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Wednesday, January 31, 2018

Super Bowl Trolling, Part III, Act II

Looks like 'ol Shankaroni & the Globe got some constructive, positive feedback from the most recent iteration of the column he's written four dozen times over the years:



You must be new here!
Feel the love...

Super Bowl Trolling, Part III

Shank's simplistic 'analysis' of Sunday's Super Bowl matchup conveniently ignores fifty-two members of the Philadelphia Eagles and cites one player as the reason they will not win the game.
Nick Foles is a good story — but it won’t be good enough

Second of a two-part series on why the Eagles can’t win the Super Bowl vs. the Patriots.

Part two: Nick Foles

BLOOMINGTON, Minn. — Eagles quarterback Nick Foles has Calvin Schiraldi Eyes.
Not to be confused with Bette Davis eyes! Of course Shank needs to make a Red Sox reference in a Patriots column - and what a reference it was!
Take it from somebody who was at Shea Stadium in 1986 when clueless John McNamara kept handing the ball to Schiraldi, a forlorn Texan with a hard slider and a soft core. Just as you don’t want a closer with puppy-dog eyes, you don’t want your quarterback looking all sad and wistful. It projects weakness and saps confidence.
The matchup of Nick Foles vs. Tom Brady in Super Bowl LII is half the reason that the Eagles have no chance to beat the Patriots (the other half is Doug Pederson vs. Bill Belichick, which we covered in the first installment of this series).

Foles is a great national story this week. He is a once-traded, twice-released backup quarterback who’s going to start in the Super Bowl. He’s Rocky Balboa. He’s Rudy. He’s the Hoosier high school basketball team from Hickory. Gene Hackman is going to bring a tape measure to U.S. Bank Stadium Sunday and prove to Foles that the Super Bowl goalpost crossbars are only 10 feet high.
Let the rest of us know when you feel like talking about football, OK?

Super Bowl Trolling, Part II

Not content with rewriting the same column over and over and over and over, Shank now drags donuts into the equation:

Tuesday, January 30, 2018

Super Bowl Trolling, Part 1

Shank's stepping up his game in an attempt to troll the fifth largest city in the United States.
First of a two-part series on why the Eagles can’t win the Super Bowl vs. the Patriots.

Part one: Eagles head coach Doug Pederson.


BLOOMINGTON, Minn. — Philadelphia Eagles coach Doug Pederson seems like a very nice fellow and has a serviceable NFL résumé as a player and coach.

“Doug Pederson’s done a great job with this football team,’’ Bill Belichick said Tuesday.

No doubt Belichick respects Pederson. It’s the professional thing to do. Pederson was an NFL quarterback for a long time and made his bones as an offensive coordinator for the Kansas City Chiefs. Now he has his Eagles in Super Bowl LII.

All niceties aside, deep down Belichick has to be thinking . . . there’s no way I can lose a Super Bowl to this guy!

And he’s right. Pederson is destined to join Mike Martz (Rams), John Fox (Panthers), Andy Reid (Eagles), Pete Carroll (Seahawks), and Dan Quinn (Falcons) as guys who lost to Belichick in a Super Bowl.

Some of the men listed above had a chance. Martz probably had a better team than the Patriots with his heavily favored Greatest Show on Turf back in 2002. Fox and Reid came to their Super Bowls as veteran coaches with impressive résumés. Carroll had already won a Super Bowl with Seattle and is actually a year older than Belichick.
How about Tom Coughlin, smart ass?

We've seen this too many times from Shank - any further commentary would be as repetitive as these rehashed columns.

Monday, January 29, 2018

Sweatin' To The Oldies

Or not, in this case:
We just don't fully appreciate the sacrifices Shank makes for us in order to rewrite the same columns week in & week out.

Some commenters had fun with it:



This will simply give him more time to rehash some columns - oh joy!

Sunday, January 28, 2018

And Now For More Boston Globe Employee Bashing - IV

Shank isn't the only Boston Globe sportswriter who doesn't like the New England Patriots or Tom Brady:

Did Brady take a page out of the Trump playbook?

Put words in Brady's mouth? Check:

I think the future's already here:

Friday, January 26, 2018

Will Shank Be Invited To This Party?

