Just three days after the 2010 Draft, the Chicago Bears fired their director of college scouting, Greg Gabriel, who had been with the team for nine seasons. Speculation is former Seahawks General Manager Tim Ruskell will be brought aboard as the new player personnel guru.

During his time in Chi-town, Gabriel’s department oversaw the drafting of players such as Johnny Knox, Al Afalava, Matt Forte, Greg Olsen, Danieal Manning, Devin Hester, Mark Anderson, Kyle Orton, Chris Harris, Tommie Harris, Nathan Vasher, Charles Tillman, Lance Briggs, Marc Colombo and Alex Brown.

The Atlanta Hawks have had a great season this year as they have gone from a young inexperienced team in the Eastern Conference to a veteran team on the brink of competing for an NBA title.

Even though the Hawks still might be a player or two away from actually being able to compete with the best of the best in the East (Cleveland Cavaliers and Orlando Magic), the team definitely has a lot of potential and have made considerable improvement from last year’s team.

Unlike most of the title contending NBA franchises this past offseason, the Atlanta Hawks were pretty content with their up and coming roster which is filled with very talented young players like Al Horford, Josh Smith and Joe Johnson. So with teams like the Cleveland Cavaliers, Boston Celtics and the Orlando Magic making considerable upgrades to their squad with players like Shaq, Rasheed Wallace and Vince Carter getting into the mix, the Hawks decided to make a move that went relatively unnoticed by adding journeyman Jamal Crawford via trade.

When the Patriots, in the words of head coach Bill Belichick, “backed up the Brink’s truck” for free agent linebacker Adalius Thomas back in 2007, everything was ice cream and puppy dogs. Thomas had been a stalwart in the Ravens defense for seven seasons, and at age 29 was still considered to be in his prime.

He lived up to his bloated contract by posting 78 tackles and 6.5 sacks in his first season with New England. However, the following two years would be less than ideal for Thomas. An arm injury limited him to just nine games in 2008. In 2009, he fell out of favor with Belichick and was deactivated for two games

Yesterday, the Patriots cut ties with Thomas by releasing him. Was he worth the $35 million investment?

Game 7 in the Detroit/Phoenix series takes place tonight in Phoenix and win or lose there’s not been a better hockey story this year than the Phoenix Coyotes.  Last summer the only reason they were in the news was for their countless off ice and financial issues.  You’ll recall that there was even much to suggest that they’d be playing in Hamilton, Ontario and not Phoenix this season.  Despite all this and despite serious budgetary constraints the Phoenix management put a winning team on the ice.  Only three teams in the NHL finished with more points than Phoenix this season.  And that great season has proven to be extremely valuable, since they’ll host game 7 instead of playing on the road.  And that gives us the basis for our NHL betting position this evening:

PHOENIX COYOTES VS. DETROIT RED WINGS: