YearofDaCubs

I love David Carr. I think he's a great talent. I'd love him on the Bears, but I would never in a million years pay him that salary and trade the talent it would take to get him. Seems like a 3rd or 4th rounder might be all it takes, which isn't that steep (though JA's 3rd rounders are gold). Trade a 3rd rounder for Carr, then ship off Rex or Griese for a late draft pick to make up for it. Rex would probably be easier to ship off, with Griese's contract lasting 4 more years and Grossman's just one. Plus, we'd have to open up #8 for Carr ;) I'd take Boller over Carr for a 3rd rounder IMO. Why? When Boller first started out he was plain terrible but this year he played very well when McNair was out but was mediocre last year. He's got potential. But over Carr if the draft picks were equal? Tough decision. One thing I will give Carr is he really never had a line to protect him. Both IMO have potential. I would personally go with Boller but to be honest I'd be happy with either to compete against Grossman. I don't like Griese or Orton. Both supposedly can be had for 3rd rounders which isn't bad.

I love David Carr. I think he's a great talent. I'd love him on the Bears, but I would never in a million years pay him that salary and trade the talent it would take to get him. Seems like a 3rd or 4th rounder might be all it takes, which isn't that steep (though JA's 3rd rounders are gold). Trade a 3rd rounder for Carr, then ship off Rex or Griese for a late draft pick to make up for it. Rex would probably be easier to ship off, with Griese's contract lasting 4 more years and Grossman's just one. Plus, we'd have to open up #8 for Carr ;) I'd take Boller over Carr for a 3rd rounder IMO. Why? When Boller first started out he was plain terrible but this year he played very well when McNair was out but was mediocre last year. He's got potential.

I love David Carr. I think he's a great talent. I'd love him on the Bears, but I would never in a million years pay him that salary and trade the talent it would take to get him. Seems like a 3rd or 4th rounder might be all it takes, which isn't that steep (though JA's 3rd rounders are gold). Trade a 3rd rounder for Carr, then ship off Rex or Griese for a late draft pick to make up for it. Rex would probably be easier to ship off, with Griese's contract lasting 4 more years and Grossman's just one. Plus, we'd have to open up #8 for Carr ;) I'd take Boller over Carr for a 3rd rounder IMO.

I'm pretty sure it was Chris Harris. I remember him talking to peanut after that play.

Anybody with access can summarize for us?

Boy did he screw the pooch last night. Awful coaching job. Agreed. He was truly terrible.

I have no problem with a Grossman/Griese competition in camp next year. I can't imagine any Bear fans would. Basically there should be competition at every position no matter what. Why not? Your stars should be able to win their jobs easily, and any marginal players need the motivation to get better. I think Grossman should get the upper hand, but there should be some level of competition for the job. I like how the coaching staff stuck with Rex this entire year. That was probably essential for his development. But now it's time for that development to turn into results. Grossman is better than Griese but that isn't saying much. I think it's time for new players at the position via trade or draft.

I've supported Grossman ever since he was drafted and after last night's performance I am officially done with him. We need safety, CB, and more importantly QB help for next year.

At this point, it's all but guaranteed there will be some rain during the game. There are some light showers at the stadium. http://image.weather.com/web/radar/us_mia_ultraradar_plus_usen.jpg I think this will be an advantage to us. Let's hope so :)

I was in Miami this AM and it was already raining down there. According to the news out there there's a really good chance this will be the first Super Bowl played in the rain.

Gasol not playing today. injury or trade? hmm

Who would you guys rather have Weaver or Marquis?

I don't know what Lou will provide us but I'm one happy person to see Baker out of here. The guy that past couple of years was terrible.

