Dan Shaughnessy, Still An Asshole

The Boston Bruins have won five of their last seven games before tonight's All-Star game, the Boston Celtics have won five of their last six games, the Beanpot starts tomorrow (Go, Northeastern!), and spring training for the Boston Red sox starts in less then three weeks.

Naturally, the Boston Globe's sole sports columnist decides to devote a fourth consecutive column to taking yet another shot at the New England Patriots, using the old shopworn techniques of fiction, speculation and conjecture to drive the point home:

Patriots would have been Super Bowl’s biggest story

This is the story you should be reading today . . .

SAN FRANCISCO — Football America is agog waiting for Super Bowl 50, where the New England Patriots will play the 17-1 Carolina Panthers next Sunday night at Levi’s Stadium. The Pats hope to become the fourth team in NFL history to win at least five Lombardi trophies.

Still basking in the glow of their pulsating overtime victory over the Denver Broncos in the AFC Championship game, the Patriots arrived here late Sunday night and each member of New England’s holy trinity of leaders delivered a few remarks upon arrival in the City By The Bay.

We here at Dan Shaughnessy Watch cannot stress this point enough - this column, and nearly every one he writes about the Patriots, does not contain an ounce of honesty or sincerity in any of them. This is glaringly evident in the following paragraph:

“It’s great to be back here in the big game,’’ said Patriots owner Robert Kraft. “On behalf of my family and myself, I want to remind you that we are all Patriots. I would also like to remind you again that we did nothing wrong in that Deflategate matter. Even though I rolled over at the league meetings and accepted the largest fine in league history, and the loss of two draft picks, including a first-rounder, I would expect that the league would apologize to our team and to Coach [Bill] Belichick and Tom Brady for what they have had to endure. A year later, I am still disappointed in how this has been handled.’’

...and this one:

After their cross-country flight (Steve Burton, Richard Berman, Jim McNally, and Alex Guerrero all made the trip with the team, as did the Krafts’ custom-built lifeguard chairs), the Patriots retreated to their Super Bowl hotel headquarters inside the old prison walls on the island of Alcatraz.

Pass on the rest of the column; it's dripping with the same levels of raw hate and sarcasm as the above sampled paragraphs.

I wonder what Shank will be talking about on Zo and Bertrand come Tuesday morning? Is he really this predictable? If I was a member of the 98.5 management team calling the shots and knowing this would be his material, I'd tell him to take the week off.