An Uncertain Man, And Then Some

At the beginning of the month, Shank was leading the Patriots bandwagon to Houston. Today, he's not so sure:

Picked-up pieces while waiting for Thursday night’s Celtics game in Cleveland . . .

■ Why do I feel like I’ll still be saying I’m not sold on this Patriots defense when the Duck Boats are parading down Boylston Street Feb. 7?

Shank has always hated numbers and statistics. Today he loves them both, because it suits his agenda (this and his next paragraph):

■ Stat geeks and Patriot toadies are twisting themselves into knots to tell us that the Patriots really didn’t have an easy schedule this year, but we know what we saw. We saw them play a bunch of bum quarterbacks and almost zero elite offenses.

On Saturday, Shank didn't know much about the 2016 New England Patriots (this is a week after going to Denver and winning, 16 - 3):

Tomato Can season of 2016 marches on. Yet another game in which we learn nothing about the Patriots.

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) December 24, 2016

Four days later, however, he knows all about their defense:

When the season ends Sunday, the Patriots will have played half their games against teams in the bottom third of the league in offense. They faced none of the top six offenses. Here’s hoping they are ready if they face a competent QB/offense in the playoffs. Matt McGloin, Tom Savage, and Matt Moore no doubt have Bill Belichick lying awake at night.

Stolen from yesterday's Boston version of ESPN is this little tidbit - how few differences can you spot?

Since Belichick became Patriots coach in 2000, the AFC East has had 23 head coaches (including interims).

The rundown:

■ Since Belichick took over as head coach of the Patriots, the Bills, Dolphins, and Jets have had 23 head coaches and interim head coaches. The list includes legends such as Perry Fewell, Joe Philbin, Chan Gailey, and Dan “Tomato Can” Campbell. Over the same 16-year span, the second-best quarterback in the division is probably Chad Pennington.

At this point, you've read blatant examples of short sightedness, rank ignorance, duplicity, overuse of canned cliches (canned - get it?), stolen column themes and / or trolling behavior. While he didn't throw in an obligatory mention of Larry Bird, he came close with Kevin McHale. These are the problems with Dan Shaughnessy in general and especially with his mailed-in Picked Up Pieces columns.