Jenksismyhero

the bears are so awful. i'm ready for this team to tank so we can clean house.

boy, Detroit is dirty

so glad we traded olsen away for davis....3 f***ing false starts in 10 min

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Oct 10, 2011 -> 05:47 PM) 2005 NFL Elite 11 Competition http://www.whosay.com/ChrisMortensen/photos/78008 Pictured, Jay Cutler, Jake Locker, Matthew Stafford, Tim Tebow, Josh Freeman, Ryan Mallett, Brad Smith, Tyler Palko and Pat Devlin I think that's Juice Williams in the middle right?

thanks O-line, glad you showed up

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 8, 2011 -> 07:27 AM) Not gonna lie, that's pretty f***ed. I don't get why "conservatives" are annoyed so much by these protests. Yes, it's stupid for some of these guys to be protesting with their ipods/ipads/laptops, crying about how terrible their lives are. But at the end of the day, especially for young graduates out of work, I feel for them. I spent 1.5 years looking for a job and basically lucked into one. So, as far as I'm concerned, preach on. It must suck immensely to be out there right now without a job. At least their doing something instead of playing xbox all day.

yeah, he's had some crazy bad luck the last 2 years.

Indiana's National Championship Train takes a hit. According to Andy Katz, Maurice Creek suffers Achilles tear, likely out for the season

Reading the interviews with Gilligan, it's amazing that he and his writers have no idea what's going to happen with the story. They have ideas, and they know some outstanding issues they need to cover, but how it's all going to end? They'll figure it out in November when they start writing the last season. Amazing episode. Solid A. I was fine with Gus coming out, because honestly for the first second or two I thought he might have survived. I think there was enough of a delay between the camera shot in the hallway and the eventual blast to make you think that Gus at least got out of his chair and was able to get a few feet away. Seriously injured? Sure, but not necessarily blown away.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Oct 7, 2011 -> 09:56 AM) Well, 'Community', it's been too many bad episodes for too long. You are officially dropped. 'The Office' is following really closely. 'Parks & Rec', of course, rocked again last night. The Office just has no funny anymore. It's like they are changing gears to make it a more serious show with some slapstick humor thrown in occasionally. Where the hell is the Dwight v. Jim stuff? Or Dwight anything. He's such a lost character now, when in reality he's the most interesting and comedic characters they have. Everyone else is s***.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Oct 6, 2011 -> 03:44 PM) Author of Walter Payton book on the backlash from those who haven't bothered to read it. Thought that was a great response. Too bad 95% of the people, especially in Chicago, have already made up their mind about the legitimacy of the book.

anyone get hit like this lady? http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/chicago/proper...?bouchon=602,il Mine went up a little, but only because I lost the senior exemption from the people we bought it from. My assessment dropped quite a bit though.

