The NL Central is far and away the biggest surprise in all of baseball. Some will say the Devil Rays, but it's not like nobody saw it coming. They were the pre-season darlings of Baseball Prospectus, whose article was featured in the pre-season edition of Sports Illustrated. Nobody, and I mean nobody, expected that at the all star break, the three teams with the best records in the NL would reside in the Central Division. (Like in the NFL, the West has disappointed immensely, but that's neither here nor there.) Those three teams, the Cubs, Brewers and Cardinals, are the subjects of this blog and will be addressed in team-by-team format.

The St. Louis Cardinals-
This team is a little bit strange. They win, and do it pretty often, but how is unclear. They don't score all that many runs, tied for twelfth in all of baseball (with the equally surprising Tigers) in runs scored with 415. They aren't all that good preventing at runs either, ranking fifteenth in the league with 339 runs allowed. If you haven't figured it out yet, their run differential is merely +16.

Offense- Their offense is built around the best hitter on the planet, but as good as he is, he is only one man. His supporting cast of Troy Glaus, Ryan Ludwick and Rick Ankiel is nice, but the latter two have never maintained success over a full season, and the former is just a shell of his former self. Ludwick's underlying stats show that he is a good player, but although his power is real, his average is probably going to drop and he strikes out once every four at bats. Ankiel is similar in the way that his power is very real, but he probably won't hit any higher than .270 or get on base at a higher clip than .340. Troy Glaus's skill set is a very known one. He has some power left, walks a lot and strikes out a bit more often, and that's about it. All three are decent, but not good enough to be your second, third and fourth best hitters. Yadier Molina will hit for average, make consistent contact and take some walks, but hits for no power. No other offensive players warrant a mention.

Starting pitching- Their pitching staff, kind of like their offense, is made up of reclamation projects and rejects, but with Dave Duncan at the helm, have done quite well. Wainwright is undoubtedly been their best starter and is the only starter to not fit into the above criteria. His peripherals point to a slight regression, but outside of his BABIP, he hasn't been overly lucky. Kyle Lohse, who foolishly rejected a real juicy deal from Philadelphia, has made the most of his time in St. Louis with Dave Duncan. He, like Wainwright, has been a bit lucky in the BABIP department, but make no mistake about it, he is a better pitcher this season. He has reduced his fly ball rate drastically and has become a successful ground ball pitcher. Braden looper appears to be exactly what he has been this year, a decent back of the rotation starter who's ERA will be in the mid four's. Todd Wellemyer, another Duncan re-invention, is nothing more than your typical number four or five starter. His current ERA is respectable, but it will regress as more balls in play fall for hits, and they will. In fact, his regression has already begun. Since his outstanding May(2.19 ERA), he has been atrocious, posting a 5.02 ERA in June and a 10.8 ERA in July. Joel Piniero, their fifth starter, has no business being a starter for a contending team. He should be nothing more than an insurance policy for your staff or a long man in the pen.

Bullpen- Their bullpen, already rocked by the ineffectiveness of former stud closer Jason Isringhausen, is merely average. Ryan Franklin has been all right, but he is due to give up a few more home runs and a lot more hits. He doesn't have closer stuff and his weak 6.1 k/9 shows it. Kyle McLellan is their best reliever and I fully expect him to become their closer when Franklin loses the job, which he will, or at least should. Chris Perez has good stuff and is their third or fourth best pen arm, but he is way too wild and shouldn't be used in high leverage situations just yet.
Overall, the Cardinals have a nice team with a bunch of solid players and a few good ones, but not enough really good ones. This team may hang in ther due to the same luck that has gotten them this far, but I doubt it and expect them to fall out of the running over the next month or so.