We'll find out in a few weeks - if Shank starts to be petty and vindictive towards anyone referenced in these tweets, we'll have our answer!


Wednesday, January 24, 2018

Wide Right

What better way to write about the upcoming Super Bowl than to devote an entire column to Terry Francona?
Terry Francona knows Philadelphia sports fans. He managed the Phillies for four seasons and remembers when local enthusiasts slashed his car tires on Fan Appreciation Day at Veterans Stadium. He remembers a tender moment a few years later, after he was fired, when he hanging out before an Eagles game, helping a photographer pal who was taking photos of the Eagles and 49ers.
Bonus - Larry Bird sighting!

Monday, January 22, 2018

And Now For Some Shank Self-Congratulation

A modest fellow, isn't he?


And as usual, the replies are spot on:




And the winner:

Sunday, January 21, 2018

From The Columnist Who Stopped Tweeting At 20-10 Jaguars

Not a really tough call, was it?
FOXBOROUGH — If you’ve been paying attention all these years, you knew there was never any doubt.

These are the Patriots, and there’s always a great comeback on deck. It doesn’t matter if the Patriots trail, 28-3, in the Super Bowl, or look beaten when the other team is ready to score a certain game-winning touchdown from 1 yard out. It certainly doesn’t matter if the Patriots are trailing the surprising Jacksonville Jaguars, 20-10, with less than nine minutes to play in an AFC Championship game.
If you feel the need to let this asshole insult your intelligence any further, by all means go ahead and abuse yourself.

Just One Question

How will Shank 'spin' this game, seeing that he (and Felger, and Tanguay, etc.) was calling this good Jaguars teams a 'tomato can' team all damn week? I will note that Shank did not send out any tweets while Jacksonville enjoyed its 20 - 10 lead in the second half. It was only when the Patriots started their comeback that he tweeted this out:
Typical fake bandwagon douchebag, if you ask me.

What A Difference A Half Hour Makes

No one turns on a dime quicker than Shank:

Funny - wasn't Shank and the rest of the Boston sports media dismissing them as tomato cans all of last week?
"If you don't like these opinions, I have others!"

More AFC Championship Trolling, By Dan Shaughnessy

Keep it up, Shank:

Game Day Trolling, By Dan Shaughnessy

Shank continues to pretend he's genuinely on the Patriots bandwagon, and gives Scott Zolak yet another reason to hate him.

Commenters then remind Shank of a few things:




And the winner:

Saturday, January 20, 2018

DHL Dan LXV - Playoff Recycling Edition

Haven't we read this column before?
With Tom Brady . . . without Tom Brady . . . it doesn’t really matter. The Patriots are going to beat the Jacksonville Jaguars in the AFC Championship game Sunday at Gillette Stadium, and this will bother a good portion of America’s sports fans.

In the eyes of NFL America, we are the Evil Empire.

And we don’t particularly care.
Shank's 'firmly' on the bandwagon again.
Brady is listed as questionable for Sunday, which is a whopper even by the Patriots’ lofty standards of disingenuousness. It is a tribute to Belichick, Brady, and the organization that there have been no significant leaks regarding the circumstance of Brady’s midweek injury and his status for the AFC Championship game. The 2017-18 Patriots would have been the greatest POWs in the history of modern warfare. They give up nothing. Ever.
A tribute that Shank used to trash on a routine basis, until now / when it's convenient for him to do so.

You've already read this column a few times in the previous weeks - do so again at your peril.

Wednesday, January 17, 2018

Strange Tweets, By Dan Shaughnessy

Is he losing it? Too many Bloody Mary's this morning? Slip and fall on his head during one of his grueling one-mile runs? Soliciting someone to drop a dime on a local athlete? What can possibly explain this enigmatic tweet?

Monday, January 15, 2018

Obsessed Much?

Former Boston Red Sox 1st baseman Adrian Gonzalez left the team on August 25, 2012. Five months and four years later, Shank's still lobbing shit in his general direction:

Remember when Shank mentioned Adrian Gonzalez in the same sentence as Ted Williams? Good times!

Is This Trolling?

