Chisoxfn

QUOTE (Brian @ Nov 16, 2014 -> 09:53 AM) Snell had 3 points in 12 minutes and that bucket was with 10 seconds left. DMD had 7 in 13. Yes, DMD had 3 TOs but we needed offense last night and DMD is more versatile then Snell, who is nothing more than a bad draft pick who probably won't be on the team next year. Turnovers and defense still matter. I'm not writing off Snell. He's been much more aggressive this year and the Bulls aren't looking for him to score. I had zero problem with our use of Snell, especially during the periods where we literally couldn't stop penetration. Brooks was so bad defensively yesterday. I'm not saying Snell is good but he too is young with some tools and it is good that Thibbs is gaining confidence in him. It is early in the year and I love the fact that in general, Thibbs is getting a lot of guys into the games and we are learning what we have. That will become very key later in the year. Dougie needs to remember to play aggressive. The travels and turnovers were just ugly and at times he overplays on D. That said, he appears to be smart and when he plays more aggressively good things seem to happen.

QUOTE (GoodAsGould @ Nov 16, 2014 -> 07:07 PM) I think he is better than Brady but Manning is number 1. Your order is wrong. Under zero circumstance is Manning better then Brady.

QUOTE (Jake @ Nov 16, 2014 -> 12:58 PM) All told, not a bad day for Bears. We still saw flashes of head-scratchingly bad play, but both sides of the ball can sleep well tonight. I assume special teams never sleeps at night You wonder how that turd has a job. Seriously. Pathetic.

QUOTE (Jake @ Nov 16, 2014 -> 12:50 PM) For as good as the offense has looked much of the time today, it's baffling how infrequently they've been able to convert into points. That has been true throughout the year. No ability to close. Looks like we'll win this one, though I think coaching is a lot of it but also the players. We don't do the little things necessary to win and finish drives, imo. At least they f***ing threw the ball downfield. So pathetic how long that has taken. It was like we remembered we have big guys that can use the rest of the field and we can move our QB in the pocket a bit. Novel concept. Trestman really isn't the offensive genius he is cracked up to be. Not in this era of the NFL.

QUOTE (thxfrthmmrs @ Nov 16, 2014 -> 10:50 AM) I've said many times and I will say it again. Cutler is a much better QB when he rolls out of pocket and buys more time with his feet. But often times he forces a throw on his back foot when staying in pocket. That play was Rodge-esque. Trestman doesn't seem to think that is a good idea. This takes away so many of his big plays by oversimplifying everything and making it about quick pre-snap reads, etc. I just think Jay is a very bad fit for what Trestman is trying to do but again, Jay has to stop giving the ball up so much anyway. I say trade him if we can or bring in a defense coach and figure with the weapons and a solid OC who focuses on the run, we can protect Jay enough if we can rebuild the D to be completive with Jay while we try to find a new QB. By the way, this more just shows how bad Minny is then the Bears being all that good, imo. Jay had some awful turnovers in this game but at least he also had a number of very big plays and the offense appeared to be opened up quite a bit more. I still don't know where and why we don't run the ball more.

QUOTE (scs787 @ Nov 16, 2014 -> 08:51 AM) I hear a lot of people say we fixed the OL, and I just wanted to point this stat out.... Jay has been sacked 6.5 sack% of the time this year (including the SF game where he was sacked just once)....An OL that featured J'Marcus Webb/Chris Spencer/Roberto Garza/Chris Williams/Lance Louis with starts also coming from Gabe Carimi, Frank Omiyale, and Edwin Williams, gave up sacks to Jay 6.8%. (Just 5.1% last year) This has magnified Jays biggest issue, and that's fumbling the football. His INT% is actually better this year but in 9 games this year vs 11 last year he's fumbled the ball 10 times vs just 5 last year. Jay has statistically been better this year than last and I struggled to find out why this team has sucked so hard and I think I just found it. *Waits for excuses comments* We have had a lot of injuries at the oline but more importantly, I think the tackle position has became a major area of need. There was an article out there that if we can trade Jay and his contract, we would save 12.5M next year (not sure if that was out of his cap hit of $15M) and we end up with just 2.5M or what. I wonder if Titans would be interested? I am 100% on board with moving Jay and if we could clear the bulk of his cap hit, all the better. I think he's the best QB we have had in a long time, but I don't think he's good enough and I think right now, we need a new leader from the top down in our organization and I think it starts by dumping GM, QB, HC and moving along from there. I think we can find a vet QB who can come in while we draft another QB (I'm ok with Sanchez for a year or two…not sure if he'd be interested or someone else while we groom a QB). Focus on building up that defense, etc and figure our offense can still be quality because of Forte, etc. I really like Harbaugh and if it isn't him, Bowles from Arizona.

