lostfan

QUOTE (Jose Abreu @ Jun 17, 2014 -> 12:29 AM) 1st I'd have to think they'd be running away with the division right now.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 16, 2014 -> 10:40 AM) A weak government in Iraq means no thread of war, or interference in places like Syria when Iran flexes its muscles. They are really the only strong Muslim government left in the middle east right now. If this government falls, who knows what Iran gets. The last thing they want is their own people getting the idea of overthrowing the Irani government. http://online.wsj.com/articles/islamist-re...ital-1402562192 Iraq is, perversely, a strong Iranian ally. Completely unintended consequence. Iraqis used to be terrified of the Iranians and vice versa until they got a Shia government, especially a Shia government that shut out the Sunnis (stupid, in hindsight - this is Maliki's fault though, not ours).

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jun 16, 2014 -> 11:42 PM) I'm glad all of the idiots who cheered us into this completely pointless war in the first place are being given a platform to bloviate some more. It's so maddening that the media treats them like their opinions are worth listening to as well. I mean, literally, the same idiots who insisted everything was going to be fine and when they finally got embarrassed enough to say out loud the original non-plan was working, swore the surge magically fixed everything. All we got to do is stay there forever at a cost of hundreds of billions per year. Piece of cake. Let's not pretend we shook the can before we opened it though, let's act pissed that it sprayed everywhere.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Jun 16, 2014 -> 11:08 PM) I wouldn't say 7 win shares in each of the past two seasons is bad. He'll never be Kawhi Leonard, but he's definitely a good role player you can stick at the 2 or 3 and have him defend just about anyone. BTW, his 7.1 win shares last year was 41st in all of basketball (5th among SGs). Just ahead of Kyrie Irving. Butler also had a higher WS/48 than Irving. It's not so much that he's bad (he's not) as much as he's talked about by Bulls fans like he's a tick below Paul George (who was also badly overrated at the start of last season because of excess playoff hype). And the moronic "I don't want Melo if we have to give up Butler" type comments. but but but DEFENSE I get so tired of talking about the Bulls defense too, when the offense is so bad... it reminds me of all those one-dimensional Lovie teams

Gwynn hit .444 for his CAREER with the bases loaded. Not pre all-star for a season, not for one season, for his WHOLE CAREER. He had 107 PAs against Maddux and 36 against Pedro Martinez. Neither one of them ever struck him out.

Jimmy Butler is the most overrated Bulls player probably in franchise history. There, I said it.

You know something funny, when the Xbox One commercial comes on and the guy says "Xbox On" my Xbox thinks I'm telling it to turn on

Let's say that, in some hypothetical world, the Sox managed to land Tanaka last offseason in addition to Abreu - where would we be right now?

The plan was to focus all the attention on the offense, and not do anything to fix the defense because it wasn't broken, and do as little as possible to rock the boat. Tucker was a caretaker DC. The gamble completely fell apart for whatever reason (it's not his fault he lost his 2 best tackles, and his best lineman turned into a regular DE). Conte and Wright were competent safeties last year though, decent even. I put that on the coaching.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Oct 22, 2013 -> 06:27 PM) Its theoretically possible, but given the Bears current defense, you arent talking 1-2 players, they are going to need almost half a starting unit minimum. Its possible, but I just think 2 years is the general timeline for a turn around. Even the Bears offense, Jeffery/Marshall were brought in 2 years ago, not this year. Which people are forgetting. I actually mentioned that. But this offense like I said is a finished product, meaning it is capable of finishing in the top 5 in scoring. THAT can't be done in one offseason. It would've been middle of the pack with better coaching last season.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Oct 22, 2013 -> 06:17 PM) And you don't have to overhaul it. You need to make it average. You need to make it so that it doesn't give up 30 points a game. This. If you have a top 5 defense, that's kind of a bonus, but the offense is ready to compete the way it is right now.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Oct 22, 2013 -> 06:00 PM) and a lack of actual playmakers. Emery has brought in Marshall, Jeffery, Bennett, and an actual offensive line. So basically an entire offense given the quarterback and RB he already had which quickly became one of the highest scoring offenses in the league. Go figure.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Oct 22, 2013 -> 05:53 PM) The reason the Bears offense had been s***ty was due to inept coaching. The reason the Bears defense is s***ty is because the players got old. One is considerably easier to fix than the other. inept coaching, and inept players. Emery partially addressed the second issue when he first got here and he finished doing the bulk of the work this offseason. 5 new starters on offense. It's a tall order to fix the whole defense but since the Bears would pretty much be directing all their resources at the effort it wouldn't be inconceivable or even really difficult. Especially given the right coordinator.

