it was with them in the same capacity) to fill their coordinator positions just like they always hire coordinators without previous pro head coaching experience to fill their hc position. they will never go for a big name, whether that's because of power/control issues or whatever.

no doubt, but he'll be back. maybe he'll get a high-major offer and he'll build recruiting inroads.

Yeah pretty much, although Weber's not stepping up for any other job. That depends a lot on how the next couple years play out. Bruce has been a head coach for 11 years coming into this year. During that time, he has 255 victories - 9th all time for the first 11 years of a coach's career. He also has a final four appearance, consecutive big 10 titles, two additional second place finishes in the big 10, and owns the highest winning percentage of any coach in big 10 history who has coached at least six seasons in the conference. So the foundation of the resume is pretty freaking solid. Let's say this team ends up doing reasonably well, but not spectacular. We'll get enough wins in the big 10 to get to the dance. The bottom of the conference is weak enough that we'll get there. I don't think we'll do much in the tournament unless: 1) paul & dj mature quickly, 2) dmac & davis start putting consistent effort forward throughout the game, 3) the overall defense improves. The expectations next year are going to be huge with the incoming class, a year of experience for DJ & Paul and the three senior anchors. If we were to get to final four or championship level, it is conceivable that Bruce would be in line at that point for a top five job if one opened up (UK, KU, UNC, UCLA, Duke). What works against Bruce is age. He's not going to be looked at as an up and coming coach that is using us as a stepping stone to greener pastures. However, I don't think it matters as I don't see any of those jobs opening up during the near future and I don't see any other program being enough of an upgrade over Illinois to get him to leave. I'd be much more concerned about someone hiring Howard away and hamstringing our recruiting efforts. It's great that Bruce latched onto him and is using his skills in recruiting, but he needs to start developing someone else, too, because Howard only has so long before he gets recruited elsewhere. howard is an illini grad, though, which is very important.

Jahri Evans. he'll do.

i think weis would be an awesome hire, but i thought turner would be a great hire and his was much the same situation.

i was freaking out over paul getting benched repeatedly for driving the basketball, apparently. and i hate lessons, especially when they're dumb lessons.

the cardinals won't be making enough money to justify running the team in the red. forbes has their operating income at 6.6 million, which probably means they already took a little bath on the season. and it isn't likely to change much anytime soon, at least not enough to spawn a 30+ mil jump in payroll. the cards are done in the transaction game for a while, unless they pull off some patented cardinal luck, i guess like they always do.

http://video.adultswim.com/sealab-2021/a-tale-of-two-debbies.html

fast-twitch muscle fibers

y'all done fucked up now, spongie.