hawkeyecub

Bama Boise Illinois Georgia

It was a great article and very informative - and I'm not even a Bears fan. It actually reminded me of a show on ESPN that I used to watch all the time called - I think - "NFL Playbook" or something like that. It was a 30-minute show with, usually, Merrill Hodge and Ron Jaworski breaking down different plays from games as a means of previewing upcoming games (for instance, if the Bears played the Titans, they'd break down how Cutler might attack the Tennessee secondary based on how the teams had run plays previously). It might've been the best show on ESPN, but it was on at like midnight or 1 a.m. I haven't seen it in some time, though. NFL Matchup? That might be it. It had Hodge, Jaworski and Suzy Kolber (I think) hosting it. Yeah...it's NFL Matchup. If you wanna stay up till all hours of the night it's still on sometimes...or at least it was last year I think. How are you a-holes not watching this in the age of dvr's? Yes it's still on. Used to be Edge NFL matchup, then EA had the sponsor and it's been State Farm for a few years. The airtimes it gets and the fact that it has a sponsor in the show's title obviously means they don't believe it will draw ratings but it's been on 12-15 years or more. For a few years it's been Sal Paolantonio, Jaws and Hoge. And yeah it's probably the best show on ESPN. It airs something like 1 a.m. on Sunday and then again at 6:30 central. I always set a season pass for it on my dvr and then watch it instead of the network pre-game shows at 11 or 11:30. I highly recommend you all do the same.

I could see that, but I doubt the Bears will send a 3rd round pick to the practice squad, and outside of Hester, Knox is the only potential down field threat on the Bears. I think both make the team, now Rideau on the other hand is a different story. Iglesias wouldn't clear waivers to make it to the practice squad.

So only the last 5 teams on the schedule were able to be successful with the adjustment? Something much better defenses and more celebrated coaches weren't able to do just 1-3 weeks prior? Come on, he broke down physically. He had a torn biceps which you want to eliminate from the equation for some reason. Now if you want to argue that he's likely to break down physically again because he's 40, I'm with you. But this stuff about defenses finally catching on and him/Jets not being able to react sounds way off base. He torched good defenses on the road in weeks 11 and 12. They had 10 weeks worth of film on him and knew what he was doing just as well as the last 4 teams did. And they had better coaches and better players to be able to carry out the plan. I believe you meant to say 1 good year out of 4. In '04 he completed 64% for nearly 4,100 yards, 30 TD's, 17 INT's and he was nearly that good in '03. From 2001-2009 he's had 2 bad seasons which were '05 and '06. '01, '03, '04 and '07 were great. '02 was average and '08 was below average. What he did 8 years ago isn't relevant, I'm just giving you the numbers. The thing is the Vikings don't need him to be a savior or difference-maker like the Bears are with Cutler. We have a top 5 running game and a very good chance at a top 5 defense. Favre of '08 would be an improvement over what we got last year when they won 10 games. Dinking and dunking like he did Monday would be a huge improvement. If he accepts that this is Adrian's team with a great defense and defers like Elway did in '98 he'll be fine. He says he understands that now but his ego may be too big for that. Then again Elway was pretty high on himself also. Who knows, we'll see.

I mentioned the point made in the bolded earlier in the thread. Favre was getting TONS of YAC last year, 2nd or 3rd most in the league among qualifiers. I don't know that it's accurate to blame it on the Jets speed so much as it might be that Favre doesn't have the quite have the deep accuracy anymore. Either way, it points to the idea that it may have been more of an adjustment by teams playing against him than the injury (a bit of both, certainly) that caused him to turn the ball over like crazy toward the end of the season. LOL wait, a "former NFL quarterback and current NFL analyst" had to remain anonymous for this report? They spent two paragraphs on the concept of extrapolating his sack totals in less than 4 quarters over a 16 game season. It's also panic time in Detroit because Matthew Stafford's play this preseason would put him on pace for 48 interceptions this season. He's a bust! He was playing with a torn biceps down the stretch and that's factual. His breakdown could have been due to an adjustment. I would just wonder why it took them 12 games to make the adjustment and why a few of the best defenses in the league couldn't figure it out with so much film. If it was that easy to recognize and that easy to make an adjustment and shut down, it doesn't take NFL coaching staffs and good defenses 12 games to figure out. In week 11 he went into New England and went 26-33 for 258, 2 TD's and 0 INT's. In week 12 he went into Tennessee and went 25-32 for 228, 2 TD's and 1 INT. Belichick and Schwartz weren't able to figure it out and their defenses weren't good enough to make the adjustment but the putrid bunches in Denver and Seattle were? Come on now.

