Slightly Rewriting History

Shank continues his torrid pace, writing another Super Bowl column, this time focusing on Pete Carroll. You might remember Carroll as a former coach of the New England Patriots. You might also remember Shank's praise of Carroll from that era:

NEW YORK — Boola boola. Yahoo. Pumped and jacked. Pete the Poodle Carroll is in the Super Bowl.

I absolutely love this. Everybody loves this. We all love Pete and we will never forget his place in New England sports history.

Except that this lovefest wasn't always the case:

It took less than four years, but the hubris and blundering of Messrs. Kraft, Carroll, and Bobby Grier have created a team that can lose to the new Cleveland Browns by a hideous count of 19-11. …

Slightly less hideous:

As they stumble through a nightmarish middle season (four losses in five games, five in seven games) and we face the ugly, heretofore unthinkable prospect that the defending AFC champs might not even make the playoffs, coach Pete Carroll and quarterback Drew Bledsoe have emerged as favorite whipping boys for Patriot Nation.

For the past seventeen years, Shank has absolutely hated Patriot owner Bob Kraft, which I've never really understood, and Shank just wants to take a few more cheap shots:

Pete Carroll forever will be the Other Guy who coached the Patriots. He was the bridge (1997-99) from Bill Parcells to Bill Belichick. He was the one with the whistle around his neck when silly Bob Kraft (in the pre-Hugh Hefner days) was walking around with a stopwatch, talking about drafting “press corners’’ and interfering with his head coach.

It was the age of Amos Alonzo Kraft, and Carroll was the victim of the Patriot owner’s learning curve. The Patriots let Curtis Martin go to the Jets. Kraft turned player personnel over to Bobby Grier. The Krafts stuck their noses into the football operation and poor Pete was powerless to make things right.