The Milwaukee Brewers-
The Brewers, just like the Cardinals, don't have overly impressive numbers. They rank fifteenth in runs cored and fourteenth in runs allowed. Their run differential is only +11. A plus for them is that they have played a slightly tougher schedule, but with that being said, they still have outperformed their Pythagorean by four games. Obviously, what makes this team an immediate contender is the acquisition of CC Sabathia. But what should worry Brewer's fans is that A) Ben Sheets can fall apart at any given time and B) Without Sabathia the team was merely mediocre when considering run differential, a very telling stat,

Offense- Everybody knows about the offensive studs on this team, but not enough people are aware of just how top heavy the unit is. Ryan Braun, Corey Hart and Prince Fielder are all huge talents and make up a fearsome trio, and JJ Hardy can get hot for stretches, but nobody else on the team is a viable offensive weapon. Weeks will hit some home runs and steal some bases, but not even his great walk rate can make up for his terrible average, which is very, very real. He strikes out way too much and makes too little solid contact to be a leadoff hitter. I imagine his .134 line drive rate ranks among the worst in the league among regulars; it's downright embarrassing. But Weeks isn't the only Brewer among the worst when it comes to hitting line drives. Mike Cameron, who has managed to strikeout more than once per game, is barely better than Weeks and has a .151 line drive rate which is the primary reason for his awful .227 average. Jason Kendall gives his team a decent average and takes his walks, but he hits for almost no power and is not the defender he once was. Bill Hall, Russell Branyon, Craig Counsell and Gabe Kapler are the others with significant AB totals, and to they stink would be an extreme understatement.

Starting Pitching- Before the very recent acquisition of CC Sabathia, their rotation, featuring ace Ben Sheets and youngster Manny Parr, was just as top heavy as the offense. Ben Sheets is an ace and Manny Parra looks like a future ace, but Jeff Suppan, Dave Bush and Carlos Villenueva/Seth McClung have been awful and have no business being in a major league rotation. None have an ERA lower tyhan 4.18, and three own ERA's 4.71 or higher. The Brewers obviously suffered a huge setback when they lost Yovanni Gallardo, but it's pretty safe to say that if they still had Gallardo they would not have gone after Sabathia, rather after a better back of the rotation starter like Gil Meche, AJ Burnett or Randy Wolf. But now that they have Sabathia, they are on front of the rotation ace up on the Chicago Cubs. Manny Parra and Ryan Dempster, at least for this season, are a push. Carlos Zambrano is as good as either Sheets or Sabathia, but no other pitcher on the Cubs' staff ranks with either 1A or 1B of the Brewers. The Brewers are now in unknown territory. They have a relatively injury prone ace.

Bullpen- The soft underbelly of this team is the bullpen, and that can not be debated. This unit has blown leads that nobody could have dreamed would be blown, and have done it in magnificent fashion. Soloman Torres, their best bullpen arm, is uncharacteristically having a strong first half and may end up having a good season, but if he is your closer, you are in big trouble. Brian Shouse and Mitch Stetter have pitched well, but the rest of their pen, Mota, Riske and Gagne, is awful. Stetter, who gives up way too many fly balls when you consider that he plays in Miller pArk, is due for some really rough outings. His low home run rate is not sustainable. Shouse is better and gives up very few fly balls, but his BABIP is unusually low and he is also due to regress a bit. That being said, Shouse should be somewhat reliable down the stretch. Still, the Brewers currently have two reliable relievers, and until they get more, their will be many tough plane rides home for this team.

The Chicago Cubs-
As you can tell from my name, I am clearly a Cubs fan, but make no mistake about it, I am objective a Cubs fan as you will find and I think I have been fair to both teams in my assessments, and the same goes for the coming one. Statistically, this team is the cream of the crop in the NL. They rank second in all of baseball in runs scored, ninth in runs allowed and first in run differential, fourteen runs higher than the next best team, their AL counterparts from the South Side.

