ZoomSlowik

QUOTE(chimpy2121 @ Sep 5, 2005 -> 05:36 PM) Does anyone know how many rows are in the 100 level of Ryan Field (around like the 20-50 yard line)? I'm not 100% sure, but we're in like row 45 and we're not even close to the top.

QUOTE(CWSGuy406 @ Sep 3, 2005 -> 08:44 PM) Dan, will that game be on TV, and in-case a Cubs game is on WGN Radio, what station is the NU game on? Do you know? The game will be on ESPN Classic for some reason and 850 AM on the radio, whatever the hell that is. I'm looking forward to it. NU looked pretty good on offense even without their starting RB most of the game. Their lack of a pass rush and green secondary worry me though.

I still think there are at least a couple of other defenses that are worse. The Raiders don't impress me at all. Sapp and Washington could be good run stoppers, but neither can play end in a 3-4. The rest of the D looks brutal, except for maybe Danny Clark and Charles Woodson, although the latter plays well under his abilities. I'm still trying to figure out how Cleveland wasn't worse against the pass, but it's hard to argue against the numbers. I don't see much there outside of Baxter. The only thing I can think of is that they were so brutal against the run people didn't bother to throw. As I said, I don't buy the Rams' D at all. Little and Archuleta are the only ones I like, maybe Coakley and Tinoiasamoa. The rest of them look below average to me, except for Kennedy if he lives up to potential. The Colts are not stellar, but some of their guys aren't that bad. Freeney and Simon are excellent; June, Brock, and Mathis are all decent, and Doss, Sanders, and Jackson have potential. They're not world beaters, but they should slow teams down enough for the Colts to win (at least until Peyton starts looking like Rick Mirer against the Pats again).

God, looking at the Colts again I don't see much in the back 7. A couple guys look passable but that's about it. Still, with their pass rush I have a hard time seeing them being as bad as last year.

QUOTE(hammerhead johnson @ Sep 2, 2005 -> 12:50 PM) Those two would absolutely wreck shop in NFL Europe. It's not that the Colts haven't tried to accumulate some talent on defense. It's just that most of their draft picks in recent years have been duds. Just look at their LB and DB depth charts. In retrospect, letting go of Mike Peterson was retarded. Although, in fairness, they can't go out and sign many impact players on defense because all of their money is tied up in that offense. If I'm looking for super bowl contenders, I'll go with the most balanced, deepest teams on both sides of the ball. Right now, you have New England. Nobody else even comes close. I can't really argue with New England, although it seems that they'll struggle against the run more than in the past without Johnson and Bruschi. They still have Seymour, McGinest, Colvin, Vrabel, and Harrison though, and that offense is impressive with Dillon and Brady. I like the Ravens if Boller can be anywhere near decent. Their defense has all kinds of Pro-Bowl caliber players, and they have a couple of guys that can make some plays on offense. I also like Carolina because of that ridiculous defensive line and an offense that looks like it will do enough. The Jets look decent too if Pennington's shoulder holds up. It's hard to argue against the Steelers with their defense too. Even the Chiefs look to have an improved D. The Pats definitely seem to have better balance between their O/D than pretty much anyone.

The Ravens are the one example of a team in recent history that had a very good team with a sub-par QB (the 2001 Bears were very close to being 10-6 and lost in the playoffs, so I'm not counting them). However, their defense was stellar, and Jamal Lewis had a very good season. Our D is not as good as that Ravens unit, and we don't have a RB as reliable as Lewis. I fail to see how Jones, who has never rushed for 1,000 (a feat that 18 backs accomplished last year) and a rookie equates to a good running game. If he stays healthy (something he hasn't done) Jones might get that this year, but he is still nowhere near a top 10 back. Muhammad isn't a top 10 receiver either, especially not with our QB situation. He's only been over 1000 yards 3 times in 9 seasons, and only has 44 career TD's, even with that 16 spot last year. We've still got a long way to go on offense. As for the Colts, maybe I am a little optomistic about their D, but they finished 29 last year, added a Pro-Bowl calibur defensive tackle, get Bob Sanders back, and used their first two picks in the secondary. I could buy number 20, which is I guess lower than I said. Either way, they still made the playoffs with that horrendous D and I doubt the results change much. Hammer, some of the D's on that list don't thrill me much, like the Browns, St. Louis, and Tennessee, and the Vikings have some brutal LB's with only Williams impressing me on the line. Granted the Colts might not be better, but I don't think they're that far behind some of them. Edit- guess I did forget Tampa. Considering that Derrick Brooks scored more TD's than our #1 receiver last year, that D was obviously more impressive than ours. Plus Warrick Dunn and Mike Alstott gave them a better running game than we have.

