Chisoxfn

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 8, 2012 -> 03:18 PM) Karl Malone was a power forward. And he was also a superstar. I don't know any way around it. If it weren't for MJ, the Jazz win at least 2 titles and who knows what else they might have done. Malone was a hell of a player.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jan 8, 2012 -> 11:15 AM) Lucky or smart or both, JR bought the Bulls the Carleton Sheets way, no money down. George Steinbrenner and Co. wanted out so badly, they basically handed the keys to JR in exchange for assuming some debt, and that was with Michael Jordan on the roster. I wouldn't mind one of my investments working out like that. I learn something new every day. I had no idea that Steinbrenner was a minority owner of the Bulls at one point in time.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jan 8, 2012 -> 03:13 PM) Wil Cordero and Joey Belle would be up there close. Or Kobe on the Bulls, although that guy is loved as 2nd to God and Mao Zedong here in China. Maybe even more than Yao Ming. Guess Jesus was too busy listening to prayers over Christmas and New Year's but now has the time to focus on more secular matters like the NFL Playoffs. I don't believe Belle had done anything close to what Big Ben did. But I was a kid than so I could be wrong. And Kobe isn't a good example. Not for one second did I ever believe that girl raped him. The difference between the Kobe situation in Colorado and the Rapist situation are significant. Its all my personal opinion but I have zero doubt that Big Ben has raped at least one women, possibly two.

Damn...Thomas would have been very close to the 1st down if he caught that.

Another big play by the Bronco's offense!!!! Stupid delay of game penalty by Denver though. I'm glad Fox is opening things up a bit. The way teams defend Tebow you have to take chances down field and Tim doesn't throw a bad deep ball. If Pitt gets burned enough, they'll have to bring there safeties back and it will open the rushing lanes.

Wow, what an open field tackle on Wallace to hold them on 3rd down. I thought for sure Wallace would get a 1st down there.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 8, 2012 -> 02:55 PM) I'm disgusted by the fact that I have to agree with you. PS: You should do it more often, haha. Albeit I think the two of us tend to agree quite a lot when it comes to the Bears. On a sidenote, the Bears are your 2nd team correct? I know you are a big Bills fans.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 8, 2012 -> 02:55 PM) I'm disgusted by the fact that I have to agree with you. I was one of Big Ben's biggest fans prior to his off the field problems. I will never ever cheer for anything he does. I actually wonder what I'd do if the Bears had him on there team. I'd literally have to root for him to get injured so that I could go back to cheering for my favorite team. Damn, rough penalty for Denver. That was a great pick. Obviously it was an offsides though.

Cause you are a quality human being who doesn't want to cheer for a rapist to win.

Tebow!!!! Beat the Rapist!!!! Lets to Broncos!!!!!

Interesting. Brandon Marshall, Jay Cutler, and Ryan Clady have been talking a bit on twitter. Cutler seems to be hinting at bringing both of them to Chicago. However, I don't believe Clady is a FA so no idea how the Bears would add him. Marshall and Clady would be tremendous fits though.

Go tebow. Beat the rapist. You are a horrible qb at this stage in your career but a tremendOus human being.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jan 6, 2012 -> 11:30 AM) I wonder if there's something we can do to jazz up the title that would make it a promotion. For assistant coaches I don't believe that matters. I might be wrong but I know the Bears were able to block Tice from interviewing with the Titans for an OC job. Teams are not able to block assistants for interviewing as a head coach though.

I guess Cutler has recommended the Titans QB coach but it sounds like Munchack absolutely loves him and no one expects the Bears to get permission for what would be a lateral move in title (although the Bears job will be more hands on and give him more experience). There are also indications the Bears would be all over Koetter but everyone expects him to go to Atlanta, assuming he is let go from Jacksonville. One interesting thing I saw for oline coach was ex-Bear Andy Heck.

QUOTE (GoSox05 @ Jan 6, 2012 -> 11:17 AM) Scott Linehan was the OC under Tice. Tice has worked with two pretty well respected offensive guys in Linehan and Billick.

QUOTE (knightni @ Jan 6, 2012 -> 10:54 AM) He was the Vikings' head coach a few years ago. I think that he's called a few plays before. Maybe on rare ocassions but never has he been responsible calling plays for a full game.

I've read on TalkBears that the Bears appear to be hiring Jeremy Bates. Has anyone else seen that or is that verified? If so, I'd be pretty exstatic. I think we'd see a similar but modified playbook with modified play-calling (and by modified, I mean similar to what we saw during Cutler's hot streak, plus more play action and rollouts). I think this is probably the best case scenario as it will not recall a total revamp to the offense. The big key is to add a LT and #1 wideout. From there I'm pretty confident in the offense. On defense, the team could use a DE and CB. Plus they have to start looking for a young MLB that can play the cover 2.

