naiwf

Enough with the Midwestern circle jerk already. No one said Favre is killing the team. He IS the Packers' best QB at this time. He IS also however hanging on too long. It'll be 3 years at the end of this season and he may Roger Clemens us again with the "will he or won't he" bullshit into the next decade. As far as Eli Manning not being terrible, just answer this simple question. If cap hits weren't an issue how many teams would trade for him and make him their #1 in the entire league? Maybe 3 or 4 of the bottom feeders at best. He can't do anything under pressure, isn't accurate and locks into Plax on every 3rd and long. He has a great weapon at TE and hardly even looks his way throughout the course of the game, doesn't understand the concept of a checkdown and singlehandedly costs us at least 3 or 4 games per year with terrible decisions in the 4th quarter. The only 2 starting caliber guys in the league I think are worse than him are Plummer and Harrington and even Joey showed some flashes this year. That's the definition of a terrible QB.

True, which is why I said it was just cause for concern. I wouldn't be shocked to see Phoenix in the NBA Finals but I wouldn't put money on it either since they're probably going to have to play either LA or Utah just to get to the WCF where they'll likely get either Dallas or SA. If they get through that murderer's row they'll have earned the title against whatever team they blow out from the East. At least last year's Heat had a guy capable of playing out of his mind for 2 weeks. I don't see anyone being able to mimic Wade's effort last year and the East getting humbled in 5 games by whoever survives the West. Then again I also thought the West would win easily last year, the Tigers would kill the Cards and OSU would beat up Florida.

Eli Manning had better seasons than Brett Favre each of the last 2 years and he's TERRIBLE. Let that sink in. It's not mindless hyperbole, but I guess homers can't stomach the truth.

So Phoenix falls to 1-7 vs the Mavs, Spurs, Jazz and Lakers with their loss tonight. Being 36-3 against the rest of the league is not so bad, but that has to be cause for concern.

We agree, a 70.9 QB rating with a -9 (20/29) TD/INT ratio is a bad season. This was easily his worst season statistically speaking. We disagree here because a 72.7 QB rating (good for 6th WORST in the league) with an even (18/18) TD/INT ratio is NOT a good season. It's strikingly mediocre, and rates as his 3rd worst season by the numbers. Lowest completion %, 2nd lowest YPA, one of the 4 seasons where he didn't throw more TDs than INTs. I don't see him doing that much better in 2007 since he'll be a year older and playing against a tougher schedule. But hey feel free to tell me about the yardage and how the Packers were in it to the end of the season in a conference where the Giants lost 6 of their last 8 and STILL made the postseason. He's not as good as he once was, doesn't need the money, his team isn't thisclose to a championship. He's the definition of a guy hanging on too long, which is his choice, but doesn't negate what it is.

2005, 2006, 2007. Looks like 3 to me. That also assumes Brett doesn't come back in 2008 and beyond.

No one is saying to throw people OUT of the HOF. The simple fact is that the more years that pass without Monk IN the Hall of Fame the more meager his stats are going to look and the less impressive he'll appear. As far as meaningless stats go, it's for those guys who could have retired at their peak but were so in love with chasing numbers/paychecks that they extended their careers anywhere from 3 to 5 extra years as a shell of themselves. Emmitt and Favre immediately comes to mind, Monk extending his career by going to the Jets and then Philly after 2 seasons where he put up combined numbers of 87 catches for 1,042 yards and 5 TDs. The last 4 seasons (if you include the 3 games w/Philly) of his career were meaningless. Irvin was arguably one of, if not the most dominant receiver(s) in his era not named Jerry Rice. Monk wasn't even the dominant receiver on most of the TEAMS he played for. Had Irvin not been hurt he too could have stayed a few years beyond his prime and added another 120-200 catches for 1,000 to 1,500 yards and another 6-12 TDs and put Monk in his rear view mirror by a wide margin. Monk's not a Hall of Famer because he was never great or dominant.

