Sports Redux: Comings And Goings And Comings

The Patriots made a lot of roster moves yesterday. A LOT. To the point where we wonder if (a) Bill Belichick wasn't happy with the 59-0 win on Sunday, or (b) they were worried about jettisoning some extra weight for the team flight to London this week. Officially gone are TE Michael Matthews and WR Joey Galloway, who was handed his walking papers and promptly dropped them. Not gone long enough to be forgotten were linebackers Eric Alexander and Tully Banta-Cain, who were released and then promptly resigned, possibly for paperwork reasons. "There’s a lot of different procedures and rules, and I don’t even know if I understand them all," said Belichick, who's a lot more concerned right now with puffing up the 0-6 Buccaneers in his players' minds to make them think the Bucs are the second coming of the '66 Packers.

For what it's worth, Christopher Gasper in the Globe says Belichick screwed up a bunch of personnel decisions in the last few months. For what it's worth.

Tom Brady spent part of yesterday on a conference call with the British press, telling them what to expect from the Pats, and what he expects from his time in London. "For us, the job's the same: when the ball's kicked off, the rules are the same for us, the field's the same size," he told the Brits, which should give them an idea what kind of terse answers they should expect from the team all week long. The view in Tampa Bay seems to be just hoping the Bucs come out of London in better shape than Charles I.

The Celtics lost their last real preseason matchup to the Knicks; they play the Cavaliers in Columbus tonight, but they're not going to show the Cavs any lineups or any plays that might tip their hand for next week's real season opener. We doubt the Cavs will bring out the big guns, either, so sorry Columbus; you're getting J.R. Giddens and J.J. Hickson a lot more than KG and LBJ.

It looks like the World Series is going to have an East Coast bias again, as the Yankees joined Philly in holding commanding 3-1 leads in their respective LCS. The Yanks pummeled Anaheim last night, A-Rod's hitting over .400 in the postseason...it's pretty much a nightmare for everyone in New England. Major League Baseball has said that the widely-circulated Mariano Rivera spitball video isn't anything to get fired up about, but Angels fans don't want to hear it and neither do we, really.