Basically I guy goes into a s***ty neighborhood to take his friend to some guys house. As soon as he steps out of the car he's blasted by some random 15 year old kid with a shotgun, ripping off part of his right arm. He looks up at the kid again, who puts a second shot (hole) in his chest. He's on the ground at this point and the kid puts the gun against his head. The guy moves at the last second and only gets the top chunk of his scalp ripped off. The guy looks up one more time at the kid before the kid knocks out all of his teeth with the butt of the gun. He's on his stomach lying face down at this point and the kid takes his keys and drives his car away. Somehow in between blacking out (and what sounds like some divine intervention) the guy tries to get up and get help. He makes it about 20 feet before he collapses. Luckily a parole officer driving by happens to see him. He's rushed to the hospital and is in a coma for a few days. When he wakes up he has no idea who he is, where he's at, what year it is, etc. All he can recall is his parents' phone number. They are called (didn't know where he was for three days). He slowly recovers, though it takes 2-3 years before he is physically and emotionally "healed." Luckily a few days after this all happened the idiot 15 year old bragged to a friend about shooting the guy. The friend instantly called the police and they picked the kid up. Turns out it was a gang initiation process. He had to go kill someone before being accepted into the gang. "Fortunately" the guy is still alive, otherwise the kid would be in jail for life. Instead, because he lived, he only got 35 years (so will serve probably 17.5). There was some mention too about how the kid and his family basically laughed at the guy as he was testifying in court. Instead of trying to find the kid to kill him, the guy went the route of the law. There's absolutely no reason that that kid should be allowed to walk this earth.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 6, 2011 -> 11:06 AM) The only angle he was convicted on was witness testimony as there was no physical evidence or murder weapon. MULTIPLE witness testimony, the majority of which dealt with his actions BEFORE even arriving at the scene (at the party, where, among other things, multiple people witnessed him in a white or yellow shirt, which corroborated his presence at the scene and as the shooter). Oh, and the testimony of him admitting it to a fellow inmate. I don't want to rehash the argument, but you have an insane and essentially impossible standard here. I don't get why you distrust eye witness testimony and basically believe that the police coerced testimony out of these people, but apparently you're 100% convinced that the reason these people wanted to recant their testimony (again 20 years later) is totally justified and reasonable. And of course this is all ignoring that even if that testimony was recanted, much of it either 1) didn't negate or call into question the guilty verdict, or 2) wasn't the portion of the testimony that was important to the verdict.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 5, 2011 -> 03:36 PM) FYI Illinois just released a man after spending 21 years in prison for a murder he didn't commit and a conviction that was based entirely on eye-witness testimony that was later recanted. So one out of....1,000? 10,000? No one is denying mistakes are made. (See, Simpson, O.J.), but in that particular case I still don't understand why people had an issue with it. The guy was convicted from a lot of different angles and the witnesses trying to recant their testimony (20 years later) were all pretty suspect and/or it wouldn't have mattered.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 6, 2011 -> 09:02 AM) Green Bay was 8th in yards gained that 6-10 season and 5th in points. They weren't losing games because of their offense, they were losing them because they were 22nd in points given up. They had a 93.3 passer rating from their QB's, good for 6th in the league and right behind the Colts. They gave up 131 yards a game, and 4.6 yards per carry in the running game (26th in the league). Gave up over 2000 yards on the ground that year. They lost 10 games because they couldn't stop the run. They then proceeded to get a top 10 pick that they used to draft BJ Raji. BJ Raji has proven fairly adept at stopping the run. Suddenly their weakness is now a strength. I'm not suggesting that RoDgers was a s***ty option. But given what Favre did the prior season, how could you say that RoDgers was going to be the better QB that year?

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Oct 6, 2011 -> 09:04 AM) Say it with me... Rodgers oh whatever. his name is not important!

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Oct 6, 2011 -> 08:43 AM) The best player plays. Rodgers had usurped Favre as a quarterback at that point, and the incredibly good scouts who worked for the Pakcers knew it. The Packers STILL gave Favre a chance to play, and he didn't decide by their deadline. They then moved on to Rodgers (possibly later than they could have), and now Rodgers has as many Super Bowl rings as Brett Favre. Favre's last year he led them to a 13-3 season and the NFC Championship game. They lost in overtime by a FG. The following year the packers were 6-10. They might have projected Rogers to be a better player as Favre declined, but there's no way he could have been considered better at that particular time.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Oct 6, 2011 -> 08:41 AM) I think the biggest reason he'd be annoyed/jealous is he never got to have the "see, that's what it's like without Brett Favre" period. Hell, we all expected them to crumble as Bears fans once Favre was gone. They wound up with someone who could go down as even better. I agree.

QUOTE (ZoomSlowik @ Oct 5, 2011 -> 05:18 PM) First off, the Hornets didn't "close shop". They were bought by the league because they weren't happy with the offers they were getting (I can't comment on how good the offers were). Second, in both of those cases, their financial issues are related to their owners' problems as much (probably moreso) than that of the teams. The Kings are in deep s*** largely because of the casino-related debt of the Maloofs (I don't know enough about Shinn to comment). Ownership finacial issues aren't unique to the NBA (I'm looking at you McCourt and Wilpon, which is even sadder given the markets they are in). That's also two teams out of thirty that are having serious problems, and I'd bet they count for a disproportionate amount of the losses. If you contracted those two teams and improved revenue sharing, you'd probably be fine. I don't get your point on the second part. Aren't good players usually a pre-requisite to winning a championship, or multiple championships in most of those cases? You also left off Detroit, who won 3 titles and isn't exactly a monster market. Plus as I said before, a major market isn't a guarantee of wins. The Knicks haven't won in my lifetime and haven't come close in like 15 years, the Clippers have sucked forever, and Chicago and Boston have both gone through major down turns in the past 20 years. Houston and Dallas haven't exactly been juggernauts either. Dallas has been good of late, but I'd say that has a lot more to do with an owner that cares than their market. The players go where they can make the most money while getting a chance to win. Tim Duncan stayed in San Antonio, Garnett was in Minnesota forever before the T-Wolves finally realized they were too inept to win it all, Nash has been in Phoenix for quite a while, Durant re-upped in OKC. There are plenty of counter-examples. Hell, even the guys everyone is griping about (Lebron, Melo, Bosh, Williams, probably Paul and Dwight soon, to a lesser extent Amare) stayed with their original teams past their rookie contracts. I just don't see how it's really that different from baseball, which isn't getting much demand for a drastic reformatting. The players are going to go for the money first, and after that they'll generally look for the best place to win. Dropping salaries isn't suddenly going to make Lebron want to play for the Timberwolves. They "closed shop" in the sense that the previous owner said "f*** this, i'm not making enough" and wanted out. The NBA stepped in to control the sale. And yes, that's a worst case example, but it's still indicative of a general problem around the league - the market is out of control and management is stupid. Hence why both sides need to fix how they operate. They need a better share of the revenue and they need to reign back contracts so franchises don't get screwed for 3-4 seasons. Good players are a pre-requisite to winning championships, and my point was the small market teams that have one generally got extremely lucky to do it, i.e. getting a hall of famer who just happens to mold with the right group of guys. I don't think that happens with the way the league is currently set up. Guys are moving to get their max money even when they don't deserve it (cough* Joe Johnson* cough). Small markets can't offer that kind of money so they can't field the same quality of teams. Duncan/Nash and especially Durant are incredibly rare and care more about the team. I think their the exception, not the norm.

