Death endzone at Wrigley
November 15th, 2010 at 3:24 PM ^
Good thing Shaun Hill isn't playing QB.
November 15th, 2010 at 3:26 PM ^
Good thing Dan Orlovsky isnt playing QB.
November 15th, 2010 at 3:27 PM ^
Good thing Joey Harr....
Oh, nevermind...this game depresses me.
November 15th, 2010 at 10:06 PM ^
Good thing the Lions drafted Drew Stanton instead of Lamar Woodley OR David Harris.
After all, who needs a pro bowl linebacker when you can have the worst third string QB in the league?
November 16th, 2010 at 8:21 PM ^
He hasn't been arrested yet though, which is impressive for a spartan. Note that I didn't capitalize the "S" in spartan because they are not people.
November 15th, 2010 at 7:22 PM ^
Good thing Gus Frerotte isn't playing QB
November 17th, 2010 at 12:17 PM ^
If anything this would help Orvlovsky...be harder for him to step out of bounds in the endzone for a safety
November 15th, 2010 at 3:26 PM ^
instead of catching a home run ball a few kids may go home with a football on extra points and field goals
November 15th, 2010 at 3:28 PM ^
Right field is Sheffield
November 15th, 2010 at 3:38 PM ^
so its sheffield
November 15th, 2010 at 3:43 PM ^
Clark is the 3rd baseline, Addison is the 1st baseline
My dad (Physician in the chicago area) has patient brother and sister named "Clark and Addison"
Quality parenting
Go Cubs!
November 15th, 2010 at 3:28 PM ^
Waveland...but yeah.
November 15th, 2010 at 3:30 PM ^
Or Dan Orlovsky
EDIT: Damn, beat to it
November 15th, 2010 at 9:41 PM ^
Too bad Taco Pants isn't playing.
November 15th, 2010 at 3:27 PM ^
I also dont know why they changed the field from how it faced when Da Bears played at wrigley (bottom pic) but my guess is with the subtle field dimension changes recently the field didn't fit that way either - seats along both baselines have grown onto the playing surface.
Wish I could go, should be interesting. Hope there's a lot of padding in Right Field
November 15th, 2010 at 3:32 PM ^
Probably had to change the alignment as the brick backstop has been inching toward the pitchers mount in recent years to add more seats behind home plate. Dolla dolla billz ya'll.
I totally wish I could go to this game as well.
November 15th, 2010 at 3:43 PM ^
...they could have left the warning track in
November 15th, 2010 at 3:49 PM ^
I'm pretty sure I saw somewhere that when the bears played at Wrigley, at least one of the corners of the end zones was actually cut off.
November 17th, 2010 at 12:19 PM ^
Look at the left field bleachers in that photo. More have been added since that time, the field wouldn't fit.
November 15th, 2010 at 3:28 PM ^
This is literally against NCAA rules and field requirements which means they had to petition for the NCAA's approval to do this.
And the NCAA let them. I wonder why....
November 15th, 2010 at 3:32 PM ^
+1 for kenny powers
November 15th, 2010 at 3:33 PM ^
Wow, I put dolla dolla billz ya'll in the reply just above this without noticing this embed. Must have been a subliminal message or something. At any rate +1.
November 15th, 2010 at 3:28 PM ^
this just seems like a really really terrible idea.
November 15th, 2010 at 3:29 PM ^
This will not turn out well. I hope I am wrong for the sake of the players but how about putting some padding on those walls instead of All State advertising. Kind of ironic if you think about it.
November 15th, 2010 at 3:33 PM ^
It's padded, the padding just has ads on it and fake Ivy
The walls back there are brick for Baseball...
November 15th, 2010 at 3:36 PM ^
What He Said. The Ivy isn't like that in November anyway.
November 15th, 2010 at 4:25 PM ^
...because it will protect the players from mayhem.
November 15th, 2010 at 4:29 PM ^
after he head-butted it in 1997 after scoring a touchdown. This setup is a disaster waiting to happen.
November 15th, 2010 at 4:34 PM ^
...Gus Frerotte is an idiot, and Northwestern and Illinois student-athletes playing in this game. (Idiot for that particular celebration, anyhow)
November 15th, 2010 at 9:03 PM ^
so football players need padding on the walls but baseball players don't???
