lostfan

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 3, 2016 -> 08:29 PM) I wouldn't this year. His model is over reactive to everything and seems designed to swing hard to relatively minor inputs and has tons of uncertainty baked in. Plus some of the poll adjustments they're doing don't seem to make any sense. Right now it's really just him hedging ridiculously because he screwed up so bad on the primaries. 538's model correlates everything too much. For example, if a new poll of Oklahoma came out tomorrow and Trump gained a couple of points there, nates model would drop Clinton's odds overall even though there's already a 0% chance she wins that state. But a movement for Trump in one poll nudges everything slightly in his favor. It allows for his model to pick up small shifts in a short period, but it also means it's very sensitive to every tiny little input. Nate also is fully aware that these massive swings in polling are mirages but since people (like me) go to his site every day he treats it all as if it's real movement in the polls.

The thing about Brazile "sending Clinton debate questions" (let's assume it wasn't one question, that was extremely obvious to guess for even the most passive observer) is that a debate isn't like a standardized test. It's not like you can see the question, then go look up the answer and go into the test with the answer written down. It's a debate. You have to talk about it for 2 whole ass minutes and then respond to your opponent doing the same thing.

QUOTE (Brian @ Nov 3, 2016 -> 02:27 PM) A war is coming! What war? The war to end all wars. Smh I fully expect WW to say she was born ready at some point. World War I was actually called that at the time though.

QUOTE (shipps @ Nov 3, 2016 -> 11:04 AM) I feel like I am seeing more loyal Sox fans during this than I expected to see. Many that respectfully declined to jump on the Cubs bandwagon. With the s*** show that we have endured on our end of town I was actually surprised from what I have seen. The "shouldn't your hometown come first" from non-Chicagoans, and people trying to pressure me into hopping on the bandwagon was annoying as f***.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Nov 3, 2016 -> 11:02 AM) The Cubs winning the WS won't change fans' lives, so although this will blow over and Cubs WS swag that cost $30 now will cost $10 in a month or 2, I always loved having the leverage we all just lost over Cubs fans. That's the sad part to me. I can't really talk s*** to them anymore, but I guess I'll have to settle for "we did it first"

I'm really not that upset by this. I think it's a pretty cool thing, mostly cuz I have a lot of friends, I guess. Yes, a lot of them are annoying but whatever. My sister is pretending to be a lifelong Cubs fan right now which is kind of funny. She's alternated between "I like both teams" and not paying attention to baseball at all.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Nov 2, 2016 -> 04:04 PM) So what you're ultimately saying is that if we draft a qb high enough that you'd be ok with them cutting Jay? Why not just keep him if that guy won't be ready to play yet anyways? The bolded is what I'd do. I don't really see the point in getting rid of Cutler sight unseen. It's not like they need the cap space, they have tons because of the rebuild.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Nov 2, 2016 -> 03:54 PM) Well do we really expect a clear path forward to emerge by next year? By then it would've been year 3 of a rebuilding project, that isn't time to be okay with still losing games. I'd be really annoyed if they were still lacking a sense of urgency about developing a QB prospect, especially considering how difficult it is to do so these days with most QB prospects not being ready for the NFL.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Nov 2, 2016 -> 03:49 PM) Yeah, I agree with much of this, but if the question is whether it makes sense to cut him or not, and further, does it make sense to cut him if you do not have someone ready to take over (we won't), there is absolutely a case to be made to cut him (though it would not be my choice). If you cut him, you know you won't win many games, which will likely provide you with a better chance to obtain his replacement in the draft. Additionally, if you cut him, you've now got some additional dollars to spend in FA, perhaps on a player that you intend to be part of your nucleus moving forward. So there are arguments for moving forward with cutting Jay, even without a clear-cut replacement. That's something they could have done this year, since it's not like they needed the guaranteed money for the cap space anyway, they have plenty. It'd be dumb to move on from him with no clear path forward, imo