Of course Favre is more likely to get injured. As I've said many times on this board, I think there's only a 1-2 game difference in the regular season between Favre and Sage. I've also said best case scenario is he plays a solid 10-12 games, gets knocked out for a few weeks and then comes back refreshed for the playoff run. I'm not throwing Tarvaris under the bus at all. He had 2 below average games to start (0-2) and 3 really good games to finish before being lousy in the playoffs where they went 2-1. What I was saying was they went 8-3 despite having terrible QB play with Gus. Worse than Tarvaris, worse than Favre was last year, worse than Sage. He was awful and special teams were awful. They won with an underrated, top 6-8 defense and a top 5 running game. I don't see what I'm being unrealistic about. I essentially put the Vikings, Bears and Packers all in the same window with the Vikings being the favorite. Which echoes what Vegas and many analysts are saying. I already clarified that I misused the term "floor" and didn't mean that was worst case scenario. I had the Bears "floor" at 9 wins which also isn't truly the case. Just the windows where I currently see the 3 teams' win totals ending. Anyways, not trying to hijack a Bears thread with a Vikings-centric discussion, we can do that in the NFL thread if you want.

C'mon, worst case scenario is 10 wins for the Vikings? How how the heck is the Vikings FLOOR as many wins as they had last year? So if the Williams Wall gets suspended 4 games, Favre's frail body causes him an injury that affects his performance like it has 2 of the last 3 seasons (and is too stubborn to sit bc of his streak, and has too much pull to forcibly be sat down), and Harvin has as little impact as 90% of rookie receivers have, they are still winning 10 games? That's awful homerism on your part. Ask a Packers fan how good they were last year and how many wins they ended up with to find out how wrong you are. Personally, I'd say Vikings 6-11 wins, Bears 7-12 wins and Packers 6-12 wins. As much as I hate the Packers, I think if a good amount of things go well for them they have slightly the highest upside although I'm not necessarily making them the favorites. And that's not me hating on your Vikings either, they have a really good team if Favre can play well (big IF), even if not they have a good enough team to make the playoffs/win division. I didn't phrase that correctly. Clearly I don't mean that worst case scenario for the Vikings is 10 wins, nor did I mean worst case scenario for the Bears is 9 wins. What I was trying to say is that as things stand right now, I see the Vikings between 10-12 wins, Bears between 9-11 and Packers 8-10. Without foreseeing bad things happening to Cutler, Rodgers, Favre, Forte, Peterson, Jennings, Briggs, Allen, Jennings, Woodson, Kampmann, Winfield, Olsen, Urlacher, Williams', etc. As to your points about the Vikings... The Williams' case is almost certainly postponed until after the season. Favre of last year was still much better than what the Vikings got at QB. If he gets knocked out I'm more comfortable with Sage/Tarvaris of this year than Gus/Tarvaris of last year. If Percy doesn't have an impact we have the same receiving corps as last year. He may not be DeSean Jackson of last year, but with the amount of plays they've drawn up just for him he'll have more than a little impact in my opinion. The defense was top 8 last year with a collection of street free agents playing MLB after E.J. Henderson's injury. Getting him and our top special teams player (and his backup) back after missing nearly all of last season, they have a good shot at being a legit top 5 defense in the league. Add that to a top 5 running game and Favre/whoever just has to be slightly better than Gus was.

Paki probably won't be the starter for more than a couple games and isn't really white. If you were talking about Wegher... If the guy is 4*'s, ranked a top 15 back in the country and has offers to play RB from Auburn, Penn State, Mizzou, Texas Tech, Kansas, Wisconsin, Arkansas and a boatload of mid-level schools, I don't think I have a problem with it.

Lilly wasn't supposed to be running.

