I thought I had Shank's next column pegged with the previous post. I was thinking Shank would zig when instead he zagged and instead climbed aboard the
Rob Gronkowski bandwagon:
LANDOVER, Md. - Twenty-two-year-old tight end Rob Gronkowski has emerged as everybody’s favorite Patriot. Sure, that guy Brady’s OK, but Gronk is the man-child who catches everything, sheds tacklers like he’s dusting dandruff off his shoulders, and gets to the end zone more than any tight end in NFL history.
I say it’s because of his neck. You’ve never seen a guy with a neck like this. Must be tough buying shirts.
A decent column ensues, even by Shank's low standards. This paragraph stuck out for me:
We are 13 games into this Patriots season and we know so little about the local 11. They are 10-3 and every other quarterback in the conference seems to be hurt or awful, but it’s hard to have good feelings about New England’s playoff prospects. There’s no running game, the defense lacks talent and depth, and they never put together a solid 60 minutes.
Maybe I'm nitpicking just a bit, but isn't the first sentence contradicted by the third? I think anyone watching the Patriots play this season would have drawn the same conclusion two months ago.
When Shank talks about "they have no run game" he's obviously still buying the myth about establishing the run. And the defense - actually holding opponant scores down (in contrast to Green Bay and New Orleans or even Baltimore and Pittsburgh as we saw last week) doesn't count for Shank. After all he did indict the defense after the Denver game because of the first quarter.
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