/s
November 15th, 2010 at 3:29 PM ^
The silver lining is, if you have seats behind that end zone you are going to have a killer view.
November 15th, 2010 at 3:39 PM ^
Those are Steve Bartman's seats.
November 15th, 2010 at 3:48 PM ^
Bartman was sitting on the Left field line, just as the wall rises
November 15th, 2010 at 3:30 PM ^
Really should have been modeled after the last black-and-white image.
Wonder if a similar thing exists at the New Yankees Stadium for their Army - ND game
November 15th, 2010 at 3:30 PM ^
I actually heard from an unreliable source, whom I can no longer remember, that the endzones are actually smaller, as well.
Can anyone confirm or deny this?
November 15th, 2010 at 4:51 PM ^
I can deny that. There is no way that would happen; the NCAA wouldnt change the rules of the game for one game.
November 15th, 2010 at 3:31 PM ^
they already have it all worked out. They opened the door in the back of the end zone. Problem solved!
November 15th, 2010 at 3:32 PM ^
Didn't they learn anything from this?
EDIT: Beaten by the Heartbreak Kid. Sad day.
November 15th, 2010 at 3:32 PM ^
Sun could have been a factor in field configuration. This way, its going to be obscured by the grandstand for the entire game and won't get in anybody's eyes. This game will be entirely dependent on the lights at Wrigley. Wrigleyville is going to be apeshit - I wish I was going to be closer.
November 15th, 2010 at 3:35 PM ^
I saw this a couple days ago, I really cannot believe that this is being allowed.
I mean I understand the idea of having a game at Wrigley, but at the expense of player safety?
I wonder if something like this would fly in the NFL with the players' union and such. I have to believe that they would put up a huge objection.
But for some reason its okay for college kids, 95% of whom don't have futures in football.
Now I know that things will probably go off without a hitch, as I'm sure players/teams will be sure to avoid that part of the endzone.
But I can't help but think about what happens when an outfielder crashes into the wall and nearly kills themselves.
Now imagine that same scenario with a football player diving head first for a football and two guys trying to tackle him in the process.
Dangerous!
November 15th, 2010 at 3:38 PM ^
Not sure if its 95% but point taken. This could end poorly. Either way, if its injury or the wall impeding a touchdown/interception. Imagine Santonio Holmes catch in the Superbowl where he had to lay out and catch it while keeping his feet in (it was off to the side, but I think you get the point). I don't think this wall would have let that happen.
November 15th, 2010 at 5:13 PM ^
Actually, between Northwestern and Illinois I doubt if more than 5% of their players have a future in professional football, especially a couple of years down the road.
I guess I could be wrong if you count Canadian, European, etc Leagues. But the number of college athletes that are able to make a career in their sports is extremely small.
November 15th, 2010 at 6:00 PM ^
You're saying that no more than five players on each team will go on to play pro football. That's nuts. Illinois probably will have at least that many players drafted this year alone.
November 15th, 2010 at 9:26 PM ^
Michigan has had 335 players drafted since 1937. That's approximately 4.6 per year. From Michigan. The winningest program in the nation and the program with the fifth most draftees ever.
Far, far, far less than 5% of college football players will have NFL careers.
http://www.drafthistory.com/n_college/college_n.html
EDIT: Even simpler:
There's 7 rounds in the draft. 7 x 32 = 224 players drafted.
There are 120 Div I teams. 230 x 105 = 12,600
224 / 12600 = 1.78%
And that's not even including FBS and other divisions; though it also doesn't count undrafted players. However, I think the number of undrafted players that have what most would consider "NFL careers" is probably equivalent to the number of FBS players that have NFL careers, so the effect on the 1.78% is probably negligible. On the other hand, if you include all divisions (and why shouldn't you?) the number becomes fractions of fractions of a percent.
November 15th, 2010 at 9:35 PM ^
The 7th round usually has about 45-50 selections because of compensatory picks, leading to somewhere around 250-255 draftees.
November 16th, 2010 at 2:26 AM ^
There are 4-5 draft classes within college fb every year. So that 224 needs to be multiplied by at least 4. Of course the majority of the players that are drafted don't play more than a couple NFL seasons.
November 15th, 2010 at 3:35 PM ^
I'm going to watch this game now just out of interest to see if that wall will come into play