Inside My Head

What Were They Thinking?
1. Officials of the Steelers Chargers game- As if you haven’t heard enough about this already, I’m going to tell you again. You really screwed up. Great job guys! Even I knew that you can’t decline a forward lateral penalty. Why is that even after they review for five minutes, you still can’t get it right. Are you blind of just intellectually challenged? What were you thinking guys?
People who bet on this game- What was going through your mind when the game was over? Especially those of you who lost the bet due to the mistake of the officials. If you think I’m mocking you, you’re completely right. I am. There’s a lesson for you kids, never bet on sports.
3. Donovan McNabb. Need I say more? How can you possibly have played in the NFL for ten years and not know that a game can end in a tie. You only get one overtime Donovan, that’s it. Then you go and publicize your stupidity at a news conference. Somebody better check this guy out and make sure he didn’t suffer a concussion in that game.
Bills Fans- I just want to know what you were thinking after Rian Lindell missed the 47-yard game winning field goal last night. Did you have flashbacks of Scott Norwood? Did you remember how you went to four Superbowls in the 80’s and 90’s and didn’t win any of them? What exactly were you thinking at this point in time?
Brian Scalabrine- You live a great life. Sit on the bench all year, pick up a few mil in the process. I respect you man, but how can you ask the fans to stop chanting your name. You know its not going to happen, and we all know that you cherish it and look forward to it every home game.
Coach K – How can you let a kid drain seven consecutive three’s without getting more hands in his face. Come on Coach, you almost lost to URI. They play in the Atlantic 10. Was your team even trying? I guess you shouldn’t have sent those tapes of J.J. Reddick to Jim Baron. I hope you learned your lesson. What were you thinking?
NBA- Did you guys really suspend Kevin Garnett for the so called altercation he had with Andrew Bogut. Let me tell you, you can’t get away with anything in professional sports anymore. There are barely any contact sports anymore. Pretty soon, touching someone is going to be a foul in basketball. Let the guys play!
Detroit Lions – 0-10, need I say more? How is it that when you have a top 5 pick in the NFL draft for five straight years you can still be the worst team in the League? Aren’t all those draft picks supposed to help you? Maybe you should stop drafting receivers all these years, and get somebody that can get the ball to those receivers. Now that would be a good idea.
Providence College – looks like you’re off to another mediocre season, as you opened your year with a loss to Northeastern. Maybe it wasn’t the coach; it’s just your players. They aren’t good.


What to Watch For:
-The two teams with the most wins in college basketball history square off tonight as North Carolina, the preseason favorite takes on Kentucky.
-Some good games in the NFL this week, as the Pats take on Miami in the tight AFC East, and the Jets battle against the undefeated Tennessee Titans.
-Be sure to catch some college hoops this week as the season really kicks off, and we begin the road to the Big Dance. Watch for a Dickie V. sighting to brighten your day.
-Try to make room for some college football this weekend when #2 Texas Tech goes to Oklahoma to play the #5 ranked Sooners.
-Make sure you celebrate the fact that the Nascar season is over, which means we don’t have to see it anymore on ESPN.
-Watch for the economy to get better this week.
-I lied. It will continue to fall.
-The Yankees to go after C.C. Sabathia, A.J. Burnett, and Derek Lowe.
-Manny being Manny
-That’s all I got.

