Look at the turnover!

Thanks Alex.  It's always nice to know I'm appreciated.

I'll add to this that I missed my old friends and posting buddies too but sometimes a person has to take a stand and I did.  It was about a year ago right about now I noticed a change in the "atmosphere" in DaBears Football Forum and had my first battle with Jimmors over it.  By October when it had only gotten worse after the season began I had my second battle this time with Loki and Ski (Rick) as well.

Rick actually agreed with me relative to the influx of trolls and my identification of a few of them.  Since I moderated that forum years ago it would have been tough for him not to have agreed.  Despite that his only advice was to use the ignore feature and not "poke the bear" as he described it.  To me that's pretty false logic because it wasn't gonna resolve the problem that was developing.  Here I am trying to defend my home site and he's already surrendering to the "enemy".

Then Loki and I discussed it and we both have a respect for one another but his position was much the same and strangely enough seemed more stringent for contributing members than it did for the trolls and disturbers of the peace.  I thought that was odd but now that a few of you have related how the these guys from this other site wanted to join but have the privilege of looser moderation it all makes sense now.  Rick wanted more members and since Loki wielded the ban hammer both had to agree to allow them to come onboard without being molested by the rest of us.

THAT was NEVER the plan for that site.  Not once.  In fact we fought that tooth and nail during the first six months or so after Rick began the site in 2004 until we finally convinced the bad boys from the CBMB they couldn't come on and do as they pleased.  Then they finally stopped trying and relative peace prevailed with the exception of the periodic raids from fans from GB or an upcoming opponent and even that was handled pretty efficiently.  If they came to talk football they could stay but if they came just to troll they were gone in a day or less.  And this was all before Loki ever came along as a moderator.

We also granted a little more moderating leeway in the battles between our own members which is why Ric and I could go as far as we did at times.  Neither of us disliked the other and we respected one another as individuals but it was like Halas battling Lombardi.  Each of us had strong feelings about certain things and we weren't giving ground to the other.  But in the end it was no more than a battle over beers with both taking turns over who was buying the next round or who won the bet for who'd buy next. LOL  There isn't and never has been any hatred between us and the old guard new that.

The only guy from that old guard who ever got banned for good was DB54 because HE did begin to make things too personal and he was warned about it many times both by Loki and by me because I liked his better days and his contributions.  The problem was his better days got fewer and fewer and the battles turned from honest debates into personal attacks and that we had to stop.  Most anyone else who ever got banned contributed little to football discussions and had it coming.

Anyway, this is where we are now and it's probably been a long time coming.  At first it seemed a little odd to me to be leaving a place I helped start up but when you realize it's no longer that place any more the decision is much easier.  It's really very similar to my last divorce.  It's not that I didn't love her but "her" was no longer the woman I married.  She'd become someone else and I don't regret that decision either.

Maybe so chuck but he's also kept himself in excellent condition and is either not all that injury prone or he's just a pretty tough QB who can play his way through some pain and discomfort.  As it stands today I don't doubt his ability to play out his contract provided he continues to show the improvement he has recently.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm not at all opposed to the idea of finding Cutler's eventual replacement I'm just not in a panic over it.  It seems to me that once the rest of the core is build out of younger players on both sides of the ball we'll have more choices of how to go about it and not lose in the process and end up where we've been before.

At that point in time we can risk trading picks to trade up for a QB we really like or trade for a hot prospect whose sitting behind an established starter with no hope of seeing much action where he's at.  Or there's the UFA route if Pace is willing to spend the $$$ but that one probably won't happen unless he does decide to part ways with Jay.

Oh I'd believe it Alex. I'd have no trouble believing it at all.  It's just like I said.  We took our ball and went home and Grim isn't allowed in our yard but that won't stop him from trying.  We went through something similar when Rick started DaBears with multiple registrations under different names all coming from the same IP address. LOL

Grim though he was being crafty using other DaBears members names to register under and probably advising his posse to do the same.  Once you shielded the members list that blew his little plan out of the water because then he had no idea of which legit members had registered and which ones hadn't.  That's why he tossed out that little bull shit comment about you or any one of us feeling guilty about starting or joining a new site.  Guilty?  LMFAO

If you're still getting a ration of phony registrations then I would suggest that Grim has at least one "spy" here feeding him info about whose registered and who isn't and what's being posted.  He's one sick puppy and if he reads this I hope he realizes that he was one of the trolls that helped make all of this possible to begin with.  He was a primary catalyst in getting you to start this site and for many of us to join immediately.

So thanks Grim.  Thanks for helping Alex to build this new site and for the rest of us to come onboard to help with the landscaping and keep the place free of "weeds" like you and your posse.  It must really piss you off to know your aren't good enough to play ball over here doesn't it?  LOL

I'm not arguing for a hurry up replacement.  Just that at the end of his contract in 2020, he will likely posses declining skills.  Possibly rapidly declining skills.  Look at Manning, his last year was painful to watch.