There's a big difference between the dominance of the Colts' offense and the Bears' defense. The Colts O set numerous records last year, and while I know the Bears' D wasn't healthy last year, it finished in the middle of the pack. They'd have to lead the league in a few categories to compare. Plus the Colts' D should be middle of the pack with the addition of Simon, the Bear's O will not be. At least the Colts' defense has a couple of playmakers, the Bears have one guy coming off a career year. Pre-Season means nothing. Teams aren't playing their top players very long (not at all in some cases) and are usually not using all of their playbook. You're basically trying to predict success for the Bears' D based on a scrimmage, and against mostly weak offensive teams at that. Remember, the 85 Bears were winless in the preseason. Do you really think that the Colts' juggernaut of an offense is going to struggle like it did in the Pre-season?

David Terell's numbers last year- 699 yards-1 TD Muhammad's two years prior to last year's career year- 823-3, 837-3 I expect Muhammad to be much closer to those numbers than that ridiculous 1405 and 16 last year. Yes, the defense is healthy, but all of those guys are somewhat injury prone and outside of Urlacher they have to prove that they can really be impact players for the Bears. Counting on all of them to stay healthy and perform at their best seems a bit iffy. Regardless of what you think of these guys, it won't matter unless the offense improves quite a bit, or the D can manage to score at least once a game. As for Benson, he may be more gifted than Enis, but he is in the same situation. He wasn't in camp at all and it will probably be a while before he knows the offense well enough for them to make him a significant part of the offense. The basic question is did this offense make enough upgrades to move from dead last up to at least 20th? I don't think so. We still have an inexperienced quarterback who wasn't a first round pick (I know he's better than the average 4th rounder, but the fact remains he wasn't expected to come in and start immediately), we still only have one legit receiver on the roster, we still don't have a definitive game-changing RB, and we're still depending on our D to stay healthy and put up an 85 Bears or '00 Ravens type season, or at least a '01 Bears type season. While our D looks good, I don't think it's going to be dominant enough to compensate for an offense that will probably struggle to score 20 points on a weekly basis again this season.

My weekend (okay, one is Thursday Thursday) picks follow. Just pretend I'm one of those handicappers that charges you a ridiculous amount per minute. Oregon -8.5 over Houston NU -14 over Ohio (yeah, they suck that bad) Georgia -7.5 over Boise State Hawaii +35 over USC Texas A&M -1.5 over Clemson Pitt -3 over ND Georgia Tech +7.5 over Auburn Miami(FL) -3 over FSU

I'm sorry, I just don't see the aditions as that major. The D is basically the same as last year, so the only stuff to bring up is the offense. Mohammad is pretty good, but to think that he will repeat his numbers from last year is simply asanine. That was by far his career year, and he had a real NFL quarterback with some experience getting the ball to him. As for Benson, he's barely been on the field in practice much less done anything in a real game. I'd be very surprised if he even makes it up to splitting starting time before week 6 or so. I could really see him being the next Curtis Enis, while I have a really hard time seeing him as a back along the lines of Shaun Alexander or Edgerrin James (who both might be available next year by the way). Miller and Garza are upgrades, but I still wouldn't call our line stellar, maybe a little above average. Maybe next year we'll be a real competitor, but I just don't see it this year. My assessment of the schedule, using a win-loss-tossup assessment: at Wash-W Det-T Cin-L at Cle-W Min-T Bal-L at Det-L at NO-T SF-W Car-L at TB-T GB-T at Pit-L Atl-L at GB-L at Min-L For those that don't feel like looking and doing simple math, that comes to 3 games I'm pretty sure they'll win, 8 I'm fairly sure they'll lose, and 5 toss ups. As a side note, there are a couple of players that seem to be available that would seem to help. One is Corey Simon, a Pro-Bowl caliber DT. adding someone like him would make our front seven a monster. The other two are formerly highly regarded receivers that I think could at worst be a #3 for us and probably start: Peerless Price and Peter Warrick. Edit- My bad, looks like Simon is going to be a Colt. They need him worse than we do.

