Venting His Spleen

Shank ought to consider changing his picked up pieces columns to the above suggested title. Reverting back to his trademark sniping, nitpicking, self-righteousness and petty vindictiveness, with the occasional positive / nice thing to say about something designed as countermeasures or to drive you crazy, behold his utter disdain for the New England Patriots, whom he promised not to judge a mere fortnight ago:

Picked-up pieces while reading the small print of the NFL’s exempt/commissioner’s permission list, a.k.a. “Double Secret Probation.’’

■ Anybody seen Roger Goodell? Anybody?

■ Those are not booster seats or phone books, folks. Along with the shoulder pads, helmets, and cleats, Bob and Jonathan Kraft’s high chairs are officially part of the Patriots’ traveling entourage.
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■ Kudos to Eli Manning for standing up and saying something about the scandal-ridden NFL: “We can’t accept that as players, we can’t accept that from our teammates and around the league. Hopefully . . . the NFL can learn from this, and we can go on and start getting back to football . . . We don’t like when the NFL gets a black eye on anything.’’ That’s a lot better than the Jordanesque/Tigeresque “there’s nothing I can do to make a difference” we got from Tom Brady when he was asked about it on WEEI.

As though starting quarterbacks should be the primary spokesman for the team's players and not share Shank's concern on these issues... that started approximately one week ago.

My outrage meter goes to 11!

■ It was cowardly of the NCAA to announce that Penn State’s bowl ban has been lifted in the middle of Ray Rice Week. It was classic “let’s do this while no one is looking,’’ but rest assured, we will have time to slam the shameless NCAA at a later date.

How long should current Penn State players pay for the sins of their forbearers? Any suggestions?

■ Speaking of shameless, Kentucky coach John Calipari has basically come out and admitted that his “college” team is nothing more than a soft landing spot for AAU warriors and their bag men en route to the National Basketball Association. According to Yahoo, Cal will host an invitation-only two-day scouting combine at Kentucky Oct. 11-12. It doubles as a one-time look for NBA scouts and a nifty recruiting tool for Cal.

This wasn't obvious a year or two after he took the job? He's shocked, I tells ya!

Passive / aggressive Shank, anyone?

■ Bill Belichick’s genius is reinforced when we watch Matt Cassel against the Patriots. The Patriots went 11-5 with Cassel as their quarterback in 2008.
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■ How did Avery Bradley get that contract?

Because Danny Ainge is a better assessor of NBA talent than certain Globe sports columnists?