The Man in Blak

It is kind of ironic that both Chicago teams hit a ton of home runs, but didn't have anybody that got on consisently enough to make them really hurt. On top of that, both Chicago teams got hammered by injuries, and didn't have anybody in the bullpen to hold on to the slender lead provided by said home runs. Maybe it's something in the water?

Better question. Who would you rather have - Carlos Lee or Scott Podsednik?

Pittsburgh over Atlanta.

Here's a couple of numbers that I stole from BTF: Correlation of Home Runs to Wins: 0.441 Correlation of Singles to Wins: 0.197

Phase 10's all right, but the phases aren't really ordered correctly. Once you get past phase 8 (which, IIRC, is the seven card straight), you're pretty much home free. My wife and I play Scrabble, Uno Attack, Monopoly, and Clue (the last two when there's more people around). We got the 90's Trivial Pursuit for Christmas, which is kinda neat.

Here's my problem with this theory. The Patriots knew they had a rookie quarterback going in the first game and Roethlisberger proceeded to go 18/24 for 196 yards and two touches. The Pats never sacked him, never forced a fumble, never made a pick. They had game footage from his bad games earlier in the year for that game. What makes you think they're going to poof up a magic plan now? And, on top of that, what makes you think that the Steelers aren't going to adjust either? Roethlisberger turned in a pretty average day against the Ravens in his first outing (12/20, two picks), but he managed to carve them up for a 125.1 QB rating in the rematch (14/19, 221 yards, two TDs, one pick). Believe it or not, he got better against the Jets in the playoffs, as they handed him the worst game of his career during the regular season (9/19, two picks). And now he gets the Patriots at home with a game of playoff experience. I'm not saying he's going to light them up for 300+, but I think he's still capable of chipping in 200 yards and one or two touchdowns, which may be all the Steelers require.

Well, he pays the bills and checks in once a month to make sure the place hasn't burned down so, unless you have his digits, why don't you move it into the administrative folder until he can view it at his own leisure?

No probs.

Oh, and for a side note, it's kind of funny to see all everybody involved with the site airing their dirty laundry in the public forum WDI-style. You guys do have an administrative folder, right?

Bitter much? Actually, your comment is more misinformed than anything else. The only administrative link between TSM and SNKT was IllustriousOne and, while Ill competently dealt with the occasional SQL/webhosting issue at SNKT, it's not like he burned such a huge portion of time that he somehow was incapable of being an administrator here. Furthermore, he allowed us to share his hosting for SNKT, so long as we paid for our part of the rent (which we did), but neither he nor TSM ever paid a dime for any of SNKT's operations. I paid for the first year of SNKT's web hosting, CJ took his turn for the next abbreviated year. So, if you're calling Ill out, you're wrong. If you're not calling Ill out, then you're misinformed, misguided, or just plain stupid. In either case, please take your foot out of your mouth before you try to talk about a forum that you were banned from months ago. Thanks.

I'd give this a shot: Microsoft Excel Viewer

Urbina said in early December that he'll report to Spring Training, even if the kidnapping remains unresolved.

Here are the number of games won by the road team out of the total non-Super Bowl games played each year: 2004: 3/8 (all three road victors eliminated) 2003: 4/10 (Panthers won two of these on their way to the SB) 2002: 2/10 (Buccaneers won in Philly on their way to winning it all) 2001: 3/10 (NE beat PIT on the road before beating the Rams) 2000: 2/10 (Ravens won both of them and the Super Bowl) 1999: 3/10 (Titans won two before losing to the Rams in the SB) 1998: 2/10 (Falcons upset Minnesota in OT) 1997: 4/10 (Broncos win two, Packers win one, meet in SB) 1996: 2/10 (Jaguars win both of them, lose to Pats in AFC Championship) Road Winning %: 28.4% Then, for fun, let's take out the teams that made it all the way to the Super Bowl (we can't use this year's yet): 2003: 2/8 2002: 1/9 2001: 2/9 2000: 0/8 1999: 1/8 1998: 1/9 1997: 1/7 1996: 2/10 Road Winning % of Non Super Bowl teams: 14.7% Which means that, unless you're going all the way to the Super Bowl, you've got a little over a 1/7 chance of winning on the road. And, even when you count the conference champions, the odds aren't really all that great. Home-field advantage is still important.

I personally feel like they should be concentrating more on bringing Ugueth Urbina back into the fold, but Delgado and Cabrera make for a nice chunk of power in the middle of the lineup. Plus, they could potentially get him at a bargain price, if they leverage his age and his "off-year" in 2004.

Yeah, same here, except I get a bonus day for Thanksgiving. New Year's, Memorial Day, July 4th, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas.

And the week before, only one did. The Chargers (or, more accurately, MartyBall) pissed away a game that they should have won and they still only lost in overtime, Green Bay has played like crap at home all year (Bears, Titans, Giants, Jaguars), and the Seahawks have no home field advantage in Seattle, where they look behind their back all game to make sure there isn't an angry mob of fans chasing them with pitchforks and torches. To use these three examples to decry the value of home-field advantage doesn't exactly build a strong case.

Actually, yeah it is. Tampa finished 1-1, sure, but Vick had a QB rating of 46.9 with a 48.8% completion percentage and three picks in those two games, which makes for a pretty good impression of Heath Shuler.

I think Brett Favre could have used a little Peyton Manning, and Peyton Manning could have used a little Brett Favre in their playoff losses.

Sez the Green Bay Packer fan. All four home teams won this week.

I think there needs to be a "La Parka" option because, honestly, who really cares? If people say "we", then my impression is that they're a dedicated (maybe slightly misguided) fan of the team. How dare people even think of having any sense of attachment to a team. If people don't say "we", then they're a sports fan and that's that. Sip beer, move on. In either case, I usually don't even notice it 90% of the time unless the person (the offender) is an annoying little troglodyte...and, if that's the case, the "inappropriate use of we" is probably just the cherry on the shit sundae.

This has nothing to do with potential results, but I'll predict that the Steelers/Patriots game, quality-wise, will be what the Indy/NE game was billed to be (and should have been) on Sunday.

I'll go with Pittsburgh and Atlanta. The Steelers got the kick in the ass from the Jets that they needed to confront the Patriots, who are pretty much a mirror image of the Steelers anyway. I see it going 16-13 in overtime, with Dillon and Bettis being held to around 70-80 yards a piece - a defensive struggle the whole way. Philadelphia is the better team than Atlanta, but the game versus the Vikings give me no faith in the Eagles. The porous Minnesota defense essentially held them to twenty points (the "fumble recovery" by Freddie Mitchell was a one-in-a-million play), and Philly got plenty of breaks along the way that put them to a decisive, but underwhelming win. I think Atlanta pulls off the upset with a strong effort from the defense and Warrick Dunn.

If anything, I think this game makes letting go of Edgerrin James a lot easier.

I don't think so, considering that Peyton did about all that he could with maybe 25 minutes of possession time. The problem is that the rest of the Colts (4 drops? Three drives of 14 or more plays for the Patriots? Edge gets 39 yards on 14 carries?) let him down.

Peerless Price makes Alvin Harper look like Michael Irvin. And, somehow, I don't quite see Jenkins as an instant No. 1 next year (or even the year after that). Ultimately, you have to remember that they played the Rams defense yesterday. If Vick goes up against a defense like Philly that thrives on turnovers and causing havoc, he's going to have a lot of problems.