Local Who's Hot and Who' Cold

Who’s Hot	Who’s Cold
North Kingstown Football -A great seniority based team with Dave D’errico leading them with 25 touchdowns while dominating teams in their way. -Now that Hendricken is slipping all they have in their way is Lasalle and Vets	West Warwick Football -a great young team that started off hot but when it comes down to the last minutes they buckle under pressure losing their last 3 games closely -losing last game 14-6 to the Clippers in a muddy event where they let another game slide away -they have a lot to look forward to with strong junior class.
Lasalle Girls Volleyball -Looking to defend their state championship this Saturday -Knocking down Chariho Breanna Boyer killing 21 out of 25 attempts leading the Ram’s to their second consecutive DI Championship	East Greenwich Girls Volleyball -A Strong Junior class team that fought hard but proved to fall, with Jenna Denice leading the team a Junior they have much to look forward to. -Barely slid into the playoffs and got knocked off by the Vicious East Prov. Team 3-0 who later was beaten by Lasalle
Wheeler Girls Soccer -The Warriors captured their 2nd straight Championship last week with a 5-0 win over PCD -They then entered the New England tournament earlier this week knocking off the first two teams and now are traveling to North Hampton for the NE Championships.	Middleton Boys Soccer -The Middleton team had a quiet season this year not making the playoffs finishing below 5th Place in the standings for DII -EG Soccer has not beat their team in over 4 years (1 tie) and this year won their opener against the team.
Cranston West Ice Hockey -The Addition of their coach Mike Boyajian Returning back to Coach the Falcons -He won the third state championship with west in 1998 -he left West for Barrington leading them to their first Championship appearance in 12 years, back to back 2007 and 2008.	East Greenwich Football -Out of the 21 games on thanksgiving day the only one that matters is EG vs. Narragansett -If EG wins it will force a Five way tie and will call for intensive tie-breaking. -But the Avengers went scoreless in their last game and to go on to play 5-2 Gansett who will clinch the 2 seed.

Doug Four Quarters 1

Jim Fassel, John Swofford, Rhode Island Basketball Ball and The California Wildfires Top This Week's Four Quarters

Quarter I: Jim Fassel’s Request is a Real Head Scratchier
It has become news in recent days that Jim Fassel wants to become a head coach again. An accomplished head coach, Fassel took the Giants to the Super Bowl during the 2000 season. However, he has not had a head-coaching job since his dismissal from the Giants in 2003, as his most recent job was being the offensive coordinator for the Baltimore Ravens. Fassel’s desire to be a head coach isn’t a surprising. What is surprising is that of all teams he is reaching to Al Davis and the Oakland Raiders.
I am aware that Mr. Fassel wants to coach once more but contacting the Raiders is the wrong move in the effort to launch one's career. First, one has to deal with perhaps the worst owner in football that has absolutely no idea how to construct a football team and does not have the patience to undergo the rebuilding process successfully. Second, this is a team in disarray with little player leadership or talent. Essentially, Mr. Fassel would be starting with a bare cupboard and expected to make a full thanksgiving dinner in two hours. Mr. Fassel, coaching the Raiders is a no win situation. You take all of the blame yet you are unable to control personal and coaching decisions. Out of all the coaching the positions that expect to be available this off-season, I’m sure Mr. Fassel could have picked a better team to reach out to.

Quarter II: John Swofford Tops This Week’s Worst Persons
3. Ben Watson Tight End New England Patriots for his inexcusable fumble in last week’s loss to the Jets. When you are stripped of a pass on a key drive in a key drive it is bad enough but Watson’s play was simply inexcusable. He fumbled the ball with out any player contact killing the Pats momentum early in the second half of last week’s game against the Jets.
2. Mark Cuban for being taken to court for illegally using confidential information to avoid more than 750,000 dollars in loses on Wall Street. Just when you thought things couldn’t get worse in today’s financial mess you have one sports’ most active owners involved in an illegal sell off.
1. John Swofford, BCS Commissioner for his load of bologna that he put out Tuesday afternoon. In response to President-Elect Obama’s push for a college playoff system Swofford said "For now, our constituencies -- and I know he understands constituencies -- have settled on the current BCS system, which the majority believe is the best system yet to determine a national champion while also maintaining the college football regular season as the best and most meaningful in sports." Mr. Swofford, to say that the BCS system is best method to determine the national champion shows how in the tank you are for the sponsors. The BCS creates nothing but confusion and frustration while tournament style playoffs provide excitement and stories that are both meaningful and inspiring. Shame on you Mr. Swofford for thinking otherwise. John Swofford, this week’s worst person in the world.

Quarter III: Rhody Hoops Tops This Week’s Best Persons
3. Albert Pujols for winning his second MVP award Tuesday. Has there ever been a quieter 37HR 116RBI season? Not only that but he did it with a sore right elbow all season long.
2. Jimmy Johnson for winning his third straight NASCAR Nextel Cup Championship. Winning a sports title once is impressive but to win three times is downright amazing.
1. Rhode Island Rams Basketball Team for the game they played at Duke on Sunday. Teams not named North Carolina simply do not win at Cameron Indoor and these Rhody Rams nearly pulled a shocker of an upset. Looks like in will be an exciting season for Rhody Basketball. The Rhody Rams, this week’s best persons in the world.