Offense- This team is pretty stacked offensively. Derrek Lee, Aramis Ramirez, Alfonso Soriano, Geovany Soto and Mark Derosa(yes, Mark Derosa) are among the best at their positions. The first four need no introduction, but DeRosa doesn't get the publicity he deserves. He has the fifth highest OPS among all second baseman and does everything well offensively. He can also play almost all defensive positions semi-adequately. Anyhow, what makes this offense so good is that it has almost no easy outs. The five aforementioned guys are obviously very good, and Kosuke Fukudome, Ryan Theriot and the rejuvenated Jim Edmonds are very good complementary players and fill their rolls very, very well. The bench is also very deep, with pinch hitter deluxe Daryl Ward, Ronny Cedeno and Reed Johnson all very capable of doing damage. What's more is that none of the starters seem to be overly luck and should be able to maintain their current levels of production over the duration of the season. Lee's power should regress a bit, but his average should rise. Edmonds seems to have his stroke back and has pretty good peripheral stats. Soto is legitimate and always seems to be making great contact, and his numbers confirm that. Theriot has improved his batting eye and with the extra rest Piniella has given him seems to have stepped up his game. Soriano has been just outstanding when healthy and despite what Cubs fans will tell you, they are not better without him. That is absurd. This offense is stacked and shouldn't let up.

Starting Pitching- This is where the Cubs don't rate among the elite. The staff as a whole is solid and above average, but as presently constructed is likely no World Series Champion material. Carlos Zambrano is a stud, and a very good option at the front of the rotation. The problem is who fills in as the number two behind him. Ryan Dempster has performed number two, but he still doesn't feel like one. The main reasons for his improvement are his slightly improved control, solid strikeout rate and low fly ball/ high ground ball rates. He has been a bit fortunate in the BABIP department, but even with the appropriate regression his numbers would still be respectable, if and only if he can continue limiting fly balls and inducing ground balls. Lilly's overall numbers aren't great, but he has been his old self since April, when he posted a 6.46 ERA. He is a solid third starter. The loss of Rich Hill has really hampered this team. He was counted on to improve into a decent second starter but instead finds himself pitching in rookie ball. It's doubtful he makes it back up at any time this season. Sean Marshall and Jason Marquis are both fifth starter types and shouldn't be counted on to win. Jim Hendry needs to make a move to bolster the front end of the rotation. Zambrano is undoubtedly among the NL's best, but in a playoff series, Dempster and Lilly don't scare anybody. Their offense could be enough to make up for the lack of another first tier starter, but offenses aren't as powerful in the playoffs. Jim Hendry must go out and get a very strong starter, someone like Erik Bedard or Rich Harden. The minor league system isn't nearly as loaded as that of the Brewers', but Hendry needs to find a way to bring in a reliable playoff starter. Greg Maddux, Gil Meche and Randy Wolf won't cut it, and neither will Steve Trachsel.

Bullpen- This is where the Cubs have a real edge over the Cardinals and Brewers. Kerry Wood is only in his first year as a closer, but relieving seems to suit his body type well and has arguably been the NL's best closer. Carlos Marmol has hit a rough patch as of late and has given up a number of home runs, but with his extremely high fly ball percentage, that should have been expected. He was extremely lucky in the HR department last season and is not benefitting from the same fortune this year. That being said, his stuff is electric and when he keeps the ball down, he is among the best setup men in the game. Bob Howry isn't as good as he used to be but he has historically been much better in the second half and his numbers at this point are better than they were last year. He is a solid third arm out of the pen. Behind him are Neal Cotts, Michael Wuertz and Jon Lieber. Lieber is a very capable long man and serves as insurance for the rotation. Wuertz hasn't come in and locked down the opposition like he did last season, but he is walking less hitters and giving up less fly balls and home runs, so his lower k rate is easier to stomach. His BABIP is low when you consider his line drive rate, but he is a good arm out of the pen. Neal Cotts is a decent lefty who walks too many batters but is striking out more than one batter per inning and has been giving up more home runs and hits than his peripheral stats say he should. He is only going to get better.

All in all, my home team bias aside, I feel that the Cubs have the best oerall team in the division. They feature the best, most complete and established offense in the division and have a great bullpen to go with a slightly above average rotation. Milwaukee has the better pitching staff, but I don't think that will be enough to beat out the Cubs for the crown. If they acquire another bullpen arm, preferably a closer, that could change.