If an offense as s***ty as the 2012 Bears can be turned around as fast as it was then the defense can be pulled from out of the depths of hell by 2014 too. That said does anyone know of a mercurial, misunderstood All-Pro DE with behavioral issues languishing away on a bad team that can be acquired with a third round pick? That worked once before.

QUOTE (bmags @ Oct 22, 2013 -> 05:42 PM) Oh can we please PED the hell out of our defense? I know it's wrong but it's not fair we have to watch this crap. It would only make us league average. Let's do it now before the stronger testing is in place

This talk about "rebuilding" really makes my head hurt. What the hell would you do that for? The defense needs a complete overhaul - obviously - so you get some defensive mind with a solid track record like Wade Phillips (I hate the 3-4 talk, he's just the first name that comes to mind) and then you invest heavily in the defense with your draft picks and what's left in FA. But the offense? It was JUST rebuilt! The price tag hasn't even been cut off of it yet. Why would you rebuild it again? There's no work that needs to be done there, only minor retooling like drafting a replacement for Garza or a #2 TE. You can try to trade Earl Bennett or Michael Bush to make this easier but that's all. Also, of all the options discussed, tagging Cutler and drafting a QB is the worst idea. You immediately use $20 million on Cutler right then and there and you've also burned a draft pick you desperately needed to use for a new DE, S, or CB. If you are moving on from Cutler then just rip off the band-aid and do it and you better damn well be sure you're hitting the jackpot.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 22, 2013 -> 05:33 PM) jon greenberg ‏@jon_greenberg 2h Ed Werder on NFL Insider show said he talked to Trestman who said Cutler "told his head coach he thinks he'll be back before" four weeks. This means he's either a) crazy b) stupid c) not actually as badly injured as we thought d) thinking about using PEDs e) some combination of a through d

I wonder why Heat fans are so high on Mario Chalmers? I mean, nobody has ever looked at the Heat's lineup and been like "oh s***, what are we going to do about Mario Chalmers?" Dude is nothing more than a speed bump for Rose. Come back when you are Westbrook or CP3 (Westbrook's the only PG he hasn't decisively dominated, it's a draw when they play)

From now on, until he's cut or stops becoming horrible (whichever comes first) I'm referring to Chris Conte as "The Policeman." He's a white man in a blue uniform who spends all day chasing black men.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 18, 2013 -> 08:36 PM) Starting pitching? Does this guy watch baseball? I keep hearing people saying "now they need to work on their pitching" and I'm kinda baffled. The Sox had a playoff-caliber rotation last year but nobody seemed to notice because the offense was some of the worst seen on either side of Chicago in like 20 years.

I suddenly have co-opted ALL of the right-wing talking points and verbal memes and tried to fit all of them in the same paragraph and started running out of steam towards the end.

The only way to fix this and stop the SCOTUS from douching it up is a constitutional amendment. There's several things I wish we'd address in our elections but we like to think America is the best at everything by default and we never need to bother fixing anything.

She is the only one capable of that kind of incoherence. Oh, I thought it would be funny to point out that so far Ted Cruz has raised more money for the Democrats than he has himself. The person who single-handedly boosted the Democrats this much was Obama back in '07. Really starting to think Cruz is an undercover Democratic operative.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 18, 2013 -> 06:17 PM) Um, where did that come from? I put that quote without a name to see if anyone would be able to tell who said it.

The debt ceiling is f***ing stupid, it's an anachronistic relic from the gold standard era that just needs to go away. It's not in the Constitution and the congressional budgeting process already fulfills the requirements of what the Constitution actually does say anyway. Besides, the assholes in Congress pretending to care about the deficit all of a sudden and who actually voted for most of the debt of the last 10 years didn't care about it until 2 years ago... this graph should show you how they were cool with it when they were the ones spending the money, disabuse you of any silly "both sides do it" nonsense, and show you who's really responsible for this all at the same time if you take note of who was running Congress and the presidency in which years (Dems were not in charge of Congress in '06 and Obama was not president in '08, FYI, and Obama didn't have anything to do with the skyrocketing deficit in '09 despite what people pretend to believe)