QUOTE (Brian @ Nov 16, 2014 -> 04:28 AM) On days like last night when Dunleavy is invisible, play DMD more. He'll be aggressive and try and make something happen. Snell is awful and should never be on the floor if the score is within 15. Snell outplayed McDermott, who is still playing way too passively and having issues with turnovers. McDermott will get his minutes but these rookies have a lot to learn.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan99 @ Nov 15, 2014 -> 07:03 PM) I really despise watching Kirk Hinrich play. I basically can't watch Bulls games when Rose is out cause he is so dreadful. Watching Brooks play defense on Price was more dreadful. Really ugly game outside of Butler. Not enough movement, awful defense from Noah and Brooks, notably. Dougie and Nikolai definitely having some woes.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Nov 14, 2014 -> 02:03 PM) Flawed statistic since a lot of PPACA plans were extremely cautious with pricing and relatively expensive to try and protect tail risk from a riskier population, especially in year 1 of Obamacare. There were companies like Kaiser who intentionally bid extremely high as well to again minimize risk on their end. I also can look at my wife and I's coverage, both of which have deteriorated with the advent of Obamacare. My wifes to the point that the Company basically downgraded their coverage to what is minimally required for a company with its employer base, etc. In fact, I can't think of anyone I know who isn't expecting, between increased premiums and deductibles, pretty significant increases to their overall cost of health. Re: change in coverage and specifically overall costs. I will give one specific example, wife covered under work (previous and now) and with change, her job moves to essentially obama care standard required, premiums are still up, but on top of that, the cost of having our next child in April will be up 900%. We will have went from spending $250 for our first child (out of pocket) to an expectation of $2500 (and if she ends up with a c-section, it would be even more out of pocket). This is with the amount company pays towards the coverage remaining a constant. That is real dollars. A real difference. Is that entirely obamacare's fault, no, but I can tell you flat out they weren't the first and only company to drastically reduce overall health coverage to less platinum plans as a result of obamacare.

QUOTE (bmags @ Nov 14, 2014 -> 01:37 PM) Unless you are referring to medicaid for obamacare coverage, it wouldn't dictate rates. But even in the medicare/medicaid refusals, i highly doubt that number has increased enough to matter. The "cash only" doctors make a lot of noise but the client base for them is too small to be a game changer. The point of ppaca was to allow individual consumers to get group leverage for insurance. PPACA actual did a lot for billing processes to help with costs and they seem to be doing a decent job with what little data we have on it. Costs have, again, slowed the past 5 years and did not accelerate rapidly in 2014. Most PPACA plans are coming in below last years. This bill has been remarkably successful so far. Flawed statistic since a lot of PPACA plans were extremely cautious with pricing and relatively expensive to try and protect tail risk from a riskier population, especially in year 1 of Obamacare. There were companies like Kaiser who intentionally bid extremely high as well to again minimize risk on their end. I also can look at my wife and I's coverage, both of which have deteriorated with the advent of Obamacare. My wifes to the point that the Company basically downgraded their coverage to what is minimally required for a company with its employer base, etc. In fact, I can't think of anyone I know who isn't expecting, between increased premiums and deductibles, pretty significant increases to their overall cost of health.

QUOTE (bmags @ Nov 14, 2014 -> 01:37 PM) Unless you are referring to medicaid for obamacare coverage, it wouldn't dictate rates. But even in the medicare/medicaid refusals, i highly doubt that number has increased enough to matter. The "cash only" doctors make a lot of noise but the client base for them is too small to be a game changer. The point of ppaca was to allow individual consumers to get group leverage for insurance. PPACA actual did a lot for billing processes to help with costs and they seem to be doing a decent job with what little data we have on it. Costs have, again, slowed the past 5 years and did not accelerate rapidly in 2014. Most PPACA plans are coming in below last years. This bill has been remarkably successful so far. I am specifically referring to those plans under obamacare coverage being more particular with pricing and if that were the case you would have doctors that would not accept that type of insurance and would focus on those insurances and accept those insurances from more your company sponsored private plans. Clearly I understand the obamacare are still private insurers, however, if politicians wanted to they could specify that if you are an exchange covered plan we will only pay x for this and y for this coverage, etc. May not be the case now, but it could be done.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 14, 2014 -> 01:29 PM) Defensive medicine isn't that much of a cost and malpractice reform has had little or no impact on overall healthcare costs where it's been implemented. It's also hard to separate out a "defensive" procedure from a "something else we can bill insurance for" procedure. On the 2nd point, very true. What information do you have on malpractice having little to no impact on overall healthcare costs?