With all of the good feelings flying around the North Side, the biggest Cubs related news should not be focused on Alfonso Soriano, but with the way things are being run on Clark and Addision, it is difficult to find anything in which Alfonso Soriano is not it's epicenter. The Cubs are off to a superb, if not almost unprecedented start to the season, owners of the top spot in the central and tied with the Diamondbacks with the third best record in all of baseball. Gone under the radar are Aramis Ramirez's superb start, Carlos Zambrano's unbelievable start and Derrek Lee's return to stardom. Ryan Theriot's hot start and Mark Derosa's excellent play have also not been given proper attention. Why? Because Alfonso Soriano and his extreme highs and lows have not just grabbed the headlines, but have surely given Lou Piniella many sleepless nights and have now necessitated stadium ejections for excessive jeering in the left field bleachers.

This morning, on ESPN 1000, an old interview with baseball insider Buster Olney was replayed in  which he "revealed" that a ninth inning replacement of Alfonso Soriano might put him down for the next two weeks. It's not that Soriano's over the top sensitivity is a secret or anything, it's just that it is strange to actually hear those sentiments from any baseball insider with knowledge of the situation. Judging from what Cubs players and management have said about Soriano, it seems like Soriano is as sensitive as Lou Piniella is subtle, which needless to say is not in the least bit. What makes all of this tough to stomach is that Soriano is no spring chicken. He is a veteran and is completely set in his ways. He will never be consistent, will not learn how to work the count and wait for his pitch and to top it all off, has already peaked, and that peak most likely was reached before he came to the Cubs. From the looks of things, the Cubs are now stick with five and a half more injury riddled seasons from a player who in a year or two will most likely have worn out his welcome.
So all this begs the question: Is Alfonso Soriano and all of the accompanying baggage worth it?

    With the recent all around struggles that have suddenly befallen the Cubs, a few problems with the current roster have stood out more than others. For starters, there's the leadoff man, or lack thereof. Personally, with the current roster, I have no problem with Alfonso Soriano leading things off. However, that has less to do with Soriano's skills than the lack of a real leadoff man on the present day Cubs. The alternatives to Soriano are Reed Johnson, Ryan Theriot and Kosuke Fukudome. Mark Derosa has the OB skills to do it, but Piniella will never put a guy that slow atop the lineup. Reed Johnson, as long as he is as good as he was early on, is a solid option, it's just that he already has reverted to Reed Johnson-fourth outfielder. Ryan Theriot has the speed to pile up stolen bases and his recent run of CS's are nothing to get worked up about, but his track record says he doesn't have the OB skills to leadoff. That being said, he has been much more selective so far and his walk rate has been much better as well, so even if his average drops, and it most likely will, he could still be a legitimate leadoff option. The last option, Fukudome, would be underutilized in the leadoff spot. Sure he could h get on base and even steal a few, but his super bat control and doubles power would be better suited in the two, five or six spot. As is, the only player I would consider using at the leadoff spot outside of Soriano is Theriot. But seeing as I doubt Theriot can keep up his current pace all season long, the best thing for the Cubs to do is to try and bring in Brian Roberts again, who not only would immediately be the Cubs best leadoff hitter, he would also give them that lefty bat they have been looking for.
    If the Cubs do not succeed in bringing in Brian Roberts, i would like to see the lineup built like this, even if Theriot reverts to his 2007 form, although i believe he will fall somewhere in between where he ended off last year and where he is now, with a line of .290/.355/.390:
- Ryan Theriot, Kosuke Fukudome, Derrek Lee, Alfonso Soriano, Aramis Ramirez, Geovany Soto, Mark Derosa, Felix Pie, Pitcher.
     With Brian Roberts, things would be a little more clouded, seeing as Mark Derosa will kind of be the odd man out. Either way, here is the w/Roberts lineup.
- Brian Roberts, Ryan Theriot, Derrek Lee, Alfonso Soriano, Aramis Ramirez, Kosuke Fukudome, Geovany Soto, Felix Pie, Pitcher.
    The last position player mentioned, Felix Pie, has also been the subject of debate as of late. He has been struggling, but has gold glove ability in center field and is very toolsy offensively. Personally, I feel like Lou needs to give him at least 4 starts a week and allow him to work things out, kind of like the Sox did with Brian Anderson two years back. If he doesn't work out, his numbers won't end up being all that much worse than Reed's and at least he'll end up playing great defense. If he does work out, that would just be gravy for this already stacked lineup.

