The Bears Den: June 16, 2010

(BTW, I love soccer)

And that’s what makes him great.

Hmmm. On this side of the Pond, he’s seen as long past his peak and living off past glories, practically irrelevant to the contemporary scene. Probably why he’s hitting up the American market. His role in Die Another Day as Q’s understudy was particularly wince-inducing, and to stand out as bad in a film which, itself, was a steaming pile of shat takes some doing!

But it doesn’t seem like to me the players have any leverage when it comes to a brand new contract in 2010, at least with guranteed money. Revis got offered a contract with 0 guranteed money and now he’s sitting down during practices lol.

The players can whine and sit out training camp all they want, i just don’t see an owner dumb enough to offer a giant contract this year without a CBA in place.

As far as Johnson, i can see him wanting to get paid more than 550,000 this year lol, but i think we all know how cheap the Titans owner can be, he doesn’t care if players sit out camps. History has taught us, a player probably is not going to sit out an entire season once the checks don’t start coming in every week.

I would think carrying around a really heavy football
 would make it easier to fumble, because you’d get used to having more weight in your hands than you will on gameday. But I’m not that guy.

Seems odd to make it heavy considering he’s supposed to have a Superman grip already. Maybe they should load the ball with a trigger instead that will blast music from the symbol formerly known as Prince if as soon as AP drops it.

And nothing for the movie reference… I threw that one in just for you.

we could have a front four that consist of a DE that takes plays off, a DT that’s lazy, another DT that doesn’t practice and another DE that only has one move. We’d be Citizen Eco-Drive un-stoppable.

Did you ever watch Haynesworth play for the Titans? I had the pleasure of doing so on a fairly regular basis. No one in Tennessee that I recall ever had a problem with him. Even when he had contract hold outs and that kind of thing, he always gave it full effort on the field, and it generally showed. The only thing you can really hate on him for as a character flaw is being a bit too nasty and emotional while on the field.

If you’re calling him lazy, saying he doesn’t want to play, and he’s a poor teammate because he doesn’t want to be pigeonholed into a position he isn’t fit for then I think you’ve been watching the merry-go-round of positional swaps on the Bears too long. If you’re saying it because he took issue with the scheme implementation his last defensive coordinator was running with the Redskins, well I think you should re-evaluate. He was playing just as hard as he played with the Titans, and to be honest suprisingly had just as many quality guys around him. However, the DC was unable to put his guys in a position to take advantage of the mandatory double team that Haynesworth draws.

Haynesworth is a massive beastly bowling ball on the inside, but he isn’t fit nor does he have the experience to play NT, and playing him at DE in a 3-4 is again playing him in a position he has no experieince in, and takes away some of the natural advantage he gives to the other players around him on the team.

Simply put, calling him a poor teammate is rediculous as Vaden Bosh wouldn’t have just been overpaid like crazy if it hadn’t been for Fat Al giving him the opportunity to get numbers beyond his skill level. Not to mention most of the personal fouls against him last year were for defending teammates, not his usual unbridled aggression.

He was voted by NFL players as the most dominant defender in the game last year, and I put more stock in their opinion of the guy that is demolishing them than I do most analysts.

to me is the worst variation of the same sport that Hockey/Lacrosse/Polo/Soccer all are a part of.

Soccer’s lack of physicality between the players and the massive fields that create more spacing just generally make for a somewhat unexciting game. I’m not a fan of any of the sports mentioned, but its decidedly the lack of speed and physicality that causes it to lose out “amongst its own” and the lack of completion compared to other sports in the States.

There just isn’t any “end points”. There isn’t someone getting struck out, or getting on base. There isn’t a made basket or shot every 24 seconds or so. There isn’t a first down or punt. It’s all transitional stuff, and combine that with very few “scoring” attempts and you’ve got a recipe for nichedom in the US.

The game isn’t about individual outcomes per se. It’s about getting to the end with the most points. It’s the most fair system out there, considering in a good amount of the leagues all teams play all teams both home and away.

Cards are supposed to be issued for obvious diving, although it’s not enforced as much as its should.

Spotted dick :-D