QUOTE(fathom @ Aug 31, 2005 -> 11:34 PM) Buehrle would be incredible in the NL. No kidding. The only guy that moved from the NL to the AL I can think of that still dominated was Pedro, and he had ridiculous stuff in his prime (and I guess Schilling for one year, but he still wasn't as dominant). Just look at the difference in performance for guys like Roger Clemens and Randy Johnson.

Yes, this team has flaws, but so do all of the other teams that are going to be in the playoffs. Boston can hit pretty well, but their starting pitching looks weak unless Schilling gets back to his old form, and even then their pen still doesn't look good. I can see them losing a lot of 5-3 or 6-4 games in the playoffs. Yes, there is the potential to lose 9-4, but that won't happen every game. The Yankees have similar issues with their starters, and we've held their O down in the matchups so far this year. The Angels are a lot like us. Their offense goes through periods when they just can't hit. If you pitch around Vlad, they could really struggle. Also, their rotation doesn't scare me at all outside of Colon. Oakland is another story. I'm not overly worried about our offense if we have all of our guys in the lineup. Yes, we're going to struggle if we have Timo, Willie, Uribe, and Blum in the lineup like today. That simply won't happen in the playoffs (at least it better not ). Honestly, if I'm worried about anything, I'm worried about Cliff's performances of late. He's been getting hit hard since the break. That can't happen in the playoffs.

For that small a difference in OBP, I'd much rather have the guy with the higher average. If it were something like .245 batting average with .365 OBP compared with .290 and .325, that might be a more interesting argument.

Some of you may know that I am not a big believer in the Bears. While I do see that they have some talent, they also have some huge holes. I see them winning somewhere between 5 and 8 games. Those are the lowest and highest totals I see. I believe that their defense is strong enough to keep them in enough games, but I don't see their offense being good enough to push them towards playoff contention. We need to finish at least in the middle of the pack offensively to really contend, which I don't see happening. No matter how much we like Orton, he is still only a rookie. Only Marino and Roethelisberger were solid QB's as rookies, and Shaun King was carried to the playoffs by a stellar defense. He's also hampered by the fact that he only has one legit receiver in Mohammad. Although Jones is decent and Benson may be decent by the end of the year, they don't amount to the type of running game that can carry an offense. While I think SI picking us to finish last is ludicrous, the talk of 10 wins and the playoffs is just as crazy. The Ravens did win it all, however their defense was spectacular that year, and Lewis had a big year, and it could be considered a fluke looking at every other Super Bowl champ. Even the 85 Bears had the great Walter Payton, and McMahon gave us a somewhat credible passing game. The Bears need to get at least one more playmaker on offense before they can be considered a real threat.

I will happily join in an effort to defend my title from last season.

Okay, this is getting ridiculous. The SAME GUYwho made the last ridiculous trade just agreed to give me Peyton Manning. The price: Jamal Lewis and Jimmy Smith. The guy gave me his top 3 picks for Jamal Lewis, Curtis Martin, and Jimmy Smith. My lineup if the trade doesn't get vetoed: QB: Peyton Manning RB: Rudi Johnson RB: Kevin Jones WR: Randy Moss WR: Andre Johnson WR: Ashley Lelie TE: Todd Heap K: Ryan Longwell DEF: New England B: Tom Brady B: Steve McNair B: Michael Bennett B: Chris Chambers B: Chris Benson empty roster spot Do we really need to go through with the season, or can I just take the title now? Let me go see if I can find a way to get LT and TO while I'm at it...