Monk only made the Pro Bowl 3 times, may have had one great season in his entire career (in '84, 106 for 1372 & 7 TD). He only had 5 1,000 yard seasons, only had 6 seasons were he caught at least 70 passes, 3 with 80, 2 with 90 and never caught more than 8 TD passes in a year. He was only in the top 10 in receptions 4 times: 1984-1, 1985-2, 1988-9t, 1989-3t 3 times for receiving yards: 1984-4, 1985-3, 1989-10 and a meager once in receiving TDs: 1991-9t He wasn't a great receiver in any given year, he just played for a long time and compiled largely meaningless stats. Basically the whole, "this isn't the Hall of Very Good" argument. EDIT: Just for comparison's sake here's Isaac Bruce's career to date. He's made the Pro Bowl 4 times, with his best season at 119 for 1781 & 13 TD. He has 8 1,000 yard seasons, 7 seasons were he caught at least 70 passes, 4 with 80, 1 with 90 and 3 seasons with at least 9 TD passes in a year. 2x in Receptions: 1995-4, 2004-8t 4x in Receiving yards: 1995-2, 1996-1, 2000-3, 2004-5 3x in Receiving TDs: 1995-6t, 1999-2t, 2000-6t 2x in Yards from scrimmage: 1995-4, 1996-10 2x in Rush/Receive TDs: 1995-10t, 1999-7t Career wise Monk has more catches 940 to 887, but Bruce has surpassed him in both yards and TDS (13,376 & 80 to 12,721 & 68). I'm not sure if Bruce is retiring this year, but in any case I don't think too many people would be adamant about Isaac making the HOF and numerically he's superior to Monk.

I was just looking at a recap of Denver/Portland tonight and saw this note. That almost seems like it wouldn't be possible to do.

'Pova just retired down 1-6, 1-0 to Ana Ivanovic. I'm sure it's nothing serious, but Ana now has a chance to win her 2nd Tier I event and it might just be a rematch against Hingis who leads Dementieva 3-0.

It doesn't amaze me that guys fail to make weight, but this is ridiculous.

Because the NBA All-Star game rewards people who put up stats, nothing else. When you've got an accused rapist and a few accused wifebeaters making the team every year character is not relevant. His stats are more than deserving. End of story. BTW, 15 missed games out of 43 is barely a 3rd of the season they've played. Everyone keeps saying he's missed half of the season to date, which is not true. And just to be a dick, his suspension helped them land AI which could end up putting his team in a better position at the end of the season. Again, none of that actually matters because ON THE COURT Carmelo leads the world in scoring, chips in with about 6 boards and 4 assists and is doing so while hitting about half of his shots. What more does a player need to do to become an All-Star for ON THE COURT performance?

I still fail to see how a guy missing games but still leading the league in scoring isn't All-Star worthy. People really need to get off of this PC bullshit and just realize that if Carmelo had missed 15 games due to injury instead of a suckerpunch he'd be on the team. He shouldn't have been suspended for that long in the first place and is still averaging 31.3-5.7-4 while shooting 49%. If he's not an All-Star then no one else in the league is either. This isn't the MLB Hall of Fame where character supposedly matters. Anthony's an idiot, but that shouldn't prevent him from being deemed one of the best players in the West based on what he's done on the court.

The Spurs ran out of steam which is to be expected, but since I can't stand them either I enjoyed watching them fall apart at the end. A 7 game Suns/Spurs series would probably have at least 150 instances of someone complaining about a bad call/no call just if you included Nash, D'Antoni, Duncan, Manu and Pop. I don't know that I could watch that. If the league was going by the "zero tolerance" rule that series would end up seeing guys suspended every other game.

The ironic thing about Lindsay is that when she was fat and slow(er) she won Slams in spite of her shortcomings. After constantly being mocked, she finally got into good shape and then became a chronic choker when she'd already had 3 Slams in the bag. Her entire career was backwards.

LeBron clotheslined Wade, and will likely have to be suspended for it thanks to that BS call against Kobe. I changed the channel a little while ago when Wade turned it over for the 11th time and Miami was down by 9 I think. I never would have imagined the Cavs would end up losing this one.