QUOTE (Brian @ Jan 6, 2012 -> 08:28 AM) I said it last year when they traded for Wallace and I'll say it again. Steal of a trade for Portland. Didn't recognize Felton. Looked pudgy but fits that team nicely. Entertaining game. The announcerns I had kept talking about how Portland has wanted to trade Wallace since they got him. He'd be nice on the Bulls since he can actually create offense and get to the line. Crawford was on fire.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 6, 2012 -> 10:27 AM) Worth noting...the team actually can't prevent him from interviewing elsewhere after the Ravens are out of the playoffs. So if that's not his call, it could still change. It was completely his call.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jan 5, 2012 -> 06:39 PM) That's just it. Who fires their GM and their QB coach and basically fires their OC and keeps the head coach? Despite popular opinion, Angelo has had the Bears in the Super Bowl and NFC Championship game twice the past 5 years. Any other GM in this town does that, they get a close to lifetime pass. It wasn't his fault his top 2 players had season ending injuries. Not many teams are going to survive that. Obviously he has had trouble with the drafts, obviously his team is thin, but when you have several marquee players, NFL teams tend to be thin. He screwed up this year by not having a competent back up QB. An average back up probably gets the Bears in the playoffs, then maybe Cutler and Forte return, but Angelo then wouldn't be fired. I know there's a new sheriff in town, but GM's usually have to mess up a little more than that to get fired. Its just a theory, but paying out Angelo instead of having him just walk away retired (although they probably would have given him something anyway) is a small price to pay for the publicity firing him and going out and saying everything fans want to hear. If there hadn't been rumblings about Angelo stepping down for a couple of years, I doubt I would feel this way, but I really think this was more staged than an actual firing. Obviously Angelo would have had to play along, and I don't know if his pride would allow it. Again, just a theory. There's something about when a McCaskey says something about money being no object that just makes me skeptical. I will say this. I just never thought our front office/coach situation was all that bad to be frank. The Bears have made some pretty shrewd signings over the years and as a whole, have drafted relatively well. Angelo has definitely missed on his 1st round picks and had a run of bad drafts, but people forget that sometimes that happens to even the best GM's. Additionally, some of the people he gets called out for being busts ended up being productive football players (Columbo & Benson). The dude had put together two sets of competitive teams (a Super Bowl and an NFC Championship). I will point out that I could see him taking hit for not adding another QB, but in his defense, he also didn't want Martz. All I know is if Cutler/Forte don't go down, we might be talking about Angelo's replacement either way (via retirement) but we'd also probably be talking about how we need to extend Lovie. Lovie had this team in a great position and I have to remind myself about that because I think that is an important fact. It should also be pointed out that Angelo's worst drafts came with either (A) no picks or (B) during a period of time where Lovie had more influence on the organization. His picks of Bazuin and the trade for Adams go down as huge huge negatives for the Bears. Hard to evaluate the Adams trade though, since I have no idea what other teams were offering, since sadly no one got to see whether he'd live up to his potential.

QUOTE (kjshoe04 @ Jan 5, 2012 -> 06:15 PM) I've been wondering for a while now why everyone hates Martz so much. Until Cutler went down this was the best Bears offense of my lifetime. #7 in points. I think the problem was there was a lot of internal issues between Martz and Cutler/Tice. I think Bates is going to be who the Bears end up hiring. It would mean Jay doesn't have to actually learn a new system, albeit, the rest of the offense would.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jan 5, 2012 -> 04:53 PM) I have a theory that Angelo was going to retire. Its pretty much been in the news for a couple of years. I think a lot of these rumors have legs. It was reported Martz was out weeks ago. I think the Bears realize how unpopular Angelo was and asked him to let them fire him instead. They pay off the couple of years left on his contract or another agreed upon sum, and the Bears come away looking proactive, they can say all the right things at the press conference and Jerry is basically retired with some extra gas in his tank. It might be totally crazy, but I think there's a chance its fairly accurate. The problem I see is Ted Phillips a non football guy, making this decision. The McCaskeys are forever indebted to Ted, for he is the one who got them Soldier Field redone and made their net worth leap considerably. He has a lifetime contract with them, no matter what happens. It might not eventually be working for the Bears, but the McCaskeys will make sure Ted is well taken care of the rest of his life. Would the Bears spend all that money to do that? Especially when they could have just allowed Angelo to retire and to be frank, it probably would make the Bears look better since it would not add so many questions around Lovie's tenure since the only reason they were looking for a GM was related to the retirement (which would be a better explanation for staying the status quo with your coach but not with the GM).

I'm very intrigued to see what happens. I love me some gavin Floyd but for the right price and McGuire and Drabek would qualify as that, I'd be happy. I would also fully endorse the Sox turning around and spending some of that money. I also fully expect the Sox will deal Peavy and Thornton at some point this year, Thorty probably sooner than later. I think Peavy is going to kick ass and actually be a pretty valuable trade chip, one that teams will be okay observing cash (specifically a team in contention who wouldn't be in the position to take long-term cash but could suck it up for one post-season run).

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jan 5, 2012 -> 02:51 PM) First of all, you discredit Harbaugh and then go on to credit Schwartz for doing basically the exact same thing as Harbaugh has done at Stanford and now San Francisco. Secondly, most of what you credit Schwartz for seems to me to be things the GM that replaced Matt Millen should get credit for. Everything you expect from a head coach, whether it be preparing the team to play, instilling discipline and sportsmanship in his players, keeping his teams from committing costly penalties, etc., the Lions, and Jim Schwartz by clear and direct extension, fail at. The Lions are an undisciplined, disrespectful, idiotic but incredibly talented team. Seems to me it is Schwartz's job to harness that talent and produce success. They started out 5-1 (but were lucky to have that record since they came out unprepared against Minnesota and Dallas), and finished weakly at 10-6, and made the playoffs only because Jay Cutler injured his wrist and the Bears collapsed. All excellent points. The Lions are an incredibly talented squad and I'll have Schwartz major credit for changing the attitude there as the coach but I want to see what he does because that team is completely undisciplined and it cost them significantly this year. Harbaugh gets more points for me, similar to Shack, for the fact that he showed how he could take a previously non-existent college football team and help make them sucessful.

While I can get excited at the names, I'd be pretty surprised if any of this talk is true.