I vote for http://www.michiganavemag.com/images/MA_SP09_100_NEW3.jpg His face looks like someone is wearing a "fatter Jay Cutler mask" or like it was just stung by several bees. No, he's just fat: http://www.nflminute.com/wp-content/uploads/jay-cutler-bears.jpg Yeah he just has a really, really fat face. I don't get the fat mask comment. He actually has somewhat of a jawline in that GQ picture.

Last year's SI preview: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/football/nfl/specials/preview/2008/09/02/predictions/ None of their 9 guys had the Steelers or Cardinals in the Championship game, much less the Super Bowl. 4 of the MVP votes went to Welker, Hasselback, Romo and LT. Everyone had the Chiefs with the worst record except 2 votes for the Falcons and Ravens. I have the Vikings with a floor of 10 wins, ceiling of 12. Bears between 9-11 and Packers between 8-10. But I have no effing clue.

I think we're screwed. As long as the interior of the line is as good as I think it can be, it won't be much of an issue. The tackles should be slightly improved even. There's a ton of depth and experience on the interior. Jewel came out of nowhere last year as a 2-star true freshman who only had MAC offers and had a really nice complimentary year. You know what you'll be getting with Paki, a steady guy who will probably make the correct blitz pickups, hang on to the ball and get his 4 ypc. Robinson is still fairly unknown to me but apparently has been somewhat impressive. Brinson should be solid when he gets back healthy and if Wegher can handle all of the other responsibilities, he may be the best pure runner. The talent is there, especially with those last two. Brinson has offers from Florida State, Michigan State, Okie State, Kansas and others. Wegher had offers from Auburn, Penn State, Mizzou, Nebraska, Texas Tech, Wisconsin, Kansas.... I'm more worried about the other CB spot with Bernstine's injury. I'm in agreement with you on the RB's, I just hope one or two of them step up. As for the CB's, I'm not that worried with Castillo, Prater, and Hyde all being possibilities. It's the only really question mark on the defense though, which is nice. I think Prater will be the guy when he gets back from suspension and he was fairly impressive last year for a true freshman. Castillo and Hyde are just really young and have zero experience. I think Willie Lowe might start on Saturday. CB is just a different animal than RB. We don't put our corners on an island much but when we have a weak link there, they get picked on underneath all day. RB is an instinctive position where experience doesn't matter much and should have the benefit of a very good o-line.

I think we're screwed. As long as the interior of the line is as good as I think it can be, it won't be much of an issue. The tackles should be slightly improved even. There's a ton of depth and experience on the interior. Jewel came out of nowhere last year as a 2-star true freshman who only had MAC offers and had a really nice complimentary year. You know what you'll be getting with Paki, a steady guy who will probably make the correct blitz pickups, hang on to the ball and get his 4 ypc. Robinson is still fairly unknown to me but apparently has been somewhat impressive. Brinson should be solid when he gets back healthy and if Wegher can handle all of the other responsibilities, he may be the best pure runner. The talent is there, especially with those last two. Brinson has offers from Florida State, Michigan State, Okie State, Kansas and others. Wegher had offers from Auburn, Penn State, Mizzou, Nebraska, Texas Tech, Wisconsin, Kansas.... I'm more worried about the other CB spot with Bernstine's injury.

I think they meant last night was the highest rated preseason game ever on ESPN and the highest rated preseason game on any network since '96.

Likely. I think it was to keep expectations down and have an excuse if he didn't play well. He was basically telling local media earlier in the week not to expect a great, smooth showing.

I think people are getting a little dramatic with it. If it wasn't Favre no one is talking about it today. In almost every game there are crackbacks similar to that by WR's and TE's. You're supposed to make contact at the hip or higher. He hit him in the thigh and fell into his knee. If it was behind the line of scrimmage it would have been legal anyways. It was 1.5 yards downfield. It was a penalty and was rightly called. It was dumb for the coaches to have him blocking especially in a preseason game. But all of the dirty play, cheap shot, "threatening someone's career" stuff is just over the top.

Favre fascination is nuts...

Is there any non-Viking fan that doesn't think this will end like it did last year for Favre? Worst case scenario is he gets injured but plays through it and is bad like he was down the stretch last year. Best case scenario is he plays well the first 10-12 games like last year, has to miss a few weeks and is able to come back for the playoff run refreshed. Who knows how it will end. The odds are pretty good that he's going to break down at some point or get banged up. Then again he has the streak and will probably throw the ball less this year than any point in his career. He's a little more than a year older than Elway was when he won his last Super Bowl by accepting a reduced role on a loaded team. Nothing between disaster and deep playoff run would really surprise me.