Quarter IV: Game of the Week: Rhode Island Versus Duke.
Here was a classic example of a team that had no business playing with another team. Beating a team like Duke is hard enough on one’s home floor but with the raucous crowed of Cameron Indoor it’s nearly impossible. Yet the Rhody Rams nearly pulled off this year’s greatest upset and stuck with the Blue Devils the whole way falling short at the end on a missed Jimmy Barron fade away. Keep your heads up Rhody. You played a heck of a game.

Overtime: 10 Random Pieces of Sports Knowledge
10. Jeremy Affelt is the first free agent in Baseball to sign inking a two-year deal worth 8 million dollars
9. Over 100 million dollars was bet on the San Diego - Pittsburgh game last Sunday.
8. The Yankees sold Darrell Rasner’s rights to Japan for 1 million dollars
7. Matt Cassel set a career high for yards thrown with his performance against the Jets
6. Novak Djokovic won the ATP Masters Cup last weekend
5. Here’s an impressive stat for you. The Celtics played 8 games in the past 12 days. Their record you may ask is a cool 7-1.
4. The Cleveland Cavaliers have won seven consecutive games
3. The Tennessee Titians are 10 and 0 and have a fan in Mercury Morris.
2. The Ravens gave up 100 yards to a team for the first time in 28 games last Sunday against the Giants
1. The Bruins are unexpectedly in first place in the Northeast Division.

Double Overtime: California Wildfires Make up This Weeks Non Political Story of the Week
I feel sorry for those in California these days. Three major fires have burned 41,000 acres. Fueled by winds of over 70MPH these fires are wreaking havoc across California destroying homes and other buildings in their path. Governor Arnold Swartzenegger has declared state of emergencies in four California counties. Fire Fighters are trying the best they can to control the flames but their efforts are at the mercy of the weather. Hopefully a series of favorable conditions comes into the area where these fires are burning so that firefighters can get them under control.

By The Numbers

0 – Number of 400 yard passing games Tom Brady had last season in his historic MVP year. Matt Cassel Just had his first career 400 yard air attack last Thursday in an overtime loss to the New York Jets, while also managing to compile 62 rushing yards. Matt made his case to force the Patriots to consider sticking with him or moving back to an injured Tom Brady. One has to go.
2 – Albert Pujols has now won the National League MVP award twice in his first eight seasons in the MLB. He’s also on track to shatter the career homerun record. In the first eight years Pujols has been in the league, he’s been well above average in career home runs compared to many legends of the game. In fact, he has the greatest number of home runs through eight years, then anyone else to step into a batter’s box. No doubt there are more MVP’s still to come.
5’9” – The height of the newly crowned American League MVP, Dustin Pedroia. The second baseman tied for the league lead in hits, was first in runs scored for the AL, led the league in doubles, held an American league second best batting average, and hit 17 home runs. All of that offensive production, and he comes with a Golden Glove as well, how convenient.
14.9 – Rebounds per game that Golden State center Andris Biedrins is averaging. After a 16 rebound game Saturday night, he boosted the stat to become the league leader, passing the fiend that is Dwight Howard. Howard grabbed a pitiful 7 boards in Sunday’s contest against Charlotte. If he plans on keeping up with Biedrins, he can’t have games like that, the Warrior has yet to grab less then 11 boards in a game thus far.
612 – The number of yards the great Bengal wide out is on track to finish with. Chad “Ocho Cinco” Johnson created quite the controversy in the beginning of the year, legally changing his last name to his Bengals jersey number, and permanently scaring his kids life as they go through attendance in school. With these shenanigans, everyone expected a good year out of Johnson, claiming a bad year would hurt his career, “talking smack and not backing it up.” Maybe he should take some tips from Joey Porter. The 612 yard finish would be his worst since his rookie year.
5,202 – The possible number that could land Drew Brees a MVP award. The New Orleans Gun Slinger is on track to hit 5,202 passing yards this season, giving him not only an almost certain MVP trophy, but the leading spot on the all-time single season passing yards list. This would also make him only the second quarterback in NFL history to compile a 5,000 yard season, joining Dan Marino on top, who has 5,084.