Here at Dan Shaughnessy Watch, over the past couple of weeks we've gone over the many, many instances of Shank attempting to troll an entire city of the opponent that the New England Patriots were about to play. Shank's latest column, however, reads otherwise (at least to this observer):
Jaguars next in line as a hopeless, helpless Patriot foil

The Steelers couldn’t take down Blake Bortles, but the Patriots will.

Prepare for six days of hollow attempts to pump the tires of the Jacksonville Jaguars. Serious football folks will pretend that the Patriots have not already advanced to Super Bowl LII in Minneapolis Feb. 4. You will be reminded that there is still a game to be played.

Sorry. Not buying. I will not read any of the inside football analysis regarding the Jaguars’ vaunted defense (did you know they were second in the NFL in sacks?), Jacksonville’s Man Behind The Curtain (Tom Coughlin beat the Patriots in two Super Bowls when he coached the Giants), or the ground-and-pound style of rookie running back Leonard Fournette.

Save it for “Quick Slants,” “The Real Pregame Show,” “Football Night in America,” or any other clown show that attempts to take this game seriously.
Remember Shank mentioning the 'Patriots Cartel' last week? Add Tom Curran to that list (and I remember that Shank once called that show a clown show (link to the original story , for which he later apologized).

Overuse of the 'tomato can' cliché aside, Shank does in fact go on to make compelling arguments:
In November, I wrote that the Patriots’ mission statement is borrowed from Sun Tzu, the ancient Chinese general and architect of “The Art of War.’’ The general taught Belichick, “If you wait by the river long enough, the bodies of your enemies will float by.’’

And so they have. Every elite or semi-competent quarterback standing in the Patriots’ path has been erased over the last few weeks. One by one, the bodies of Carson Wentz, Aaron Rodgers, Matthew Stafford, Eli Manning, Joe Flacco, Russell Wilson, Alex Smith, Matt Ryan, Ben Roethlisberger, and Drew Brees have floated down the Cocasset River past the shadow of Gillette Stadium.
...
In four years in the NFL, Bortles has thrown 64 interceptions and has a completion percentage below 60 percent. He submitted a 1950s stat line (12 for 23, 87 yards) in Jacksonville’s 10-3, rock-fight victory over the Bills on wild-card weekend. Those are the same Bills the Patriots outscored, 60-19, in two easy wins.

Oh, and Jacksonville’s “great” defense? Roethlisberger torched the Jaguars for 469 yards and five touchdowns Sunday. What do you think Brady will do to them in Foxborough?
Aside from Tom Coughlin beating Belichick in two Super Bowls, I'd almost be semi-convinced. How's that for a firm blogger's opinion?

One last note - Shank's changed his Twitter avatar to... a tomato can. How original.

Picture Of The Year Candidate

Shawn Thornton, er, I mean Jerry Thornton has the early lead, with some emphasis on a major Shank talking point for the past three or four years (circled below):

Some of the comments on this picture:




And the winner:
I mentioned that 'face for radio' line to one of my clients - she couldn't stop laughing. Good stuff!

Sunday, January 14, 2018

Troll, Troll Troll Your Boat

It seems Shank's been laying it on thick over the past twenty-four hours. First it's with last night's game, starting where it always does - the freakin' coin flip:

Carnac then peers into the future:

And as the Jacksonville Jaguars finish off the Pittsburgh Steelers a few minutes ago:

Last but not least, Shank shows of his mad emoji skillz:
It's gonna be a long week, isn't it?

Saturday, January 13, 2018

Broken Record / Recycling Alert

Shank's back to two of his favorite pastimes - rewriting old columns and stirring the pot mere hours before the Patriots play a divisional round playoff game.
FOXBOROUGH — With turmoil swirling around Route 1 and the heavily favored Patriots preparing to play Tennessee in the NFL divisional round on Saturday night, I thought it would be a good time to hop in the Wayback Machine and revisit a celebrated dustup between Bob Kraft and his future Hall of Fame coach when the Patriots were preparing for their second Super Bowl in early 1997.

That’s right, boys and girls. Welcome to Pigskin Deja Vu in Fort Foxborough. We have been here before.

The banishment of Tom Brady’s training guru and Bill Belichick’s unexplainable dumping of Jimmy Garoppolo don’t represent the first instance of trouble at the top during a Patriots Super Bowl run. And just like today, everybody lied about it then while it was unfolding.

