Madonna

FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH:

• What’s the story with Tom Brady?

Is this serious, or is it just journalistic overkill?

The problem is, no one ever tells the truth — not really.

But the status of Brady’s knee has become the Patriots’ story, overshadowing tomorrow’s game with the Rams, overshadowing everything. An ACL injury is tricky, even in the best of situations, never mind this scenario. The last few weeks have shown us that in many ways Brady is the franchise, the one who makes the Pats great.

• The Broncos were so bad last Monday night that they should have left at halftime.

• Let me know the next time “Joe Sixpack” gets a $150,000 clothing allowance.

• Which will probably be when this state starts living large again.

• The Pats will miss Rodney Harrison, who played with the kind of swagger that has come to define them.

• It may be tough times for “Joe Sixpack,” but not in Manny World, where he’s reportedly been offered $27.5 million a year for two years by the Dodgers.

• Quiz of the Week comes from a Tampa Bay press release: Only four markets in the country have won a World Series, Super Bowl and a Stanley Cup. Which ones? (Answer near the bottom of the column.)

• Line of the Week comes from the Chiefs’ Larry Johnson, after his recent bad behavior, who said he “was disgusted with himself.”

Some of the Wall Street poobahs should say the same thing.

• The financial mess is like a house party and the parents are out of town.

• There are a lot of things I’m going to worry about before I worry about the TV ratings for the World Series.

• Sports Illustrated has the Celtics winning the Eastern Conference and losing to the Spurs in the NBA Finals.

• Memo to Jay Cutler: Before you start saying you have a better arm than John Elway, don’t you have to, I don’t know, maybe win something?

• There’s no truth to the rumor that the NBA started this national bailout craze by paying oodles of money to so many guys who can’t play.

• Or that the new TV show Life on Mars is about life here in Rhode Island.

• If anyone other than David Price came in for the Rays the other night, the Sox would still be playing.

• Mike Shanahan looked like he could have been starring in The Shining in all of those sideline shots on Monday night.

• You know everything’s for sale, Bunky, when Bloomingdale’s has a new clothing line called “The Beatles Love,” complete with an ad that says, “Come together. Witness a Revolution in menswear.”

And the Stones’ “Can’t Get No Satisfaction” was about being late for the early-bird special, right?

• Josh Beckett was hurt in the playoffs and the Red Sox didn’t tell us? What a shock.

• Did you see where old friend Austin Croshere got waived by the Pacers? If this is, indeed, the end, the former PC great lasted 11 years in the NBA, and who would have ever believed that when he was a freshman?

• David Ortiz should come back next spring in the best shape of his life.

• The last Republican The New York Times endorsed for president was Dwight Eisenhower.

• The word is that one of the reasons the Celtics like rookie Billy Walker is that he got into it with Kevin Garnett at a practice and didn’t back down.

• There is nothing more suspenseful in sports than a late-inning baseball playoff game with everything on the line.

• Unless, of course, it’s an Al Davis news conference.

• It’s time for Greg Oden to start living up to all of the hype.

• Kind of like Obama in a couple of weeks, unless McCain pulls a Villanova over Georgetown on us.

• You don’t think we’re spoiled? The Pats are 4-2 and it’s like they’ve failed.

• You know you’re in trouble when the best thing about Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist is the title.

• And you know you’re a nitwit when you’re Plaxico Burress and you’ve lost something like $150,000 in fines the last few weeks.

• Madonna and A-Rod are the perfect celebrity couple, so self-absorbed they’ve become clueless.

• Kind of like Manny, without the great September.

• You know it’s a strange local basketball world when new Bryant coach Tim O’Shea used to babysit for new PC coach Keno Davis.

• And you know the Big East is a Big Beast when the Friars have a good team coming back and are a preseason pick to finish 10th.

• Quiz answer: New York. Boston. Pittsburgh. Chicago.

• Nights In Rodanthe could be on the Lifetime channel and no one would know the difference.

• The last thing Brett Favre needs after losing to the Raiders is the report that he was talking about the Packers’ game plan to the Lions.

• Speaking of the Jets, Eric “Mangenius” is no longer the flavor of the month in New York.

• And if Favre keeps losing to teams such as the Raiders, he won’t be, either.

• The real bridge to nowhere, Bunky, is your 401(k).

breynold@projo.com