    On to the pitching. Carlos Zambrano has been outstanding, Ryan Dempster has been very good and Ted Lilly has bounced back from a rocky start. On the other hand, Jason Marquis has been, well... Jason Marquis, which is a nice way of saying bad. Last season, at least he started off hot before going back to being the Godawful pitcher he is, but this season, it looks like he has other things on his mind, perhaps paying back the Cubs for benching him in the postseason(Thats not serious). Rich Hill is back in the minors and as I write this, his replacement, Jon Lieber, is being beat around like a donkey. Hopefully, Hill resonds to this demotion like he did his last one, by pitching lights out for the remainder of the season. I know it's just one start, but Lieber looked like horse s@#$ and the sooner Hill comes back the better. In his first rehab start, Hill only allowed one walk, so hopefully his control issues are behind him. He did allow 7 hits,  but his biggest issue is his control, so it's nice to see his walks down. The bottom line is that even if Hill comes back and posts numbers similar to those of last season, the Cubs will need another starter to take over for Marquis whenever Lou deems that necessary.

    The other pitching issue lingers in the bullpen. By now everybody knows about Carlos Marmol, Kerry Wood and the speculation that Marmol may supplant Wood in the near future. While Wood's shakiness has been a real issue and will continue to be, the real problem in the pen is the (quality) depth, which coming into the season looked like a real strong point. Michael Wuertz had a tremendous 07 campaign and after a shaky first half Bob Howry joined in on the fun too, but so far both have been pretty bad, although the former has been much, much better than the latter. Wuertz has better stuff than Howry, so his chances of rebounding are much better, although Howry does have a track record of starting slow, and thats putting it nicely. The good news is that when Hill comes back, Lieber will head back to the pen, where has been great so far and should add some depth to the pen. However, for the Cubs to succeed, they will need for Howry and Wuertz to turn things around quickly.

The 2007 season for the Chicago Bears was a failure. Nobody can really debate that.... but Bear coaches and management sure as hell are trying. The Lovie Smith cliches were in abundance last season, and the offseason has been no different. "We are close," "We finished the season strong," "We are a running football team" and "Rex is our Quarterback."(At least thats what they told Brandon Lloyd, who in just his first day gave a Greise-esque performance.) The sad thing is just how short-sighted and diluted those statements are.

"We are close." To what exactly? The bottom of the North. Oh wait, we are already there. The Bears are close to being a professional football team, which is one thing they were not last year. From the Greise "I called the plays...... oh, and Ront Turner helped a bit too" debacle to the "Mark Bradley is our #1 receiver" claim, the Bears have done and said a lot of dumb and confusing things.

"We finished the season strong." What a consolation prize, winning a game against a bad Saints team and a Packers crew that would have allowed the Bears to score just to get back to the sideline heaters. And Lovie, i though the Bears season was broken up into quarters, not eighths? The Bears finished 2-2 in the final quarter, so they didn't finish all too strong after all.

"We are a running football team." Thats the sad part.not only were the Bears awful running the ball, they bragged about it. In the last few months the running game has taken some huge hits overall. Cedric Benson has had surgery, Adrian Peterson has shown he is nowhere near a #1 back and Garrett Wolfe has shown he is no more then a screen play here or there, an extremely poor man's version of Leon Washington. The Bears haven't brought in a free agent tailback either. The offensive line, which was bad last year, is now bad and incomplete after releasing Fred Miller and not resigning Ruben Brown. Olin Kreutz is still very good and John Tate and Roberto Garza are also decent, but the line needs some real help.