Push. Yeah, I tend to agree. If someone has a edge here, it's probably pretty slight. I would have to agree-the RB's are dead even. Maybe I'm being a homer, but I think the Bears RBs are better...but thats not taking a lot away from the Colts RBs who I think are good. I think Jones and Addai are about a push, but I think Benson is better then Rhodes Everyone is certainly entitled to their opinion, but there's no way IMHO to definitively judge the RB duos of the game, especially since Addai was used progressively through the season. Both duos had a great regular season and have been solid in the postseason. As big of a fan of Addai as I am right now, I'd say the RB matchup is as even of any matchup in the SB. Addai was a really good pickup for you guys. YOu guys didn't lose much getting rid of Edge.

Tell that to Maddux.

He fielded a contender in '03 with less than a $100M payroll that wasn't heavily backloaded. He then improved upon that team by trading Choi for Lee and acquiring Garciaparra (and Murton) while giving up basically nothing. But injuries to their two star pitchers (that had just completed fully healthy seasons the year before) caused the Cubs to fall just short despite a rapidly declining superstar (.253/.332/.517) in the middle of their line-up. Its not easy to stay in contention while your highest paid player is whithering into a has been right before your eyes, but Hendry managed to keep the Cubs in the playoff hunt in '04 finishing just 3 games out. He re-signed Garciaparra for '05 giving the Cubs their best infield in my lifetime while doing only an okay job of replacing Sosa on the fly. Sosa was declining so fast and was so expensive that, as hard as it may seem, Hendry actually improved the team by acquiring Burnitz over holding onto Sosa. But then Garciaparra got injured very early on and, once again, Wood and Prior got injured and underperformed. That plus Hendry's continuing inability to provide a good enough back up plan for those guys did in the Cubs playoff chances in '05. All that must be taken into consideration when you look at the amount of money the Cubs had to spend. Did Hendry make mistakes? Yes. Do all GMs? Yes. Did Hendry take gambles that didn't work out because of injuries? Yes. Did Hendry have some pretty major injuries to some pretty expensive players? Yes. Did he have his most expensive player plummet after a decent season in '03? Yes. All of those factors effectively lower the Cubs payroll for those two seasons. If we are to be fair and accurate, we must take that into consideration. It wasn't a sure thing that Wood, Prior and Garciaparra would get injured. If they hadn't, it seems logical that the Cubs may have performed like a 90-95 million dollar team should. Don't you think? I will never forgive Hendry for not trading for a relief pitcher or closer before the trade deadline in 04. That is what did us in, and of course Baker boy not trying anybody in the closer's role over Hawkins when a monkey could tell a change needed to be made at closer in that year.

There are two big problems with your graph. One is that you are calling 2002 a "Hendry year" and its totally not. He was signed as GM in July of that year and had little time to alter the make up of the team for the 2nd half of the season. It is really unfair to hold Hendry responsible for any of the team's results in '02. That roster was fully set before he took control. The first chance he really had to put his stamp on the team was the '02-'03 off season, and we all know what happened the following year. But I don't hold him solely responsible for getting the Cubs in the playoffs that year. A lot of things went right that he couldn't possibly have been directly responsible for. Which brings us to the second problem with your graph. It uses the win/loss record as the sole judge of a GM. So many other factors go into whether a team wins or not than just the make up of the 40-man roster. A GM could put together the greatest roster ever and if enough season-ending injuries happen to enough great players, that team will also finish with 66 wins. Extenuating circumstances must be factored in. Last season was a disaster, not so much because of the decisions Hendry made, (the Pierre trade wasn't good) but because of the onslaught of major injuries to the team's best players and some really poor performances by others who had previously performed much better. It's wrong to blame him for everything that happened in '06. Just like it would be wrong to fully credit him for getting the Cubs into the playoffs in '03. The Cubs got on a roll, got some good luck, had guys stay healthy all year. Hendry helped bring about the result in '03, but I think he actually did more in '04 with the additions of Lee and Garciaparra along with a full season from Ramirez. Those moves allowed the Cubs to stay in contention even with Sosa declining sharply in the middle of their line-up. To be fair and accurate, Hendry's win/loss record looks more like this: 4 years prior to Hendry: 67 wins in '99 65 wins in '00 88 wins in '01 67 wins in '02 4 years with Hendry: 88 wins in '03 89 wins in '04 79 wins in '05 66 wins in '06 And to better understand those win totals, one must also include the extenuating factors each year, both the good (like career years) and the bad (like major injuries to major players). I disagree on some points. I blame Hendry for yet again relying on Prior and Wood to be healthy. He should have taken the approach he did this offseason and stacked the SP a bit. Our offense was bad. Yeah, when Lee was healthy we were above .500 but so what, exactly how long were we above .500 for? I don't remember how many games we played at that point but it wasn't many and we need to finish 162 of them to see the finished product. Even if Lee was healthy and our offense was decent our SP was horrible.