The OSU game has nothing on about 3 different games from the 2000 season. The 54-51 shootout with Michigan is quite simply the most exciting game I've ever been to, and that counts the U of I-Arizona regional final. I was also at the Wisconsin game that ended 47-44 in overtime, which was almost as exciting. The Minnesota game that they won on a hail mary was also exciting, although I didn't go to that one. Not only am I a season ticket holder, but I and the group I belong to start about 4 hours before kickoff (when they open the parking lot) and stay til about 3 hours after. It's a lot of fun, and I can't wait until Saturday.

Normally my teams are Mean Machine (tribute to the Longest Yard, awesome movie), BearsStillSuck (which I'm not using this year), and Vick's Overrated.

QUOTE(southsideirish @ Aug 28, 2005 -> 09:56 AM) That is unreal. That guy is an idiot. Did everyone approve of it in your league? That deal would be killed by the remaining owners in my league. It was on a yahoo public league I did for s***s and giggles and it was processed. Pretty sad, I know. My only complaint is that I have more depth than top level talent, but when you have Johnson, Lewis, and Jones at RB with Moss and Andre Johnson at receiver like I do, I'm sure no one will cry for me.

I definitely see your points. I'm not a big fan of Bulger, and those other guys went early. I guess Cadallac is a good pick, although I generally don't like rookie backs. I'm surprised you snagged him there after the argument we got into last year. I might have grabbed another receiver, although it's hard to argue with a starting RB in round 5. You're right, kickers don't matter except for maybe the top 1 or 2. I'm not as sold on Buffalo's D, but oh well. You're in good shape with Tomlinson, Jones, Owens, and Williams, so I wouldn't worry about it.

None of the teams exactly bowl me over. 9 looks pretty good if Lewis stays healthy. 8 IMO has the best starting RB's/WR's, although I'm not a huge fan of the backups, D, or kicker, and although I think Collin's numbers will improve with Moss, there are still better QB's. Team 6 has 2 good WR, Martin lead the league in rushing last season, I think he'll be passable at the other RB spot between Jones and Bennett, and Manning is a plus, although I'm not thrilled with the rest of the team. 3 looks to be another decent RB short of a solid team too, we'll see about the whole Denver backfield situation. 4 looks decent too if Jackson lives up to potential. 5 is okay too, but I don't like the depth, and Westbrook doesn't thrill me as a #2 back. So to summarize: 1- Team 9 2- Team 6 3- Team 8 4- Team 4 5- Team 3 Edit- missed the 75-25 TD's scoring. That leads me to push 8 over 6 because the guys on team 6 (outside of Manning) aren't exactly TD machines, while Tomlinson and Owens are.

Their lineup is finally hitting. I don't know how the hell Martinez got back up over .280, he was hitting in the .220's for a long time. Peralta, Crisp, Sizemore, and Hafner are all doing pretty well too. Their rotation is still pretty iffy though. Millwood is still playing over his head, Lee is decent, and the rest of the rotation has been awful. Sabathia, Westbrook, and Elarton all have ERA's over 4.60. If their lineup lets up even a little, that's not going to keep them in games, making their success in the bullpen less of a factor.

Besides the guys already brought up, what about Bartolo Colon, Billy Wagner, and Jason Schmidt and Eric Gagne pre-injury? All of those guys can usually hit 98 with regularity.

On a related note, did I miss something with this trade? Curtis Martin is my number 2 back behind Jamal Lewis (first pick was Moss). This guy obviously wanted Curtis badly. He made a couple of offers that I probably would have accepted, but I didn't check my E-Mail for a while. Turns out that was very fortunate. The deal I finally accepted, which was just processed: I get: Chris Chambers Rudi Johnson Kevin Jones I give up: Curtis Martin I'm still trying to figure this one out, because both backs I got were taken before Martin and are probably better options. Is it just me, or did I get the deal of the year?

I'd say that's pretty bad. Davis gets drafted considerably earlier than Dunn, who might get outrushed by his quarterback.