QUOTE (bmags @ Nov 14, 2014 -> 09:24 AM) I agree with what you say, but with comments like these I'm just wondering how much of the 2009-10 health care fight you remember. Cutting doctor pay would have been impossible. Nationalized insurance is a way easier sell than nationalized health care. The hard part is, if only Obama care coverage cut approved rates, then you end up with more doctors who will just flat not accept that coverage. It is already happening and would continue to expand. It does seem that there is so much excessive fat in the entire billing process, etc. Part of it is because of all the complications in how to get something approved, you end up having to have so much overhead with people specialized on the billings, etc, to ensure they maximize the revenue, get paid, etc, that those costs ultimately just push up overall costs (got to make it up somehow). I don't have that much of a problem if I go to the doctor for half an hour and it cost $50 bucks. I don't see anything wrong with a doctor spending 30 minutes on me and making that type of money. If you went to an attorney, they'd likely charge you far more then that. I have more issue with all the stuff that involves ridiculous mark ups on standard products as well as the absurdity of how people can work the system (whether it is having additional doctors in a room when it isn't really necessary...thus doubling the cost of a procedure to your insurance company...which then passes on more costs). Other big elephant in the room is the costs related to medical malpractice and how all of the suits cause doctors to be so so careful that they prescribe so many unnecessary, tests, etc, that all add to the cost of the program as well.

QUOTE (Iwritecode @ Nov 14, 2014 -> 09:15 AM) I wonder if someone can explain how the tax penalty works. We have insurance through my wife’s employer. Our oldest daughter just turned 18 in August and just started her first PT job about a month ago. She was included on our insurance plan but we have been fighting with idiots at the insurance company because they kept insisting they needed more information to prove that we are US citizens. Apparently birth certificates, driver’s licenses and school ids weren’t good enough somehow. Somewhere in the midst of all this, they kicked our daughter off. We found later it was somehow related to the fact that my wife was still going by her maiden name when she had her (we were 18 at the time). This made zero sense because we had our second daughter before we were married as well. We’ll be able to get her back on before the year ends and she only works about 12 hours a week so I doubt her yearly income will even be enough to make the penalty enforceable but I’m not 100% sure on that. Also FWIW, we found out that our insurance costs will actually go down next year. It’ll be around $60/month. Don't quote me on this, but some of the considerations are going to depend on whether you claim her as a dependent or not. If you do, then I presume your income levels will be factored in and thus she might be on the hook for the penalty, which IIRC has a minimum dollar amount or something like 1% of your taxable income. This is off the top of my head and I'm making a lot of assumptions in here based upon other tax benefits, etc.

QUOTE (Tex @ Nov 14, 2014 -> 12:22 PM) While Balta's uninsured comment was not directed at this, it does highlight why everyone benefits when people have insurance and receive treatment. People who can not afford treatment continue on and infect others, increasing the cost for everyone. I'd adjust this slightly but goes to a similar thought, it is why preventive medicine is so important as a society, not only for the betterment of society, but from a cost management perspective. Much cheaper to have regular check-ups, immunizations, etc, then waiting until someone is on their death bed with a million things wrong with them to treat. Of course this is coming from one of the few republican's who believes everyone in our country has the right to quality healthcare. I really can't make any legitimate argument as to why that shouldn't be the case. How we go about reaching that goal, well that to me is what should be the focal point of the argument.

Very sad.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Nov 14, 2014 -> 10:01 AM) They had some Bears insiders on CSN yesterday. Supposedly, Briggs has had a big attitude problem this year. I guess he was out at the bars until 4 AM last Friday night, mentioned zoning out in meetings etc. He is supposedly a "Lovie guy" and has never connected with this staff, and also is supposedly a little out of shape. They were mentioning one thing that may happen if this continues is Lance getting released. It should have happened a while ago. If you are the coaches, then coach. If that means you need to send a message, send the message. It also has been very clear that Briggs thinks very poorly of the current staff. He's pretty much said so and his actions further indicate such. How our front office and coaching staff has handled it has been poor and it should have been something pretty easy to do. Either you bench Briggs or cut him but you have to set an example. Right now I feel as if the entire coaching staff (or at least primary coaches) are not respected enough by the players and people don't listen. I also think we have major schematic issues to go beyond this as well.

Randy Gregory from Nebraska is who I'd love to get.

