Jenksismyhero

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 11, 2011 -> 02:05 PM) There is a difference between being over the cap and paying the luxury tax. For purposes of his argument - that somehow an increase in the tax is going to screw all of these players- the history doesn't show that. It's made no difference as teams continue to spend regardless. Edit: I see, I read what he wrote wrong. Yes, the majority are over the cap but still a minority pay the tax.

QUOTE (ZoomSlowik @ Oct 11, 2011 -> 01:18 PM) First off, four teams are already over the luxury tax for 2011/2012 before a single player is signed or extended. That's going to result in quite a few luxury tax teams. You're also missing a major part of the point. The salary cap IS going down because the slice of the BRI that the players get is dropping AND they want to impose harsher penalties for the luxury tax. So yes, more teams are going to be paying it if they want to keep their roster intact. It also doesn't just affect the teams that actually pay it, it affects the teams that are near the threshold and have to make roster decisions. Utah is a major example. They had been straddling the threshold for a while before losing Carlos Boozer, and if they had managed to keep Deron Williams they would have been a tax team as well. Denver pretty much had to give Marcus Camby away because they were a tax team despite being a 5-seed caliber squad. Phoenix is another one, rather than keeping guys like Johnson, Marion and Stoudemire they overpaid some scrubs but avoided the tax. Atlanta is another one that's going to have problems because of the Joe Johnson salary and having to pay Horford and Smith as well. None of this makes sense when you figure that more and more teams were paying the tax over the last decade AND salaries were increasing at rate of 30 and 40%. In other words, the raise in the tax hasn't stopped teams from spending. If the cap gets lowered because of the lowered percent the players get, so will salaries. It's all proportional. Maybe in the short term (i.e., until existing contracts end) there might be some teams out of whack with the salary cap, but i'm guessing they'll agree to some system whereby those existing contracts don't count towards the cap or teams get X amount of cap relief for existing contracts. It's not like current salaries are suddenly going to be used in a system where the cap drops 25%, forcing teams to field a bunch of ex-college stars at the league minimum. How is the bolded true when only 11 teams paid the tax in 2009-2010? As I said, the drop in BRI is going to result in lowered salaries. It'll all even out over the course of a couple of seasons, assuming they don't agree to some system so this problem doesn't happen. I'm not excusing ownership ignorance. But some teams are forced into s***ty contracts. Imagine if Reinsdorf decided to be "smart" with his money and not sign any max-deal FA's this last off season. Think the fans would have been ok with an excuse that he was merely trying to run an efficient business? Or was the market set for a number of guys to get max money and the Bulls were basically forced into giving Boozer a max deal (even though he's clearly not worth it) because they might have missed out on signing any of the big FA's. In as much as these measures are in place to stop ignorant owners, it's also to stop other ignorant owners and to keep the league healthy and in balance. If it's so advantageous for both sides then they can re-up the deal every year or two for the current market rate. That's what you see happen with the NFL. The players worth the money still get paid and the franchise continues to have those players on their roster. There's nothing in the world mandating that six years is reasonable while 4 is not. It's completely arbitrary and based on historical practice. The union won that negotiation session last time around, there's no reason they have to keep it.

Ugh, that movie looks so terrible.

