Shank Hijacks The Patriots Bandwagon

Shank's been all over the damn place in the past week concerning the Patriots, and it seems he's settling in on grabbing the steering wheel.

Am I the only one?

Is there anybody else out in Patriot Nation who’d like to see the Patriots in a competitive, thrilling playoff game? You know . . . a game where the outcome is in doubt before Hoodie defers on the coin toss?

Guess not. The Patriots are going to get to the AFC Championship game without a serious test of their considerable abilities,

That statement whiffs of bullshit. While Shank steered clear of weighing in on Game 1 at Arizona, I recall many local wags predicting a Patriots loss for that game. He didn't say anything about Buffalo shutting the Pats out, 13-0 in Week 4, did not write about the visit to Pittsburgh for Week 6 (he was covering the baseball playoffs at the time), steered clear of weighing in for the Week 10 game against Seattle, wrote about but again steered clear of weighing in for Week 14 against the Ravens and wrote all about Tom Brady's miserable record against Denver for the Week 15 road game.

By now the pattern should be clear to everyone - when Shank writes about the Patriots, he will avoid expressing an opinion about the quality of their opponent if they're a top team at the time of the game. Otherwise, the Patriots opponents are 'tomato cans', 'frauds' and so on.

...and everybody around here seems to be absolutely thrilled at the prospect of two straight bye weeks before the Patriots maybe get pushed slightly by the Steelers or Chiefs in the AFC title game in Foxborough.

Which is how Shank likes to insult other teams 'second bye week' as though the Patriots don't need to take the game seriously in order to win. Pure idiocy.

Seriously. The Oakland Raiders, Houston Texans, and Miami Dolphins — one of which will come to Gillette Stadium a week from Saturday for a divisional round game — have to represent the sorriest playoff troika in the history of professional football. The highlight reel of the 2016 Raiders/Texans/Dolphins seasons is scheduled to open at the Tomato Cannes Film Festival in France next year. When one of them arrives here, the point spread might be record-breaking.

You can see where this column's going, so if it's your bag, go forth and read it. I'm skipping forward to the fun part:

Critics of this space often complain that “you keep writing the same thing.’’ It’s true.

And all this time, I thought Shank lacked self-awareness!

For any of the new readers out there, here's the most succinct summary of Shank's trolling approach, when Kansas City was coming to Foxborough for the first playoff game last year:

@Dan_Shaughnessy @GreshandZo yup, rip the oppenent so you can downplay the Pats success or destroy them if they lose. Trolling 101

— Josh Hubbard (@Bet_on_Hubb) January 13, 2015