"Rex is our Quarterback." I really am not all that upset with Bears resigning of Grossman, but they still need an upgrade at this position. Still, he was th best guy readily available and the best option for a team that needs a guy to keep the seat warm. What irks me is that Angelo and Lovie keep telling us that there is an open competition and Rex will have to fight off Orton to win the job. The recent communication breakdown with Brandon Lloyd really says it all. The Bears are habitual liars and either they  believe that their fans are idiots or they just don't care about the fans. As far as the open competition goes, anybody that has watched Rex play in training camp knows he will win the job. He is great without a real defense going against him, but is not really good real-game QB. Barring any complications, Rex will win the job.

Now that i have finished venting, what have the bears done in the offseason? Really, not much of anything. On offense, they have let Bernard Berrian and Muhsin Muhammad leave, and if the recent rumors are true, Rashied Davis will them out the door. Rex was resigned and Marty Booker and Brandon Lloyd were brought in. Overall, they lost their #1 and #2 guys, but Berrian is more of a #2 at this point and Moose is a #3. They replaced them with a younger, better player then Moose and a perennial underachiever in Lloyd. If Hester develops a bit more and Mark Bradley takes that ever-elusive next step, the group of receivers will be decent, but the odds of both of those things happening are very remote. Hester is nowhere near the #1 receiver the Bears think he is and Bradley is getting talked up an awful lot after spending most of 2007 in Lovie's doghouse. The Bears haven't added any tailbacks or linemen. On Defense, they haven't done much of anything, which is a bit disappointing. resigning Lance Briggs was a good move, but it doesn't make them better than last year. What will make them better than last is better luck with injuries and the swift cutting of the garbage players that are Ricky Manning Jr. and Adam Archuletta. Archuletta isn't roster material and Trumane McBride is already a better nickleback than Manning.Nathan Vasher, Mike Brown, Dusty Dvoracek, Tommie Harris, Brian Urlacher and Lance Briggs all got bit by injuries. Of that group, Harris, Vasher, Urlacher and Briggs should all be expected to play full season next year, albeit with a bit of pain for Brian. Brown is injury prone and Dvoracek is quickly entering injury-prone territory, and while both are good players, they should not be relied on.
On Special teams, the Bears lost ace Brendan Ayanbadejo to the Ravens, but he wont set the Bears back all that much.

So what do the Bears need to do in the offseason? The Bears need to address the DT, S, OL, RB and WR positions in the near future, and they also must draft a QB, maybe on day 1. What i think will happen is that the Bears are pretty much done with free agency outside of maybe a minor acquisition or two. I would like to see them grab Kevin Jones on the cheap, and he would immediately be the most talented back on the roster. Grabbing a lineman like Max Starks shouldn't be out of the question either. The group of FA receivers is pretty thin at this point, and as i write this reports are circulating that Bryant Johnson, the best available WR, is signing with the Niners. The Bears need help at all 6 aforementioned spots, and after their wholly unsatisfying free agency work, they will try to do it all via the draft. Expect the Bears to as usual, hit on defense and mostly miss on offense, although for some reason i have a really good feeling about this years draft class. Considering how poor(and mysterious. Anybody even know what Dan Bazuin or Josh Beekman look like?) last year's class was, the Bears absolutely must hit big come April's draft.

