Chisoxfn

You need to start investing in QB though. Just like Packers have done over years. Brunel, Aaron Brooks, Rodgers, Love, etc. packers missed with Huntley but that is fine - try. Eagles took a shot on Hurts when they thought they had their guy in Wentz. Now Hurts might be the guy - if they are right - great for them - if not, missed 2nd round pick not the end of the world. Decent shot Florida QB is there in 2nd round - if you like him, take a shot at him. You can’t find a qb if you don’t acquire them (free agency / draft).

Beyond terrible, but defense is probably the part of a system that takes the longest to implement. So I will give it a bit of time to see and it can’t be much worse. Was real nice to see Carter play with some swagger and I have loved all of our head coach’s quotes the past few games. Boylen would have already benched the starters for entire quarters multiple times by now haha. You can see the motivation tactics in his quotes and I hope the team takes into it cause it sounds like there is a huge gap in the players minds vs coaches minds in terms of how much work it takes. I have some optimism that this staff over time will get most of its players which should enable more pieces to be assets. They aren’t on paper good enough, but they certainly can have parts that work and can be dealt - especially if they land a free agent and can pivot for trades. Looks like they will have another shot at lottery pick too - but young teams almost always struggle and this team is super young. Lauri also looking better - want to see him stay aggressive and play through this calf injury.

I respect Ron a lot for how they handled this. I would also say this pick is a true definition of a bust. Maybe Haskins benefits from a change of scenery but talk about an awful pick for Skins. I feel same way about Tua - who looks pretty mediocre for Dolphins. Good thing phins have that Texans pick. Hurts looks better than Tua as does Herbert. Herbert hasn’t been as great late but his arm talent is special.

The bears barely lost to the Titans and Colts, two playoff teams. And that was with Foles and an oline / rush attack that was non existent. I’m not saying Bears are great but Packers are in a league of their own in NFC right now. Bears also were hanging with Saints until wheels fell apart in second half. Packers own them though and that combined with Rams having no offense will probably mean bears miss out, but hey I prefer for the season to still mean something.

Plus - if they can get a good lt and Mitch still is meh - than you have a good oline for whatever qb you insert in. Whether a veteran or a draft pick - that oline will be an asset if you can build it. Crazy that any of us are saying Bears aren’t a lot away from having a good oline - no one would have said that Six weeks ago. I will caveat finding a good lt where bears are picking won’t be easy.

Ifeldi wasn’t terrible at guard but white hair and Daniels are just not good centers. The biggest difference is Mustipher settling the center position. Whitehair is much better at guard and so is Daniels. The tackle play isn’t great but Bars has been okay and as a unit they have worked well. Kmet helps as a blocker and Mitch at QB also helps the line a ton. The line isn’t solved but my god what a difference six weeks have made.

This - plus tanking doesn’t do what every fan seems to think it is. There are few examples in any sport of teams who truly tanked and benefited. Baseball is probably the one outlier - where recently the Sox, Padres, Astros and Cubs all benefited from a heavy tear down. That said - in many ways it was rebuild vs pure tanking. When I think of tanking - I really only think of teams maximizing draft picks anyway. In basketball - the 76ers are the one team who kind of tanked their way into things and they aren’t anything special. The Lakers tried but the tanking failed miserably - it took Lebron wanting to come to LA that changed their destination and desirability combined with another star forcing its way to them. Bulls tried tanking - maybe they weren’t good enough at it - I don’t know, but right now they sure would look better with Jimmy Bucket and a super max and whatever other stars he convinced to come to them. Would they be a championship team - probably not - but you never know what star will want to join you but normally you need stars to get stars (unless you play in LA). In football Jets were god awful and they are not even going to get Trevor Lawrence. Pathetically bad. But in NFL turn arounds can be instant and at times do not require top draft picks - although having a top qb usually helps.

Why - because he scored the potential game winning shot with five seconds left on the clock?

Maybe it made their offense worse but defensively - I don’t think those score analysts are correct. It is easy for everyone to just rip on everything Boylen did and there could be something to say that the blitz defense wasn’t sustainable - but it isn’t as if the unit ranked poorly. It was horrific offensively though.

The bulls actually graded out decently defensively last year. The blitz style Boylen introduced was actually pretty solid and probably a pretty good use of his personel (on the d side of the house)s

Coby will be better. Wendell - I have no idea. Williams looked solid for a first game but good god what an ass whooping. I do think the Hawks are good - but not this good. I’ll hold major judgement for at least 10-15 games given change in system, minimal preseason, etc - but what a dog of a first game.

He was decisive, accurate and confident. He also ran better than he has since 2018. He’s putting a real nice stretch together. Would be awesome to see him keep rolling and they win out. Ideally get in playoffs too.