52,000,000 – The amount of money the new Bond film Quantum of Solace made in its first two days in the box office on Friday, November 14th, and Saturday November 15th. This also happens to be the amount of money Cubs pitcher Ryan Dempster will be making over the next four years. After showing a glimmer of hope in 2001, at the young age of 24, Dempster compiled a 15-12 record as a starter on the Florida Marlins, undoubtedly making him a new young talent. But his spark was put out in the following years to come, not posting a winning record until 2005 as the Chicago Cubs closer. Following two more years of closing, he decided to make the switch back to starter last year, pulling a John Smoltz switch, and posting a 17-6 record. Of course this would be a fantastic sign from any pitcher, and deserve a new contract, but the recent switch and uncertain past isn’t too convincing. Of course, neither is the age of 33 as a pitcher in the MLB. Unless you’ve had hall of fame success in the past, no starting pitcher makes it much past their 35th birthday in the league. And with big mouths to feed on the team such as Zambrano, Ramirez and Soriano, how can the Cubs afford to throw this uncertain pitcher 52 million dollars? Looks like Dempster should ditch the pitching gig and go into the movie business. He’d make the same amount of money in two days as opposed to four years, and he won’t have to twirl his wrist around like a fairy a hundred times a week.

Jake Kane

The Boston Celtics
A Team, or a Dynasty?

As the Celtics edge out yet another win last night verse the high scoring New York Knicks, it really must open your eyes onto how great this team is, and how dominant they will be further down the road. The Celtics playing without Kevin Garnett, their pump up factor, and who is known as the best all around player on the team, was an extreme loss for the Celtics. But showing their resilience they turned to a seven year veteran, Brian Scalabrine for the start. Brian Scalabrine is known as the team joke, all the fans love him, but not because he is a good player, but because he is awful. This is one of those bazaar occurrences where the fans absolutely adore a player because he can merely touch net, it must be because he has the same athletic ability as half the fans in the crowd. But, in an extreme rarity, Brian Scalabrine came up enormous in this game, knocking down two threes and one long two for a total of eight points. Now this is when you start thinking, “Hey, we just beat a team who averages 105 points per game without our third leading scorer and top rebounded, why is this?” Now the reason behind this is very simple, undoubtedly through last years championship season, the Celtics became a team. Last year they were a team with three big stars, and merely a few role players. This year it is arguable that there are five stars on this team, starting with the “Big 3,” and then the two unexpected in Rajon Rondo and Kendrick Perkins. Now you may say, these two guys are not stars, they wouldn’t even start on other teams. But after last nights performance it was very obviously seen that it is possible for a star player to be out for a game and the Celtics can still pick up a big win. They played as if they were almost unphased, like they didn’t even notice that KG’s presence was absent, which is extremely tough to do. Last night Kendrick Perkins and Rajon Rondo combined for 30 points 16 rebounds and 10 assists. With the new and improved Leon Powe coming off the bench as the sixth man, I don’t think the Celtics have lost a beat by losing James Posey. Mister Powe has been putting up sixth man of the year award numbers with about 8 points and 4 rebounds per game. In my eyes, this Celtics team would blow the 2007-2008 Boston Celtics out of the water. This is because players like Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, and Ray Allen are playing exactly the same as they always have, but guys like Perk and Rajon are no longer cancers on the court. The have found a role for themselves, and they have been perfecting it. In previous seasons Celtics players could not pass the ball inside to Perk, because it would be passing your basketball into a black hole and expecting it back. Every touch he got on the ball in the past lead to a shot. This year he has such a great confidence in his role for the Celtics, you may even see him pulling up for a 12 foot jumper and burying it. This team is very special, for the fact they can throw out any player on their bench and win games big. These individual players absolutely know their roles on the team and they show it game in and game out, it is safe to say this hasn’t been seen since the Chicago Bulls had their reign over the NBA, but here is the true test. Can the Celtics repeat?