lostfan

Las Vegas

QUOTE (greg775 @ Aug 8, 2011 -> 11:41 PM) I read the entire thread to see how bad the meltdown was when we blew the lead. Not so bad. I was surprised. People freaked on Ozzie though over the use of Crain. I was at dinner when Baltimore took the lead. Nice to see us battle back and win. Got to win at least 3 of 4 if Sox are serious. Two won't do it at this stage. I was at the game and read these game thread posts and everybody is so melodramatic. lol. I wasn't feeling that tense at the park and wanting to kill Ozzie.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Aug 8, 2011 -> 09:43 PM) Lillibridge at first means they lost the Dh. Plain nonsensical move by Guillen. But Lillibridge scored the tying run, it would've been Paulie's slow ass trying to go on that sac fly.

I was at the game, before the game we saw Cox and on his way into the dugout my cousin said to him "hey Cox, don't send Konerko!" (I guess Cox, or Ozzie said this at Soxfest). Cox laughed and said "yeah, good idea, especially with his sore knee." Then Konerko gets thrown out at 3rd. Facepalm. But at least they won... can't be mad about that.

The whole causation ≠ correlation thing.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Aug 5, 2011 -> 11:48 PM) All I can say is don't be a fool and panic this week, a lot of people are going to lose a lot by selling...wait it out, and if anything, buy in the aftermath (whatever that ends up being). I wish I had cash laying around in 2008. You could've bought damn near any f***ing thing then and made like 300% off of it.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 5, 2011 -> 06:06 PM) There is a lot of talk happening that S&P is prepping to downgrade the U.S. debt anyway, including reports from CNBC and ABC. Boom goes the dynamite.

Other governments have protectionist policies and subsidize their key industries... not that I'm advocating this but IJS.

I concur in total. I've never had a team that was so hard to like. I don't know, maybe right after the Bulls dynasty was broken up, or the Wannstedt-era Bears were a little worse.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 3, 2011 -> 09:41 PM) last offseason the entire management and coaching staffs had their jobs on the line The season before that (or the one before that, s*** I forget cuz the seasons all run together) they had spent 108 out of a 109 million salary cap. When is the last time the Bears were hamstrung by a bad contract to some s***ty free agent they grossly overpaid that didn't come anywhere close to meeting expectations? Pretty much never, right? When is the last time they didn't have the flexibility to make a move if they needed to, or to extend a player near the end of his deal? Even when they signed Peppers, they gave him almost all of his guaranteed money in the first year so they could cut bait if it didn't work out (obviously that's not happening but still).

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Aug 3, 2011 -> 11:53 AM) Yup, if you're not going to spend that money in other areas, then you may as well pay that money in the area you are willing to pay for. But I think the Bears will be to cheap anyways to do this type of move. The Bears aren't cheap. They just don't go spending money just for the sake of doing it. They don't go blowing a wad of cash on Nnamdi just because he's there. But they need a DE, and Peppers is there... hey here's 99 million.

QUOTE (Pants Rowland @ Aug 3, 2011 -> 07:02 PM) I gather from the tone of recent posts that he is tipping to the other side as well. IIRC 2K5 hit his tipping point w/Ozzie when Ozzie told the fans not to watch games last year

QUOTE (Lauren.Teahen @ Aug 2, 2011 -> 11:18 PM) Yes, this is really Marks wife. Guess that you will just have to trust me. I read through the majority of the thread and figured you all deserved to know the truth. I appreciate the kind words. Mrs. Teahen - I read about 95% of the posts in this thread a couple of hours ago - pretty much all of them were supporting you, specifically. If there were any that weren't, I missed them, but said poster probably would've gotten flamed for doing so anyway. Don't let any of this get you down. Best of luck to you and your husband in the future (except against the Sox of course )

Oh also last year the Bears had a bunch of midget track star WRs who could come up with big plays but were pretty useless in the red zone when the field shrank. Greg Olsen was pretty much the only viable red zone option for 2 seasons, and also they couldn't score on 1st and goal from the 1 (but yeah Kreutz was sooo valuable!). Now they have a bigger, meaner line, even if they haven't proved a damn thing yet, and they have Williams, Davis, and Spaeth as red zone options with the bruiser Barber to spell Forte... that should improve the red zone efficiency quite a bit.

QUOTE (maggsmaggs @ Aug 2, 2011 -> 09:04 AM) So Gabe Carimi is not officially the RT and Webb is the LT. There were definitely positives and negatives both ways here. Webb is more athletically suited for the LT role, but he was terrible last year at RT, which is an easier position. And without an off-season, I wonder how much he could have improved over the summer. Then again, Carimi is a potential All-Pro at RT whereas at LT, he probably just solid. Jay, I am sorry for what you are going to endure (again) this year. QUOTE (whitesoxfan101 @ Aug 2, 2011 -> 11:29 AM) It's scary how much the bolded sounds like Bears logic with regards to the offensive line. "This guy absolutely sucks at RT, so lets move him to protecting the QB's blind side. It'll work great!" Webb, actually, doesn't suck. I mean yeah he did to start the year, but he was very raw. He was a big-time high school recruit and went to Texas but lost his academic eligibility, so he transferred to a small school and didn't face D-1 competition so never got refined. Now he has proper coaching. He really started to improve as last year went on and started to find himself. The tools and pedigree are there (I think it's his cousin, his cousin is Richmond Webb, who was an All-Pro lineman for the Dolphins). So yeah, he was drafted in the 7th round, but we're not talking about a scrub. We're talking about a guy who needed some time, some conditioning, and some quality coaching. So if I had to guess, I'd say the line to start the season will be Webb-Williams-Spencer-Garza-Carimi. That's actually not bad, and is better than last year. The difference here is that most of the guys are young, athletic, BIG, and on the right side of 30. Everyone likes to hate Chris Williams because he hasn't amounted to s*** as a tackle, but he's not bad as a guard. He's a big guy, and really MOVES. It wasn't a coincidence that all of a sudden the Bears started running the ball after the bye week last year. That was when Williams moved to the inside and Garza came back from surgery. Everybody kind of retroactively credits this to Lovie, or whoever, sitting Martz down and saying "run the ball" but this is an overly simplistic way of looking at it... before that Forte was getting like 1.5 yards a carry, and all of a sudden it skyrockets to about 4.5 yards a carry or something. Because he was getting holes and it started working. Not because Martz said "ok, I'll just keep running these s***ty plays for no gain"

