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Hairyducked Idiot

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Everything posted by Hairyducked Idiot

  1. They've been in charge more than 5 years. Their actual average is 84-win baseball. Which, given their financial advantages, I think a C+ is plenty generous.
  2. categorizing 2015, 16, 17, and 18 all as "mission accomplished" doesn't exactly make things look a whole lot worse. and the WS isn't entirely irrelevant insofar as it was ostensibly (at least partially) a result of being good enough to make it in over and over...even if it was in year 2 of that stretch. Three years of tanking, four years of making it, back to mediocrity. With their payroll advantages, that’s like a C+
  3. Reminder that playoffs are crapshoots and that winning a WS is incredibly important to how much fun we had but irrelevant to measuring the quality of the front office’s performance.
  4. This is a pretty good let the MF’er burn the hell down for a few years plan. Certainly no half measures, which probably is a good thing. Pick a lane go full measures instead of being stuck in the middle. I dont get the blow it up plans. The whole tanking till 2015 was to build a core (supposedly save $ during the tank) then use that saved $ to pay that badass core. So when this team thats averaged 94 wins.per season cost controlled core comes to FA finally then its time.for Ricketts to payup.. The point of tanking to build a core was that Epstein was bored in Boston and wanted to tank somewhere and build a core.
  5. Effingham is super Catholic and more backwater (it’s small-town Illinois so it’s all really backwater, but there are still degrees). Mattoon is basically part of Charleston so you’ve at least got some of the highs and lows of a college town to keep things interesting.
  6. I lived there for a couple of years and I can promise you it is absolutely not. did da bum take you house there and make you move? That was North Dakota with Katie Pizza
  7. I lived there for a couple of years and I can promise you it is absolutely not.
  8. I see that Pass Block Win rate stat posted a lot of places to defend Leno. Just because someone comes up with some unverifiable list of numbers doesn’t mean we have to believe it. But he isn’t terrible in pass blocking. Not great, but not terrible. It’s run blocking where he becomes completely worthless.
  9. Bears needs for next offseason. Mandatory (players is either gone by FA or a certain cut): S, ILB, TE, interior OL), depth TE, depth ILB, depth DL, QB2. Positions you'd like to upgrade or might see a current starter become a cap casualty: OLB, CB, WR3 (I'd put RB2 here but I know most people wouldn't. I'd love a normal, rotational back to split time with Montgomery and let Cohen focus on returns, long downs and gimmick plays). Positions you'd upgrade in a perfect world but there's almost no chance you can afford it via draft capital or cap space, given how long the above list is: OT, QB1 I don't see either Massie or Leno going anywhere.
  10. I always thought some (not all) of those bad throws were him overexaggerating the "put it where only my receiver has a chance" thing.
  11. I was promised a manic desire to start the offseason with trades.
  12. I'd be pissed, though I'm sure it would please some people. I just have a feeling Merrifield is already declining and could collapse sooner than later. I really, really have to start researching Cubs prospects again. This deal sounds awesome to me, but that's because I've never even heard of these two guys. When I read the first sentence, I had no idea which side was the players we were getting and which side was the players we already had.
  13. Smith's replacement was softer against the run but might have been better against the pass, which is fine because running doesn't matter.
  14. I'm still just not sure what to make of that game. Where did that come from and where was it all year? My favorite part was Trubisky just firing balls confidently into tight spaces. All season he's been scared to pass to wide open receivers, and then suddenly last night he was almost Cutler-eqsue in his ability to thread windows between multiple defenders. My second favorite part is all these random dudes showing up and performing reasonably well replacing hurt veterans. It's probably too late for this season, but I'm willing to reign in the doom boner for 2020 a little. A *little*.
  15. Where did this come from?
  16. I’m not sure how I feel about the offense becoming competent when injuries forced out some of the dead weight. I guess that’s a good thing, but why didn’t our coaching staff notice these guys are better?
  17. The defense is still really good, it's just not "drag you to a championship" good, whereas at times last year it looked like it might be. Just like I think Mack is still one of the top-10 defensive players in the league, but I don't think he's *as* good as he was the last few years.
  18. Nah, they're incredibly overrated. On average, fans especially but even teams fall victim to optimism bias when projecting out young players. Athletes fall apart at a way higher rate than we are comfortable baking into our projections. Having them under non-guaranteed team control >>>> owing them guaranteed deals.
  19. Is there any evidence that there are these kinds of team makeup effects on Pythagorean variance, or is it ad hoc theorycrafting?
  20. Manic is exactly what I want to hear. Trades just for the sake of making trades. Stop being boring. Gut that roster. http://swansonquotes.com/wp-content/uploads/s02-ep24-slashit4-1000x500.jpg
  21. “Bears can still make the playoffs” is fun for scenario nerds, but they aren’t winning out. 2-2 would be a miracle. Every single team left on the schedule is significantly better than them.
  22. Montgomery lacks the breakaway speed to be an elite runner, but I'm pretty happy with him as part of a rotation for the next few years. He's shifty, he hits holes decisively and he powers through for extra yards. His blitz pickup has improved as the season has gone on, too. This is just a really bad situation for a running back. The offensive line is really bad at run-blocking (contrasting with their pass blocking, which is just pretty bad). The run play design is aggressively bad and refuses to work with the personnel at all. I can't get over how they can run out of the I formation once or twice, look really decent at it, then laugh and say "Whelp, never doing that again this game, the next 10 run plays will either be gimmicks or ask the guards to make pulling blocks they are physically incapable of." Weird thought from Sunday's game: I thought that was the best Trubisky has ever looked in the pocket. He was actually sliding subtly away from pressure instead of either ignoring it or sprinting away from it, and he was reacting quickly but without taking his eyes off downfield. I think his hip hurt too much to do his stupid bunny hop or drift backwards.
  23. While the Bears are far from an enviable position, the NFL is weird enough and there is enough talent still that a major rebuild seems silly. They're gonna have to role a few dice in areas, but even good teams are often patchworking solutions somewhere. They just need to identify a better glue to hold their fraying patches together. Also they have to hope guys like Leno and Burton are more "fluky bad season" than they are "stick a fork in them" ' I generally don't believe in rebuilds. I believe that if you're bad enough to need one, you're bad enough to try your best and fail anyway, it'll work out on its own. I think the Bears are gonna try their best in 2020 and fail miserably. No harm in trying, though, as long as you don't let Pace go crazy trading picks again.
  24. The 2020 Bears will almost certainly be less talented, because life is a decaying march to death and everyone in the NFL just gets more beat up and bad the more football they play. You need a steady flow of fresh, talented bodies that they can't provide because of their missing draft picks, and if you bring in a QB who is definitely better than Trubisky you're going to have to weaken the starters at several other positions by either cutting guys or signing equal replacements for your UFAs. But don't mind me, I'm just doom bonering.
  25. 3 division titles and 1 WS championship in 19 years is pretty close to exactly average.
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