Rusch had one good year with us and then reverted to his career numbers. There is no need to waste any space on him when we could easily replace him with a minor leaguer. I wish him the best in the future and hope he has nothing to do with the Cubs.

He's so solid, despite his age. You can trace the turnaround of the Bears back to when Angelo acquired Tait, Brown, and Freddy Miller. Before that we had trouble blocking anyone. There's no doubt having a good line is one of the most important aspects of having a good offense. It just means so much to the QB and RB.

The big difference is that Rex did that in a 16 game season, his first full season, when you would expect some bad games. Marquis did it in a 33 game schedule, giving him much more of a chance to allow his better games to offset bad games. He also did that 6 games into a career that has had 2 other terrible seasons. Plus, a pitcher's numbers are a far greater indication of exactly what he did than a QB's numbers. QB's numbers depend heavily on what his players do. A pitcher's numbers depend on his defense to an extent, but it's much more of a 1 on 1 battle between pitcher and hitter. The QB is facing 11 opponents trying to stop him and needs the help of 10 teammates. You already admitted it's clear somebody else is the worst on the list. When we already know the answer, the only point in asking the question again is because you want to stir controversy. The "bad Rex" story sells, and the media loves it. They don't want decent Rex. And the only people who would actually think Rex was the worst are people too stupid to understand the truth. No, I only posted some of my analysis because two people made the statements that he doesn't deserve to be on the list with those other QB's, and that this season is better than those other QB's better seasons in their career. I refuted both of those-but he is most definitely not the worst. He deserves to be on the list of the 5 or 10 worst ever, but he's not the worst-that is clear. I would agree with you on the pitcher analogy, but only to say that a pitcher relies on a manager to limit the damage to his numbers like a QB relies on the other 10 people on the field. LaRussa did nothing to limit the damage to Marquis's numbers, and I'm not sure if the Bears did anything to try to limit the damage in his bad games or not. The problem I have with adding Grossman of the list is his lack of experience. The guy is young and just completed his first full season, to me it just shows injustice to put him on the list.

It's unbelievable... Look at the names on that list. It's ridiculous. Yet, some people would still have you think that there is no national media bias against the Bears. What a ridiculous poll. Grossman hasn't even played in the Super Bowl yet. Let's see how he does before we make him into the worst SB QB ever.

I don't think Hendry will make too many more tweaks to our roster other than what we see now. I think he wants to go into the season with a solid BP. Odd that we have 3 lefties in Ohman, Cotts, and Eyre but who knows. We have depth at SP this year IMO, and it seems like our offense is set. Soriano to CF, Floyd and Murton to LF, and Jones in RF(I would love to see a platoon for Jones, it would make this offense so much more efficient). The infield is also set with Theriot being the backup there. Aside from maybe trading one of our RP lefties I don't see much else being tweaked.

Let's hope it happens..

Crap, don't know why i had Izzy listed as a DT in that scenario. He'd be back at the ends with Tommie and Dusty back. I'm not sure what Scott's free agent status is (RFA or UFA), but I'd like them to keep him if it's not too costly. Without a doubt, I want Ian back. He gives them a different look at DT than guys like Tommie and Tank. Ian was very solid last year when he was starting over Tank. He's a keeper IMO. We can live without Boone.