QUOTE (ZoomSlowik @ Oct 11, 2011 -> 11:24 AM) Huh? How the hell is that all you get out of that article? There are like 5 things mentioned in it and you're harping on one of them. Harsher luxury taxes are going to hurt virtually every player in the league because teams will be less likely to add new talent if they have to send a big check to the league. I'm sure they think it's going to reign in the big spenders, but what it's really going to do is murder non-heavyweights that are trying to contend because it's going to hurt someone like OKC a lot more to pay that money than it's going to hurt the Lakers or Knicks. There's a difference between lowering the salary cap (has happened one time and it was a million bucks from 08-09 to 09-10) and imposing larger luxury taxes, which is what the owners want to do. How many teams pay the tax every year? A small minority right? So a small number of teams that already make tons of money and need not concern themselves with the level of contracts (since they can afford to over pay) probably aren't going to be all that upset with having to pay more. A reduction in some contracts? Sure, but for a few teams and a few players. More franchises aren’t going to suddenly pay the tax just because the tax rate goes up. Now the idea that teams can only go over the salary cap two times in five years could change some franchises willingness to take on some contracts, but that’s a negotiating point and who knows how strong the owners are there. Afterall, that would seriously mess with the structure of maintaining championship level talent for 3+ year periods of time and I dunno that the big guns will be thrilled about that. Even so, that’s a benefit to the league and will spread the talent around the league. Again, how many players are we talking about here? Only teams that go over the salary cap (a minority). And how many players that don’t already have a solid contract are worth more than 5.8 a year? You can split the MLE into multiple players but beyond Miami this year I don’t recall any other team doing it, but I’m not certain it hasn’t been done. Still, low number of players that are probably not worth that much money anyway. Well no doubt it’s mostly managements fault for signing these dumb contracts, but that market has been set and in some ways they’re forced into it. But we’re talking about a year here. It’s not the end of the world for these guys to take a year (or two if they leave for a different team). Five years is a long time for a guaranteed contract for a max guy. If Joe Johnson gets hurt in year 1 and is never the same player, why should the owners be stuck paying that contract for all of those years when he contributes nothing? Maybe make another exception for injuries or completely s***ting the bed after getting a long contract, I dunno. But I don’t see an issue limiting the number of years as I see six/five being too high. And again, this comes down to the owners having to spend money to make their 47% and the players just having to show up. I don’t see how the players have the balls to demand a majority share of the revenue without conceding SOMETHING. Yes, they’ve gone from 57 to 53….which was too f***ing high to begin with. And now the recession has hurt the league even more. It’s a new age for the league and both sides need to see that and compromise.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Oct 11, 2011 -> 11:19 AM) Sproles doesnt play WR, he is a running back. The better comparison for Hester is Percy Harvin, a player who in College really didnt have a set position and now in the pros is trying to be mainly a WR (Hester has it even harder as he wasnt really an offensive player for the Hurricanes.) That being said, the Bears could be more creative in getting Hester the ball. There is nothing that says he cant line up in the back field (unless Hester cant grasp the playbook, but if thats the case he shouldnt start at WR). As for Lovie being above average, above average coaches dont make the mistakes Lovie does. I guess my problem is that Lovie isnt clever. If there is something the Bears can take advantage of while the game is going on, Lovie just doesnt seem to catch it. If I was the owner Id strongly consider firing a coach for the FG debacle. I don't think i've ever seen him make a halftime adjustment. That's what good coaches do.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Oct 11, 2011 -> 10:21 AM) Ron Zook for Coach of the Year: He should have lied and said I wanted to try a 2 pt conversion during the game for practice.

QUOTE (SoxFan1 @ Oct 11, 2011 -> 12:24 AM) The Rock got paid a lot of money to play the lead role in Faster and probably had about a dozen lines to remember. Good for him. Decent action flick. Kept me entertained. Also saw Unknown recently. It was alright, kind of hard to follow at times and a unexpected ending. Saw that a few weeks ago and thought it was worth the rental. The ending came out of nowhere, but it worked.

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_ylt=AlJB...ls_games_101011 So, the entire league is coming down to save probably 10 players a year from gaining an extra year or two on s***ty contracts that they're not worth in the first place. Good to know.

QUOTE (MexSoxFan#1 @ Oct 11, 2011 -> 10:34 AM) I could just imagine how the Saints or Packers would use Hester in their offense, they would know how to use his talents effectively, unlike our sorry ass bunch. Right, that's what I mean. NO gets Sproles involved. I've seen GB get Cobb involved on a couple of offensive plays. I also fail to understand why Cutler isn't in the shotgun 90% of the time. If that gives him an extra second or two, how is that a bad thing?

Are they taught that he was the first? Or the first westerner? I remember there being a viking discoverer before him, but in terms of bringing the "new world" to the "world" he was the first right?

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Oct 11, 2011 -> 09:40 AM) Good for them. Let's see if they stick with it.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Oct 11, 2011 -> 09:54 AM) Can we please also talk about Devin Hester? NFL record or not, this dude clearly hurts us more than he helps us in his current role. He drops open passes, and as proven previously, when he has to be on the field on offense, he is not his usual self. Catching a kickoff that is headed out of bounds, to run out of bounds at the 6, is probably the most bone-headed thing I have ever seen in a football game. That's 34 f***ing yards just given up due to stupidity. I don't understand why the Bears can't design plays to get him the ball with some blocking. Some screens, some reverses...anything.