For starters, I couldn't be happier for both the Seahawks and Jaguars. Both teams sweated out pretty tough victories, but in the end it was pretty clear that the better teams won. In both games, the winners dominated throughout the first half and for most of the third quarter, faltered and actually relinquished their leads and then fought back and took back what looked to be theirs from the get-go. The Steelers put up more of a fight than the Skins and Collins(who showed why he has been a carreer backup), but they fell short to the much more physical and multi-dimensional Jags. It just looked like the Jags wanted it more. Regarding Collins, what yesterday's game showed is that while he can make a lot of the throws over the middle of the field, he does not have enough arm strength to get the ball out on sideline routs. On any timing based routes outside the hash-marks, his recievers were well into their breaks when he was just releasing the ball, allowing the Seahawks' DB's to get all over the receivers or pick off the ball. Bad sideline throws often turn into six points the other way, and that game was no exception. If he starts next year for the Skins, or any team for that matter, look for defenses to force him into sideline throws. He just doesn't have enough zip in his arm. All that being said, the reason I wrote this blog is to praise two of my favorite coaches in the league, Mike Holmgren and Jack Del Rio. Del Rio took an enormous risk in the pre-season and instead of just swapping Gerrard and Leftwich on the depth chart, he cut Leftwich and put all of his eggs in the Gerrard basket, which any competitive player would love to have his coach do. Cutting Leftwich was the ultimate vote of confidendce by Del Rio and it has paid off tremendously. The way Del-Rio is able to get as much as he does out of such an underwhelming roster is very admirable and under appreciated. They do have stud RB's, but the coached have done a great job all year long in how they have gotten a decent quarterback to play like a Pro-Bowler, and the same could be said about the receivers. Reggie Williams, Matt Jones, Earnest Wilford, Dennis Northcut and Mercedis Lewis don't exactly scare anybody, but they are big, physical guys that have come up with big plays all year long. The defense, even with the attention it has garnered the last few years, is still underrated. The linebackers are seldom heard of and most fans couldn't name two of them, let alone one. Again, the job Del Rio and his staff has done with their units is exceptional and can not go unnoticed. The other winning coach, Mike Holmgren,(contrary to public opinion, and the opinion of Jerome Bettis for that matter) told the world that he planned on abandoning the run and would throw all day, and nobody, not even the hottest team in the NFC, has been able to really shut down his offense, evgen on a day where his quarterback played a lot worse than he is capable of. Holmgren is one of the most candid and secure coaches in all of sports, and doesn't bother hiding his emotions or sugarcoating his opinions, among other things. He also does something that I and fellow Chicagoans have come to believe as impossible, hold open practices, as reported by ESPN 1000 Bears' reporter Jeff Dickerson, my favorite Bears' reporter in Chicago. Holmgren actually came on ESPN Radio about two weeks ago and said flat out that his offense is and will continue to be very pass-heavy and made no bones about it. After listening to Lovie Smith pontificate, waffle, flip flop and cliche his way through his weekly press conferences, listening to Holmgren kinda opened my eyes as to what a good, honest guy Mike Holmgren is. I can't help but love the big fella. This is no way intended to slight the other coaches who have brought their teams to the playoffs. Jeff Fisher, Tony Dungy and obviously Bill Belichik are all tremendous coaches and have done great jobs with their respective teams. From the remaining coaches, I would have to say that I have been least impressed by the jobs done by Mike Tomlin, Tom Coughlin and Joe Gibbs. When you consider all three coaches' personel and what they have had at their disposal, their accomplishments have not been too impressive. The Chargers have regressed a bit, but I think Norv turner has them playing good football and I expect them to at least take at least one playoff game, perhaps even more. Mike McCarthy has also done a good job in Green Bay, but the real praise should be given to the management and scouts who have brought in all of those good, young receivers and linemen who have made what they do on offense possible. Wade Phillips has a tremendously talented roster and I need to see how he does in the playoffs before I really formulate an opinion on him. The games today were great and hopeful tomorrow's will be even better, although i don't think they will be nearly as good. San Diego will beat up on the Titans and i expect the elder Kiffin to put together a good enough defensive gameplan to shut down Eli and force 2-3 INT's. It will be close until the fourth quarter, in which Eli decides he is too close to playing a decent, complete game and throws a pick six, and the game for that matter, into the waiting hands of Mr. Ronde Barber.