Money and draft pick(s). That's what NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell is taking from Coach Bill and the Patriots as punishment for this week's video brouhaha. The team gets fined $250K and a draft pick or two, depending on how they finish this year. Bill gets whacked for half a million personally, which will eat heavily into his suit budget.

Let's just all agree we probably got off very easy, and get ready for San Diego on Sunday night. The good news is, now that this has happened and every opponent will be watching the Pats like a hawk, there will be no more excuses when they're legitimately outcoached by Belichick. Unless all his genius was tied up in the videotaping, in which case we'll be a well-deserved 1-15 this season. We know where our money is. Even if it's significantly less than half a million.

Dan Shaughnessy states, "There's a legion of people waiting to harpoon the arrogant New England organization...", and spends the rest of his column doing exactly that. There's no happier man in town than Dan on a day when he can pigpile on one of the local teams. We're not even going to link to it.

It went bad in a hurry last week, but the Red Sox get another chance to bury the Yankees this weekend and all but clinch the AL East. The Bombers' 432-game winning streak was snapped in Toronto last night, so the Sox have a 5 1/2 game lead to start the series. The magic number is 11; a sweep makes it five. We're just happy that more than 400 people will be at tonight's game.

We don't want it to seem like we're experiencing schadenfreude at the expense of the good people of Portland, who have done us no wrong. But can you imagine how many Celtic fans would have commited suicide today if we HAD gotten the #1 pick in the lottery, only to find Greg Oden lost for the season after microfracture surgery? Poor guy. Poor Portland. Lucky us.