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By Emory Hunt/Czar of the Playbook
Cutler will give the Lions opportunities for interceptions, but Matt Forte will carry the day for the offense.
On defense, it’s Rod Marinelli vs. Matthew Stafford, with inside pressure from Melton and Paea the key.
The Czar’s pick? Putting the ball in Forte’s belly wins it for the Bears.
Posted on October 22, 2012
By Mike Luce
The College Football Report Free Range Chicken has stared deep into the feed trough and come up with the following selections for this weekend:
The pick: Middle Tennessee State at #12 Mississippi State (-18.5),
Comment: The Blue Raiders lost stud running back Benny Cunningham last Saturday in a win over Florida International. Cunningham was leading the Sun Belt Conference with 600 yards and 11 TDs, placing him among the top five backs in the country in touchdowns. Mississippi State is off to a great start (6-0 overall, 3-0 in the SEC) but really hasn’t beaten anyone yet, as the Bulldogs’ conference wins came against opponents who are a combined 0-11 in SEC play and the remaining three Ws were against the likes of Jackson State.
We expect Mississippi State’s top dog (ho-ho!) Dan Mullen to dominate MTSU like a basket of buffalo wings. Back in September, Mullen took down 24 wings in five minutes at a local Buffalo Wild Wings which, while impressive, fell well short of the current record of 2 pounds, 2.5 ounces in the “Chicken Wings, Short Form” competitive eating category.
Posted on October 19, 2012
By Dan O’Shea
Robert Griffin III, QB, WAS, otherwise known as RG3, has been on a terrific fantasy run this year, the No. 1 performer overall in standard Yahoo! fantasy leagues. The rookie QB showed in his first few weeks that fantasy owners who grabbed him as a late-round backup could actually trust him as a starter.
Not even a recent concussion seemed to slow him down, as he had his best performance of the season in Week 6 against a pretty good Minnesota defense: 182 yards passing, 1 TD; 138 yards rushing, 2 TDs. RG3 has been doing pretty well with his arm this year, with 1,343 passing yards and 5 TDs against 2 INTs, but on the run he has been even better, scoring 6 TDs.
If you have RG3, you really need to start him until he lets you down, but could that let-down be just around the corner?
Posted on October 17, 2012
By IBNLive
Aussie center hung up his boots 10 years ago, but his heart still beats for the sport he loves.
Plus: The secret to success on the court and how he was mocked as a kid.
Posted on October 16, 2012
By Jim Coffman
We take a break this week from the beloved Bears to quickly ask what on God’s frozen fjords is going on with hockey? How can there be another lockout?
The National Hockey League owners canceled a whole stinking season the last time they “negotiated” a collective bargaining agreement (2004-05) with their players. The feeling was they had to sacrifice a year of hockey in order to force players to agree to a hard-cap system featuring huge salary givebacks that was so advantageous for owners, they would all make money for sure.
And they got the system they wanted. And some of them still haven’t been able to keep themselves from overspending on free agents. And still-unaddressed income inequities mean that big-market teams are mostly making big money while poorly situated small market teams (whose idea was hockey in Arizona again?) are losing it.
So now they are destroying another season in pursuit of another ridiculously once-sided deal.
Posted on October 15, 2012
By Mike Luce
Veteran ESPN commentator and college football personality Carroll Hoff “Beano” Cook passed away in his sleep on Thursday at the age of 81.
Cook began his career as the sports publicist for the University of Pittsburgh in 1956, and after many years in various roles with the Miami Dolphins, ABC and CBS, Beano joined ESPN in 1986. Known as the “Cardinal of College Football,” Beano was recognized by fans and the sport as an insightful and candid commentator and earned the Bert McGrane Award in 2010, presented by the Football Writers of America “for outstanding contribution to the organization”.
Over the course of his long career, Beano let his opinions fly with little of the restraint prevalent in reporting on college football today. (Except for, you know, The College Football Report.) He left us with some memorable one-liners as well:
Posted on October 12, 2012
By Carl Mohrbacher
Yeah! Who’s king of the jungle now, bitches?
If Rudyard Kipling’s classic Tale Spin has taught me anything*, it’s that Bears always win fights against jungle cats. The second half of Sunday’s game proved that timeless maxim true once again.
Meaty-Thighs Jones-Drew (image courtesy of SoundingTubes.com) might be one of the most talented backs in the AFC, but even his ability to squat a Buick with a fat chick riding mechanical bull mounted to its hood wasn’t enough to drive the Jacksonville offense for more than 50 second half yards. Your move, Old Spice marketing department.
Posted on October 11, 2012
By Dan O’Shea
The New York Jets looked so good in Week 1 that some of us were moved to re-assess the fantasy stock value of the team’s core members, including QB Mark Sanchez, RB Shonn Greene, and WRs Santonio Holmes and Stephen Hill. We didn’t talk much about the wildcat wildcard of the Jets, Tim Tebow, mainly because the Jets’ use of him to start the season was less frequent and less inspired than we had hoped.
Looking back at the just-completed Week 5, things have changed. The Jets are 2-3, but are playing like – and seem to be regarded as – a winless team with little hope but to land the top draft pick next year; Holmes is injured and out for the season. Hill has been injured since Week 1 and completely off-the-radar fantasy-wise; Greene had fewer than 10 rushing attempts in Week 5 and hasn’t scored a TD since Week 1; and Sanchez has only three TDs since Week 1 against 5 INTs.
None of these players has fantasy value right now, and only one Jet’s value is ticking upward at the moment. That would be Tebow, who almost scored a rushing TD in Week 5 against the vaunted Houston defense, nabbed a first down on a fake-punt snapped directly to him, and threw a perfect 30-yard pass that was dropped by the targeted receiver. That isn’t much to go on, but given the Jets’ apparent decline and Sanchez’ ongoing problems (in addition to INTs, just plain throwing wide of targets), the growing noise you may hear is the choir calling for Tebow.
So is it time to pick him up?
Posted on October 10, 2012
By Jim Coffman
Let us now take a moment to praise former Bears general manager Jerry Angelo.
Everyone remembers that Angelo brought in Lance Briggs and Charles Tillman, right? In fact, Angelo is responsible for most of the Bears defense winning praise and plaudits today.
So while Chicago loves to bash its general managers, past and present, perhaps fans should spend a bit of bye-week time acknowledging Angelo’s contributions to the team’s delightful 4-1 start, including Sunday’s 41-3 victory over the hapless Jacksonville Jaguars.
Posted on October 8, 2012
By Mike Luce
As we enter the heart of the 2012 college football season, you may need to catch up on some of this season’s hot topics and brace yourself for a Gilgameshian weekend. You heard us, Gilgameshian.
* Fear the tweet: Former Razorback linebacker Bret Harris was arrested on Tuesday by the University of Arkansas police after allegedly tweeting that he was going to kill Arkansas athletic trainer Matt Summers.
The death threat came amidst a rash of other messages posted by Harris on Tuesday, who tweets under the handle @Trippymane07 and inexplicably goes by the profile name “Sosa.”
The stream of tweets included this moving communiqué: “Lol I don’t want a Twitter. I didn’t have a Twitter. My heart. Tearz told me make a Twitter”.
Tags: fail whale, felonies
Posted on October 5, 2012