QUOTE (lord chas @ Oct 5, 2011 -> 10:13 PM) You couldnt be more wrong. How could you not expect the Packers to not have a plan for after Favre? I get the Packers have to do what they have to do to continue on, but I don't understand why people think Favre needed to be best friends with Rogers or be 100% perfect in everything he says about the guy. At the end of the day he's the guy that took the reigns from the franchise you helped build in the 90's and 00's. And SS, yeah Favre didn't handle it well. That's why I don't really want to defend his actions. But IMO when he says he's ready to go, even if that's the day before training camp begins, well, you let him play. He's earned that right. That'd be my view if I were the GM.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 5, 2011 -> 05:06 PM) He was "run out of town" after trying to dick the Packers around during Unretirement Saga Part III I don't care to support everything the guy did, but (1) I think 90% of that s*** was drummed up by ESPN by having Rachel Nichols/Ed Warne report on everyone one of Favre's bowel movements in April, and (2) I think GB should have bent over backwards for a guy that maintained their relevance for the better part of two decades and who is one of the greatest players to play the game. Saga or not, IMO you put up with it until it becomes clear that he just can't play anymore and you have to make a move. You can't hire a guys' replacement near the end of his career and expect him to be all happy and jovial about it.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Oct 5, 2011 -> 04:42 PM) Oh please. Favre saying he was shocked that it took Rodgers so long to win a super bowl is absurd. Yes, Rodgers certainly ended up in a good situation but Favre is insanely jealous and angry at Aaron for some reason. It's ridiculous. For some reason? The dude was pegged as his replacement for 4 seasons and despite being one of the best QB's in the game's history he was run out of town. I think he's got every right to be angry/jealous.

QUOTE (ZoomSlowik @ Oct 5, 2011 -> 04:44 PM) As I said earlier, the numbers of losses are highly debateable. I don't remember who said it, but a famous quote is "I can turn a $1 million profit into a $2 million loss and get every accountant in the country to agree with me". Are some teams losing money? Sure, but it's hard to make every team profitable, especially with some of the dumb contract decisions teams make. The small market team thing is also BS. How many rings do the Spurs have? Isn't one of the hot teams to be the "next dynasty" the OKC Thunder? Wasn't Cleveland a powerhouse with a massive payroll not that long ago? When was the last time the Knicks were relevant? Much like the other sports, teams that make more money obviously have an edge, but they also have to be run well. The flipside to the "owners take all the risk" argument is "the players are the reason that there's a league and people are making money." No one pays to see Dick Bavetta make a big call, or Phil Jackson to sit there in a suit, or for Mark Cuban to get angry a lot courtside (though they might belive that). Well you've got an actual example of a franchise that had to close shop because they couldn't turn a profit (NO). You have another that just needed a big loan to stay afloat (SAC). I don't think anyone is doubting that the system is broken and needs to be fixed. As to the small market comment, look at the list of NBA champions the last 30 or so years. There's a common theme. LA, Chicago, Boston and the occasional Houston (not exactly a small market), Spurs (sure) and Miami (sure). And who did those small market teams have? Hall of Famers. Each one of them. Now look at the environment of today. Ray Allen left the Sonics. They suck. Garnett left Minnesota. They suck. Gasol left Milwuakee, they suck. Lebron left Cleveland. They suck. This is a league about stars and 95% of the time it's the big market team that gets them in their best years.