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Oct 11, 2011 -> 09:33 AM) @DwyaneWade - STERN's "WORDS" 2day hurt the ppl who work at the AAA,other arena's,as well as local businesses &our fans.. f*** you Dwayne Wade. You're 50% of the problem.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Oct 11, 2011 -> 09:35 AM) I cannot believe they passed on the opportunity to put 3 on the board on their opening drive. Players, Coaching, Management - all bad for Bears. When's the last year of Lovie's new deal? I need to know when the Bears will have a magical season to save his ass yet again. He got an extension last year for 3 years I believe, so we got him through 2013. This year he'll suck, next year we'll be mediocre, and he'll pull a division winning season in 2013 due to Rodgers and Johnson both getting knocked out for the year, earning him another 3 year extension. People will then praise him for being a great coach. The hellish cycle continues...

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 11, 2011 -> 09:25 AM) It amazes me we still celebrate this "holiday". Columbus wasn't first, or even the first European. And it is symbolic of one of the two most truly awful things the US orchestrated during its history. Makes me ill every year that it is still used as a holiday. He was the most important, most well known and probably most influential for bringing back news of the new world. Agree with the second part, though I dunno that you can blame one group (or man) for what tens of thousands did over the course of a few hundred years.

Adding to this pissing contest, I don't think it was 100% certain that Walt poisoned Brock until the last few minutes of the show. I completely forgot about the gun spinning scene where it landed on the plant, and I assumed (as i'm sure 99% of the audience did) that Gus did it as an additional way to drive a wedge between Jessie and Walt. The only time I started to question that was Walt's reaction to Jessie saying that Brock was going to be ok. He was a little too relieved about that news. The shot of the plant at the end just confirmed it.

QUOTE (kev211 @ Oct 10, 2011 -> 11:52 PM) I'm going to start having some serious withdrawals if I don't get a Drose fix soon. Especially after watching his new commercial about 3 times last night during the game

QUOTE (whitesoxfan99 @ Oct 10, 2011 -> 11:02 PM) I'd love to hear your argument as to why you don't consider Lovie a good coach because he clearly is. 56% winning percentage, two NFC championship game appearances and a Super Bowl appearance despite having terrible offensive personnel his entire tenure with the Bears. This is a joke right? Did you watch the game? He is one of the worst decision makers in the league. Wasting challenges, wasting timeouts, terrible decision not to kick the FG. And how do you not give Barber the ball if you're looking at a 4th and less than one? f*** Martz, you're the goddamn head coach. And 9 false start penalties! After about 3 how do you not talk to your guys and come up with a silent count or some other plan to hike the ball? That team last night was completely and utterly unprepared. That's not just the lack of talent (which is a separate problem) that's just straight up terrible coaching. I could care less about his winning percentage. He's lucky. Anyone watching this team the last 5 years knows that. You have hall of famers on defense and special teams. I could coach them to a 56% winning percentage. He's f***ing terrible.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Oct 10, 2011 -> 10:11 PM) The coaching staff is brutal. How they will continue to have jobs after this week is mind blowing. Two reasons: 1) idiotic fans still think Lovie is a good coach 2) idiotic fans continue to go to games and don't hold ownership responsible for putting a s*** team on the field season after season. Zero accountability. Lucking into an NFC championship game = 3 year extension despite being terrible.

can't wait to hear Lovie's excuse during the post game press conference. "Whelp, just didn't have it today. Tip your cap. Saw some good things. Saw some bad things. We'll be back next week."

LOL. Annnnnnnnd i'm done.

#1 wide receiver skills

it'd be amazing if the Bears had the money to spend on a deep threat like that. oh wait, no. D-lineman are more important

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ Oct 10, 2011 -> 08:25 PM) The Soxtalk mantra. First sign of being half-bad just quit and guarantee suckage for years. first?

good challenge, that was a terrible spot. he landed right on the line if not over