I just find it ironic that with Cap, Serena and Justine they all became legendary world beaters at the very same time they happened to pack on an extra 15 to 20 pounds of upper body muscle, and their stamina went through the roof. If this was baseball you could equate it to how Sosa, Bonds and McGwire went from really good players to ball mashers at the same time their arms became the size of an average man's legs and their skulls magically grew a full hat size. About 12 to 18 months after they became such players they either got hurt without any explanation or any remedy taken to fix the problem, took almost a year to comeback from a very minor knee surgery which didn't prevent her from dancing in 6 inch stilettos, or developed a debilitating virus that kept them out for an extended period of time. After they came back all three were noticably less muscular, not nearly as strong, in Capriati and Serena's cases much slower, and had much less stamina and surprise, surprise their dominance was over. I'm not saying that they're the only ones who juiced up but too much of their meteoric success, and subsequent lack of dominance all seemed tied directly into how much more buff they were. It's pretty clear that someone like Mary Pierce was doing the same thing when she "got stronger and fitter" and quickly made 2 GS Finals at 30 (?) after 5 years of doing nothing. I just think it's more obvious with the women simply because aside from Serena and Venus the rest of them play full time schedules so how do they have time to hit the weights long enough to add on that much muscle AND simultaneously develop extraordinary cardio unless they're getting some serious help from PEDs?

Shoulder problems. Cycling off of steroids. Take your pick as to why J-Cap hasn't been seen on the court in the last couple of years. Like a few other notable GS winners on the tour, Capriati packed on a lot of muscle in a short time and in doing so had a pretty dominant run for about 12-18 months or so from the start of '01 to the middle of '02 where she picked up back to back AO's and a FO and made the Semis or better in 6 straight Slams. Then she got fat again about a year later, her results fell off and she hasn't played since the end of 2004. It's funny to watch how Capriati's juiced up run (3 Slams out of 5) led right into Serena's juiced up reign (5 out of 6), which ended with JHH (3 out of 4) beginning her juiced up run at the top. It was in the middle of 2004 when all 3 broke down at about the same time that allowed no names like Myskina, Kuznetsova and at that point a "cinderella" like Sharapova to win back to back to back Slams.

Ahem.

Do they include INTs when discussing the number of players to catch passes? 1) How long will it take Billy Joel to Sing the National Anthem? (Clock starts with first note sung) Over 1m44s, that's an easy one 2) What will Prince's first song of the Halftime show be? (Odds in parenthesis) Let's Go Crazy (1/3) nothing else seems to fit 3) Team to score first in the game Colts 4) Team to score last in the game Colts 5a) Team to use their Coaches Challenge first in the game Bears 5b) Result of that challenge Play stands 6)Team to commit the Most Turnovers in the game Bears 7) In which half will there be more points scored? 2nd Half + OT 8) Will there be a lead change in the Second Half? No 9a)Total Number of Indianapolis Players to catch a pass in the game Under 7 9b) Total Number of Chicago Players to catch a pass in the game Under 6 1/2 10a) Total number of Indianapolis defensive players to Intercept a pass Over 2 1/2 10b) Total number of Chicago defensive players to Intercept a pass Under 2 1/2 11) Total points scored by both teams 43-49

First thoughts, I want to stab the guy with Mr. Kennedy's mic and Valentina is wearing waaaay too much clothing. All in all, it wasn't a bad way to waste 20 minutes watching "wrestling".

With Harris out and Tank playing for the first time in a while, even more pressure will be on Urlacher to pick up the slack. He's the face of the team, so unless someone like Hester scores 2 non offensive TDs, the whole game for the Bears hinges on the defense playing a great game. If they let Peyton go something like 22 of 30 for 300+ yds with 3+ TD it won't matter what Rex does. I think the Bears either win by 3 or 4 or get blown out by halftime and it all depends on how well their defense does on the first few drives.

Everyone who follows football has heard about how great Urlacher and the Chicago 'D' is. If the Colts torch them, then Urlacher's gonna take the hit. If the 'D' wins the game, Urlacher's going to get all of the praise. He's basically in the same situation Ray Lewis was in when the Ravens ate the Giants for lunch. If the Bears offense plays like shit, they can still win. If the Bears defense plays like shit they'll lose by 14 or more. It's pretty simple. The Colts can win even if Harrison doesn't make more than a few catches because Peyton has plenty of other options, and I think it's pretty obvious that Rex and Peyton are under the most pressure so there was no point mentioning them.

Yeah because a guy who makes 6 solo tackles a game, averages 4.5 sacks and 1.5 INTs per season and has never scored a TD is really a force to be reckoned with. Statistically, Urlacher's probably the most overrated player in the NFL.

Urlacher. If he's really "the best defensive player in the game" he'll do something special here. I'm sick of the media acting like he's one of the all time greats when he's clearly not.