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Nov 2, 2016 -> 03:01 PM) This years sample size on Jay is so stinking small. He played all of 3 games and got hurt in the 2nd game of the season. In those games, he had a very good 1st half against the Texans (strong defense) and then we collapsed. 2nd game was not good and 3rd was such a small sample size. There really is no need for a sample size. He's playing off the same playbook in the same system so you can use last year if you want, but Cutler is the same guy he's always been. Jay's been here for 8 years now and I still don't think most people understand him, even if the local Chicago media has gotten a lot better about how to cover him. There's no "good Jay" and "bad Jay," the reason he has heroic 4th quarter rallies and throws 3-4 interceptions is the same reason - when the Bears are behind and need to score and/or when the offense is stalled, he starts improvising to make things happen. The thing people have to realize is that he cares about winning a *lot* but he's not really conscious of his numbers, he really doesn't care how pretty or ugly his stats are at the end of the game, only whether they won, and he doesn't care how it happened. So when this works, it's spectacular, but when it doesn't, he will just keep pushing harder. If he throws a pick but they get 2 TDs at the end of the game, wonderful, if he throws 4 picks, there's no difference in his mind because they were going to lose the game anyway. Commentators and fans talk about it like he was erratic and lost control but it's not that, he just wants to go down swinging.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Nov 1, 2016 -> 02:46 PM) Yeah, that was why the triangle was so successful, because it did require lots of movement away from the ball. Ultimately, it just comes down to mathematics, I guess. How high a percentage can I shoot the 3 by creating open space for these sharpshooters and how many of those looks can I get per game? It seems to me though as if the Spurs haven't necessarily gone crazy shooting 3's and they seem to do quite well in the post season. It's definitely about numbers. Modern NBA players (especially LeBron) even talk about their own usage and efficiency. The goal isn't so much about getting three-pointers in and of itself, it's about creating better shots with a higher likelihood of converting, and when that look is a three, it's valued more. Kind of like how walks started being valued more when we started using sabermetrics.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 1, 2016 -> 02:31 PM) I see the isolation play as being what happened in between the ball movement of the 90's and the three pointers of today. The last phase was more of the LeBron era of clear it out and let your best player go 1 on 1 in the best mismatch you can create offensively. That's just how I see it. Iverson in his prime too, and definitely Kobe.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Nov 1, 2016 -> 02:29 PM) Ok, this is what I figured you meant, however, they still do have all the ball movement, which you mentioned. The ball movement is not quite what I would say is the "type" of basketball that was played in the Jordan era. Perhaps a bit with the triangle offense but still a lot more isolation. Have 3-pointers become such a huge part of the sport now that if you aren't chucking a ton of those that the style of play you are engaged in is already referred to as "retro" or "old school"? I didn't realize we had moved on so quickly! If you watch the 90s Bulls they are the closest thing of the old teams to the way new teams play, it's like they were doing a beta version before everyone else started doing it. Even still, the conventional wisdom was shots closer to the basket were good, and three-point attempts were discouraged due to inefficiency, and long jumpers were something you should avoid doing, these days it's more about creating space with ball movement to spring guys open (the Warriors do this better than anyone except for maybe the Spurs). But you watch the teams that played them, like the Knicks, and man is it slow and plodding. They would try to feed Ewing in the post, then he'd dribble for position, it doesn't work, he kicks back out, they feed him again, they just keep doing this over and over and over... when they were actually creating shots they would pass them up because it's not what they were trying to do.

QUOTE (bmags @ Nov 1, 2016 -> 12:12 PM) Yes and no. Sometimes they'd have a great series where rose would drive and swing back to wide open gasol on pick and roll. But Rose predetermined most of his moves, wasn't as creative or able to improvise vs a paul/rondo that see what's happening and take what's given. Yeah that's what I mean. Rose could improvise plays with his athleticism but not all that reliably (the "who is a true PG" debate that everyone ran into the ground). Before he got hurt this worked wonderfully because he was unstoppable, but in the past couple years his presence tanks the efficiency of the offense.

QUOTE (bmags @ Nov 1, 2016 -> 11:42 AM) I don't think it's just Rose. Gasol was a ball hog that demanded getting his 20-25 isos a game. Rose also was not the type of point guard that would reliably create plays for Gasol either. Not much of a distributor or outside shooter.

lol, fair point shack. In the current form he exists as a NBA player, Rose used to choke the life out of the offense so that they would live and die with how well he was playing.

The Bulls look pretty interesting, they way they're winning isn't sustainable (their shot charts are insane), but this is still much more fun to watch than almost any point last year. It's one thing to see how much Rose stalled the offense, it's another to see what it looks like without him.

QUOTE (Harry Chappas @ Nov 1, 2016 -> 11:06 AM) I did not see the whole game but from what I saw, the OL and moving pocket were key. I am still mystified that Jay is not allowed to roll out as much. During the game, my friend said "why doesn't Loggains do that with Cutler more" after Cutler did a bootleg and picked up a huge gain. I said "why doesn't (insert every Bears OC since Martz) do that with Cutler more?"

QUOTE (JenksIsMyHero @ Nov 1, 2016 -> 10:50 AM) It's not and I hate that the GOP is doing it. But they're not doing it because Obama's black and they hate black people. They're doing it because he's a Democrat. It's funny, when you replace "Obama" with regular black people, this is pretty much verbatim the NC GOP's justification for their vote suppression tactics.

QUOTE (JenksIsMyHero @ Nov 1, 2016 -> 10:34 AM) It'll be replaced with, "it's because she's a woman and you're a sexist!" Looking forward to 4 more years of this. Can't wait!

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 1, 2016 -> 09:45 AM) we had a grand total of one (1) trick-or-treater at our house yesterday. I get less every year but I realized it's my neighborhood. Nobody goes in my neighborhood except the kids who live there because there's only one street that leads into it. One street over, where the streets are open, there's hundreds of trick or treaters.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Nov 1, 2016 -> 01:14 AM) Without arguing about this, one neutral comment. We're talking about 30,000 emails or something on Huma's server. What's with all the emails? How does anybody get that many emails? Seriously, that's a helluva lot of emails. I guess everybody wants to communicate with government officials all the time. Think of the time they must be answering emails all day every day. I have over 7,000 emails in 4 years (that's just one account. I have 4 work-related accounts that I log into regularly). I don't use my email as often as some people do around here.

QUOTE (fathom @ Oct 31, 2016 -> 08:46 PM) Gruden criticizing Alshon after a bad pass it looked like to me. Agreed? Cutler usually throws about as far at the edge of Alshon's wingspan as he can when he's in the red zone because he knows he will come down with it, and if he doesn't, it doesn't get intercepted and sails out of bounds instead. Either Alshon didn't get there or Cutler led him by a couple feet too much.

Loggains is using Cutler the way Gase did last year, except Cutler has better targets than last year when it wasn't just guys off the street. It's like he was coaching a completely different team this time. There's a whole dimension there that just wasn't there with Hoyer playing. And you just know Fox would've started Hoyer if he was healthy and we would've seen a 10-9 loss

Cutler isn't finishing with 300 yards though ???