I just hope for the Packers fans sake that the GB isn't peaking in preseason football. I'm not going to get too excited but there's no reason the offense shouldn't continue to produce in the regular season. Our air attack is pretty stacked and Grant's in-shape this year. Basically, this really hasn't changed what I thought of this team even before these preseason games. If our defense can just be average this year, we're going to be pretty good. I'm more worried about Green Bay than Chicago. Mainly because I just don't know what to make of that defense. They could make a huge jump and be really good or it could be a rough transition and make minimal improvement at best. They have talent over there. Offensively the passing game should be awesome, I'm just not real high on their o-line and am not sold on Grant. He had a big year in a part-time role and last year couldn't average 4 ypc or get 5 TD despite having over 300 carries in an offense where the passing game opened some things up.

Thanks for posting that. Assists are notoriously inflated. Chris Paul averaged 1.5 more assists and .5 more steals while playing 1.2 fewer minutes at home. Deron Williams averaged 1.4 more assists at home, playing 2.4 fewer minutes. The previous year he also averaged 1.4 more assists at home. Don't have the percentages right now though.

For some reason, I'm missing this whole "accusing people of racism thing". The only thing regarding race that I saw come from him the last few days was where a reporter asked him if the "hate" he feels is because of racism and he had a somewhat smart-ass response of something like, "This country doesn't believe in racism." I don't get what is so horrible about this. Bradley has said some stupid things the last few days, but I haven't heard him accuse Cubs fans of being racist. Yep, as I said earlier it's standard hideous troll rumor mongering. If anyone actually read the article by Sullivan with an open mind they'd see that it was Sullivan baiting him and Bradley answering with the "country doesn't believe in racism" line. This stupid [expletive] knew he struck it rich when the Cubs signed Bradley because he could bait him into something innoccuous which obviously the other morons will run with to paint Bradley in a bad light. I know it didn't work out well for Hawkins, but I think I would've encouraged Bradley to not talk to the media. Go ahead and do the after game on the field interviews, hold after win pressers at the table, but don't let these bitter [expletive] goad you into being hated. SSR I usually agree with you. I agree that Sullivan is a putz. I also am in the minority that doesn't hate Bradley now. But the guy is acting like a complete asshat and to put so much blame on the media baiting him is just off base. He's bringing this all upon himself.

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/video/20590420/index.html Brandon Marshall is a douche of the highest order. Do they not have anyone on that roster that will put him in his place. Jay Cutler would probably have tried to stab him by now if he were still there. I can't possibly imagine this happening with the Ravens, Steelers, Patriots, Colts, Vikings, Packers, Bears, Eagles, 49ers, Titans, Jags, etc. McDaniels is either going to surprise the hell out of everyone or be a complete disaster. And I would put about an 80% chance on the latter.

What a fine decision Mitch Mustain made.

The thing about a story like that is there's no way of proving it or disproving it. The local reporters and the other people ESPN have had stationed out there haven't said anything about it, but if Schefter reports it, there's really no way to dispute it. Tarvaris probably does have a lot of supporters and friends. He's been there 3 years and a 25 year old black dude fits in a lot better in an NFL locker room than a 40 year old white guy who came in late. It's a good story but like the Cutler/Urlacher story, it's pretty irrelevant. The more vocal T-Jack supporters heading into camp were defensive guys. The receivers, TE's and OL have been the guys giddy about his arm and reads in practice and saying the huddle is now completely different. If Favre wins no one will care and everyone will be on his side. If he's bad he was going to lose support anyways.

And after he just made that "keep talking" gesture after crossing home plate tonight this topic won't be going away. I like Milton. I think he's a little unbalanced, overly sensitive and plays the victim too often. But he plays hard, is a pretty smart player and always seemed to be well liked by teammates. Plus it's always good to throw a crazy a-hole into the mix of a bunch of nice guys. Just realize that complaining about the fans and making a gesture like that will only make it worse for yourself with the fans and media. If you really don't give a [expletive], cool. But he obviously does.