On a sidenote, I think new leadership will be very beneficial starting next year for Bears. We'll have mainstays from Lovie era out (unfortunate for Tillman but Briggs is clearly not interested in changing) and focus / push will be on young players and with a clean house there should be new opportunities for people to step forward and hopefully clean the bad bad taste of this defense out of everyone's mouths. I really hope we could get Bowles or Harbaugh. Those are my wish list. I want to build this defense back and focus on an offense that can score but more importantly can play physical football in the elements. I want them to be able to run the football, help in the time of possession, and in this new era of big offenses, help our defense by preventing other offenses from gaining rhythm. We have all the weapons to do it, just need to change the focal point (and need our oline healthier along with an upgrade at the tackle position). I want a nasty d and good special teams and an efficient offense. I don't need the Bears to average 35 per game. I think Bowles / Harbaugh bring that type of mindset and will help bring that type of team to Chicago.

On a sidenote, I really don't get people complaining about the Dodgers OF'ers wanting to play and being unhappy about sitting. They didn't sign 100M deals to sit on benches and not play everyday. They were put in this position by Dodgers management who brought in too many guys for an area (part of that was due to need because of various injuries, etc) but the reality is those guys are starters in the league and are paid to do so. It is perfectly fair for them to want to do it. Ethier played the good guy role back in 2012 and then asked to be traded last off-season. Dodgers didnt' do so and he was very very unhappy and it is no surprise his performance dropped.

To me, if this guy is worth $100M on the open market and because of the loss of rights, I can get him for 60 (including fines)...I do just that. I thnk about the number of guys above $300K that we would lose out on signing and it really isn't that big of a deal when compared with the potential upside of the one guy we are getting. I'd then just sign a bunch of guys for the 300K or less amount. That can still end up getting you quality talent in those particular years you are barred (go higher volume cause we still would have decent pools anyway).

QUOTE (scs787 @ Nov 14, 2014 -> 09:22 AM) Neither would, but as the main piece I, personally would rather have Niese. I guess maybe I'm just a bit weary of trading Lexi for a guy who was never really that good in the minors. I mean I know prospect rankings should be taken with a grain of salt but looking at many prospect lists this Greene fellow never even ranked in the top 20. I've read a few scouting reports of his since you posted this and ya, I'm just not impressed. I certainly could be wrong on this and maybe something he learned at the major league level clicked with him and he will continue to be the pitcher he is now. I'd rather have Niese. I think he's the better pitcher long-term but I again, don't think he's who I am getting as the headline in a Ramirez trade. Neither of them are attractive enough headliners. You need more then that. We are talking about trading one of the best SS's in baseball. I want more then a slightly above league average cost controlled pitcher who doesn't have upside past that. At least Niese is slightly above league average, I don't think I can say that about Greene. Especially when I look at how our organization has been able to develop pitching and not positional talent.

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Nov 14, 2014 -> 09:25 AM) oh i'm sure they will manage to end up 7-9 and get a mediocre pick Technically if I look at the schedule I would be surprised if we didn't end up with 6 wins, with 2 of them coming in the next 2 weeks.

Only thing I can give Emery credit for is his success in 1st round. 2 out of 3 ain't bad (Fuller / Long are solid). Personally I want us to focus on the lines. I think football is won with your lines and while our LB's suck and we need more talent there, I would be looking an impact end and probably an OT / OG for the oline. I think DT we have the two young guys and maybe make a run at Suh, although that is a tough decision to make given the cap space we have going to our offense and QB. Might not make sense but I think we should be accumulating pass rushers to the extent we can and trying to have as great of an oline as possible. Clearly we also have mega needs at Safety / CB / LB as well though. If an impact LT was on the board though I would have a hard time ignoring it or the DE because it would appear harder to find those guys later in a draft when compared to the other positions.

QUOTE (CrimsonWeltall @ Nov 14, 2014 -> 06:53 AM) You're being really selective with statistics to make him look bad. Why didn't you include some of these statistics? -- 6th cheapest defense in the league saves the Bears money so it can afford some weapons for Cutler, who has none -- #1 ranked practice defense in NFL for two years in a row -- Defense broke Aaron Rodgers' clavicle more times than any other defense in NFL history Keep pushing your agenda On a sidenote, I didn't actually spend the time to pull that. I found it elsewhere and found it interesting. My only agenda is that this franchise needs to head a new direction. That is it. I want the Bears to win and I am convinced they won't do it with the current regime. I am not calling for coordinators to be scapegoated, I'm calling for top to bottom changes and a total clean-house. If you go through my posting history, I am probably one of the least overreactionary posters on this site but have been probably the most negative about the Bears for a while. Probably more negative about Emery then most, more negative about Trestman than most, and probably the first on here to really have my agenda against the DC and ST coach. My biggest agenda is with our ST coach cause what we have done there is just inexcuseable.