As for the Sunday night

As for the Sunday night shows they were all essentially tributes to Will McDonough, with nothing on them that you wouldn’t have read this weekend in the articles linked. There were a lot of picture tributes, but those are pretty hard to put into words. There were also many clips of Will from over the years. Bob Costas says that no one broke more stories in the NFL than Will, and in Boston he was an institution. Howie Long compared his passing to George Bailey of “It’s a wonderful life” only when he’s not there do we realize what he meant to everyone. Joe O’Donnell and Mike Barnicle were on Sports Final, and they also contacted Raymond Clayborn, who said after a year or so, he and Will became pretty decent friends. He said the incident resulted because of constant negative media coverage, and couldn’t remember much of the details of the actual incident, but says it’s been blown out of proportion. He said he and Will would shake hands and laugh about it in recent years and Will would tell him that he made him famous. Other guests included Bob Ryan, Upton Bell and Dan Shaughnessy, all repeating things you’ve heard already. A couple more McDonough articles from yesterday: Kevin Mannix and Ron Borges.

Words I never thought I’d hear myself say. Thank you Raiders. I am so glad the media darling New York Jets are out I can hardly contain it. For weeks they’re all we’ve heard about. The new wonderboy quarterback was brought back to earth. They were impressive the last three weeks, but who had they played? A reeling Patriots team, a decimated Packers team and a Colts team that was shellshocked just from being in the playoffs. Voices not picking the Jets this week were few and far between in the Boston media. It was almost nauseating see the masses jump on the bandwagon of a New York team. Now, if the Titans can take care of the Raiders next week, I’ll be as happy as I could be without the Patriots being in it. Steve Buckley drew the Oakland assignment and his first line reads: “For more than a month, starry-eyed New York football fans got comfortably numb comparing this year’s Jets with last year’s Patriots.” the phrase “and Boston media members” should be inserted after the word “fans”. Raider lover Ron Borges praises the Silver and Black for throwing the ball all over the field. Errr, Ron, weren’t you one telling us after the first couple weeks of the season when the Patriots were going up and down the field that teams that passed so much couldn’t win? Buckley also submits a column describing all the bad feelings between the two teams. Michael Felger says the Buccaneers had their fun yesterday, we’ll see if they can win in Philly. I don’t think so.

Heartbreaking loss for the Celtics last night. A truly gutty hard nosed effort that just feel short at the end. Rather than give them credit for coming back from 17 points down, and playing most of the second half with two guys…Kedrick Brown (who had one of the most incredible blocks you will ever see on Tim Duncan) and J.R. Bremer who hadn’t hardly played all season, the postgame show and even sportscasts on the news focused bombastically on the Celtics blowing an 8 point lead in the 4th. Hardly a mention of the effort that got them back into the game and in position to win. The guy who made the winning three, Stephen Jackson, had been shut down since the first quarter by Kedrick Brown, and basically just threw it up there. On the down side, the Celtics offense was horrid down the stretch. No movement, too many Antoine threes that weren’t even close, but he seemed to be the only guy that would take the shot. Anyway…Peter May submits a pretty tame game story. Steve Bulpett notes the contributions of the youngsters in his game story. May’s notebook brings up the contributions of the bench and Tony Delk’s injury. Bulpett’s notebook has more on Delk and a team diagnosis by Dr. Jack. One note from the weekend…Will we be hearing Eddie Andelman ranting on about the new Celtics owners now? Steve Bulpett reports that they are looking for new revenue streams, which include a Red Sox-like plan of adding new seats close to the floor, mostly by displacing reporters covering the team. Jackie MacMullan writes about Yao Ming breaking out. Wait, now I know what we’ll hear on Andelman’s show today. Chinese food and that borderline racist skit that purports to be Yao Ming singing american classics. A sure way to get listeners to turn off the station. Interesting how Shaquille O’Neal recently came under fire in the media for “insensitive comments” for recently saying to a reporter: “Tell Yao Ming, ‘ching-chong-yang-wah-ah-soh.’ ” in a mock Chinese accent. But the media itself can do basically the same thing.

On an unrelated note, this site recently went over the 200,000 visitor mark, next stop a quarter million. Thanks again to everyone who visits and e-mails. Also Friday was the busiest day, visitor wise in the history of the site. It’s sad that it was because of the death of Will McDonough, but I hope the site was informative to all who stopped by to see what was being said and written about the legend.

NESN has Bruins/Penguins at 7:00. (ESPN2 Nationally) FSNE has Celtics/Rockets at 8:30. ESPN has a college basketball tripleheader with Missouri/Syracuse at 7:00, Oklahoma State/Oklahoma at 9:00 and New Mexico/Colorado State at midnight.