Yeah - Mitch shouldn’t have thrown it but the play design was bad. Leads me to believe someone made a mistake. My guess was that was supposed to go to Allen Robinson and Holtz ended up in wrong spot. Either way - Mitch still played real well. He was rolling in first half - though momentum went the other way a bit in second half but he still had a lot of solid 3rd down throws and there was that one Wims drop. Defense wasn’t great but did enough in the end and they were playing down in the secondary.

I don't think it really did. Look at Harden, look at others. He got his supermax and deep down knows that if he wants out - in the future he will just leverage himself out and demand a trade. That just means if you are the Bulls - you can't straight up sign him in FA - you need to move assets to get him, but still, the player can put a lot of pressure on the opposing teams.

Really nice and complete game. Keep it up Mitch. Who knows what can happen. It at least says something that they didn’t shut down after last week.

TEchnically - I think the Sox view is big FA long term deals don't work well. In general, they aren't wrong. I think instead they prefer to give LT deals to younger in house pitchers where they look to buy out arb years and kind of get locked in cost controll. They prefer the risk that the young player doesn't pan out and/or is less likely to have significant drop off from injuries vs. going 5YR plus in the FA pitching market (at huge bucks). If you think about Lynn and buy the reports - there trade may lean that way too...where they kind of think of Lynn making less today enabling them to maybe give him a 2-3 year extension at a good rate (Lynn is happy because it gets him one last big pay day without betting on an injury and I think the Sox are happy cause they probably look at the average AAV over that horizon and feel pretty good about what they did).

About time Disney created some new content that isn't the Mandalorian. Maybe there is something that I"m not aware of (and don't get me wrong - Mando is awesome). But outside of the handful of episodes I watch during the year of Mando - the whole rest of the year Disney+ is basically only used by my kids.

Yeah - but he also leaves with a streak of playoff appearances, maybe some rings and some world series appearances. The guy flat out wins and it isn't like he hasn't been capable of building up good farm systems. He had a nice farm system back in his Expos days, Marlins the same, and Detroit had did a bit of both.

I would take him in a heart beat. He is one of the most succuessful front office guys in baseball and for a long time. The guy just wins - people may not like his approach but his track record is pretty good.

But other than last year, he's consistently put up very good OBP's, so in this offense with a ton of firepower around him, there is a value in that...let alone fact that he hits RHP pretty good. Joc is probably a better get - but maybe Joc is going to get more years and more money and Sox didn't want to do that....but Eaton as the worst player on the everyday lineup is a-okay with me.

Good day to highlight how cool it was seeing two of the Big schools beat perennial powers. I'm biased so liked Hawkeyes taking down UNC in a game where Garza had a pedestrian performance. Similarly, I presume Illini fan are pretty jacked over that bounce back win over Duke. Two huge wins against the 2 marquee programs in the ACC (by 2 of the good but maybe not marquee programs in the BIG - albeit both are really damn good this year).

I don't even know Eaton's politics? I just know Drake LaRoche situation with Eaton and some of that stuff. I know that before the Drake LaRoche fiasco Eaton was pretty well liked by Sox fans although there was some commentary around his time in Arizona and maybe he had too much of an ego or something for being such a young player. Either way - that was a long time ago and he's been a professional with the Nats ever since and people mature. And yes - I actually am human enough that I don't think someone is a (good or bad) person because of who they voted for. I may not agree with that person - but it DOES NOT make someone a good or bad person because you voted for Biden and/or Trump. I'm going to end with that but enough is enough on the TLR stuff and the Eaton stuff. Its absurd. I've made it clear - people have an issue with TLR - put it in the thread from when he's hired - don't dump it into every thread out there.

None of this is helpful.

If he can bounce back from a rough 2020 and be healthy, this is a solid move (from an on field perspective).

To your point - Lynn's contract is so good for the next year, this deal basically puts the Sox in the same spot as they were entering the day, which is having a ton of flexibility. What is to say they aren't pushing their chips forward and plan on leveraging another prospect or two, plus payroll to get another front line, yet cost controlled starter with the intent to eventually replace Lynn with one of their younger pitchers who hopefully takes a step forward (Kopech, Cease, Croquet). Could the Sox land Darvish without giving up one of those other names, but more going down an alternative path - I don't know, but whose to say they can't go get one more front of the rotation type of guy at this point. Or maybe they figure they are buying themselves a year while they try to lock down Gio a bit longer and better see what they have in others while maintaining massive flexibility. Like I said - I think I would have preferred other options, but I don't think Dunning for Lynn is a massive overpay or anything of that elk.