QUOTE (pittshoganerkoff @ Aug 2, 2011 -> 02:30 PM) Winning plastic puppet > Losing feisty loudmouth ^^this x1000

QUOTE (FlySox87 @ Aug 2, 2011 -> 12:27 AM) I would endorse policies that make it easier to not outsource jobs. Lower the minimum wage (or better yet, abolish it), give tax breaks to companies that keep jobs stateside, decrease taxes wherever possible etc. Do things that encourage companies to turn towards American labor. I fully support the right of the corporate world to find the most cost efficient labor available, whether it's here or somewhere else. And if it's somewhere else, then jobs are going to be outsourced and that's all there is to it. This is... not... good. It might sound like it is at first glance, but it translates into all bad for me and you. Intentional cheap labor policy is bad for everyone except the actual corporations themselves (who, without laws specifically stating otherwise, have ZERO obligation to anyone but shareholders, and even employees are only a means to an end). And even profits don't equal jobs, corporations recovered pretty well from the recession and have record profits but why hire anybody if they don't have to?

QUOTE (GoSox05 @ Aug 1, 2011 -> 11:36 AM) I think he already did. He's undead... clear from his recent pics

QUOTE (maggsmaggs @ Aug 1, 2011 -> 11:06 AM) It's this point that irks me so much about the Bears' front office. Yes, the talent is clearly there on the offensive line, but talent does not equal productive. There is absolutely no reason the Bears should go into an NFL season, banking on "if it all goes right, this line becomes serviceable or solid." This is the NFL, and nothing ever goes according to plan. They needed to bring at least a couple veteran free agents in as depth guy who could start if necessary. The Bears are one injury away on the O-line from just a horrible situation (and you know that injury will happen). Sure we have three first-round picks starting on the offensive line (Carimi, Spencer and Williams), but one hasn't proven anything in the NFL, and the other two are horrible busts. The other two guys we are counting on are a 2010 seventh-round pick who is still incredibly raw and Garza who is solid, but aging. I think Angelo has done a solid job on the defensive side of the ball except neglecting cornerback thus far, but it boggles my mind that the organization feels the worst offensive line by far in the NFL last year can be fixed by adding a rookie tackle and a center who Seattle couldn't wait to see leave. Jay Cutler can be a really really damn good NFL quarterback, but the Bears refuse to give him the necessary help in that endeavor. So who are the back-ups even? Lance Louis? Frank Omiyale? Then who? I mean, not only do we have a bad starting core, but we have absolutely no depth whatsoever. The Bears just better hope this isn't the year where the D is struck by injuries. I don't really follow this logic... most free agents are guys other teams didn't want.

“We brought in an experienced center that is still in the prime of his career. It’s the best we could do. That’s all we could do. Everybody has an opinion, they need this, they need that. Well, tell me who you want. Who should we look at? Give me names. Don’t tell me about our problems, give me solutions. I’m in the solution business. Not identifying the problems. You guys do a great job of identifying our problems. How about a few solutions?” Yes, Jerry Angelo really is as clueless on this topic as it seems, even if he's right about Spencer. This is a guy who signs a Frank Omiyale and thinks that's doing something. It would not be that hard to name names (hey, Ryan Harris) and over the years people have been practically SCREAMING for him to fix problems in this area.

Olin Kreutz, quite frankly, was not in a position where he could justify demanding how much money he gets. The way the Bears handled it was a polite way of saying "we want you, but not that bad." Spencer, at worst, was a lateral move. The OL isn't automatically "better" but is unlikely to make it worse.

I'll copy and paste my Facebook status: So I guess ever since it became clear Olin Kreutz wasn't being brought back, it's been a nonstop hyperventilation-fest by Bears fans. You could be forgiven for having this lead you to assume he was still the same player from 5 years ago. Breathe, everyone... the fact that a player is an icon and you have an emotional attachment doesn't change the fact that his best days are behind him. Everyone is replaceable unless you're a superstar and even those guys do fade after a while. But if you're just going to miss watching him yell at opposing defenders... stop it! The guy's main job is to block... he wasn't that good at it anymore. The truth sucks sometimes. He was the "anchor" of an offensive line that gave up 56 sacks and didn't run block for half a season. If we see Spencer not getting pushed into the backfield on running plays or unable to push a guy 1 yard on 1st and goal from the 1, people will forget about Kreutz's intangibles.

QUOTE (SoxFan1 @ Jul 26, 2011 -> 01:41 AM) Bears could use some help. Obviously WR, OL, DL and CB. Some interesting LB too. There were rumors about Cullen Jenkins earlier. Rumers now about Jason Babin and Brandon Mebane. Mike Sims-Walker. Sidney Rice. It's going to be nutty. Sims-Walker would be a good fit for the Bears. He would actually look like a #1.

QUOTE (JPN366 @ Jul 26, 2011 -> 06:07 PM) Don't have time to find it...(suicide smiley) This is my nightmare.

When you look at the data, Muslim terrorists tend to come from middle-class/professional families, their parents are doctors, engineers, bankers, etc. "Poor" is really not a very good data point.