Show And Don't Tell

Shank is not a fan of New England Patroits press conferences. His disdain for coach Bill Belichick is on full display in today's column, which is more 'standing headline' than anything else. It's no secret that Belichick keeps his cards close to his chest and says next to nothing at these press conferences, but Shank inevitably writes one such column every year in order to generate some faux outrage in over-the-top prose worthy of an Al Pacino movie:

But the Patriots are not the Jets. The Patriots are the Nixon White House of sports. They see demons everywhere. They bash dissent, deny the obvious, and rely on a silent majority of loyalists (including some credentialed media) to pledge allegiance.

The Patriots have a Kremlinesque video camera trained on the assembled media during Bill Belichick’s press conferences. (Think they’d send me a highlight tape of myself eating cookies and asking keen questions over the last 10 years?) I’ve always wondered whether there is some in-house lackey responsible for logging the tapes and identifying enemies.

I think you'd have to go back 10 years, or more, to find an example of Shank asking a keen question. I will agree that the Patriots training a camera on the press pool is creepy and, yes, Kremlinesque.

Throw in a Red Sox reference in a column ostensibly about the Patriots, and you have another of Shank's templated columns.

UPDATE at 2:25 PM - Tom Brady doesn't want to talk about his contract extension, either. Soviet Premier Belichickov got to comrade Bradovsky somehow...