Anyone remember the final days of Bill Parcells’s Patriots tenure in 1997?
And if you don't, Shank's here to eagerly remind you!

Seriously - what is the purpose of this, other than this being yet another battle in Shank's 20 year war against the Patriots? That's right - it's also an attempt to antagonize Patriots fans before a playoff game. It's the dreaded Shank twofer!

Responses on his Twitter feed are about what you'd expect:




Friday, January 12, 2018

And Now For Some Ron Borges Bashing

(Another of the occasional departures from Shank and Boston Globe bashing)

Readers of the Dan Shaughnessy Watch are fairly versed in Shank's flat-out hatred of the New England Patriots shortly after Robert Kraft purchased the team over two decades ago. We sometimes forget about another redoubtable Patriots troll. Of course I'm speaking about former Boston Globe plagiarist, the current Boston Herald columnist Ron Borges.
FOXBORO — The recent trailer for the upcoming Facebook documentary on Tom Brady’s fight with Father Time seemed a bit, shall we say, eerie. In fact, if the words coming out of his mouth had been uttered by Aaron Rodgers or Drew Brees, New England football fans would be chortling that both had lost their minds.

But in this part of the football world Tom Brady can do no wrong, at least not until he does. Then the whispers begin that the “Tom vs. Time” battle that is the subject of this six-part documentary on Facebook is being lost. This usually comes on the few weekends when the Patriots also lose. When they win, 40 is the new 30 and TB12 is as invincible as the Terminator. Still, to hear him sounding like a Cherokee or a Chickasaw coming out of a sweat lodge was a little unsettling.
First - anyone who reads Borges side-by-side with a Shank column will realize Borges' knowledge of football is vastly superior to Shank's, and even that might be an understatement. That said, both share the common trolling technique of praising the Patriots to some degree while ripping them and certain members of the team (read - Tom Brady) when it suits them. I'm fine with Borges mentioning Tom's past five games being less than his stellar self but the tone of his column, taken as a whole, seems to be somewhere between piling on and a rip job.

Newer readers may not be familiar with the dynamic with Borges and the Patriots - It's all but certain that while Borges was writing at the Globe in the 20th century, his primary source for juicy Patriots locker room gossip and other inside information was Drew Bledsoe. Borges hatred of the Patriots started at some point between Brady taking over for Bledsoe after the infamous Mo Lewis hit on Bledsoe and his subsequent trade to the Buffalo Bills. You could say Borges and Shaughnessy share quite a bit in common.

A Borges digression - the Globe shitcanned his ass a little over a decade ago. Once he landed on his feet at the Herald a short time later, a little Globe birdy told me that Borges was seething for revenge against the Globe for axing him, vowing 'I'm gonna fucking bury them'. To the best of my knowledge, Borges never filed a lawsuit against the Globe. So much for that bravado.

Stepping Up The Trolling Game

A little over a day before the Patriots play the Tennessee Titans in the divisional round of the 2017-2018 playoffs, the Titans' team plane is having some problems:

I guess the Shank Store's out of tomato cans?

Readers are having some fun with this:



And the winner:

DHL Dan LXIV - A Shithole Column

Shank underwhelms us again with a picked up pieces column. Readers of this site are quite familiar with Shank's habit of playing up the Patriots as avatars of perfection(while not being sincere about it in the slightest) and he does so once again in this column:
■ The Patriots should have General Zod on their helmets instead of Flying Elvis. Zod is the comic book general of the Kryptonian Army who says, “I win. I always win. Is there no one on this planet to even challenge me?’’
...
■ Are 2-point conversions supposed to be as easy as the Patriots make them look? Take a scan back at the two the Patriots ran at the Falcons at the end of Super Bowl LI, then look at the quickie they pulled off against the on-their-heels Steelers last month. Zero resistance each time.
Real subtle, isn't it?

Wednesday, January 10, 2018

Whare's Waldo Shaughnessy?

I'm wondering why Shank skipped his weekly 98.5 The Sports Hub appearance, which he would have done by now. Is it because we're going to get the rare Thursday appearance? Have Zolak and Bertrand finally got sick of his act? Does management finally realize that his weekly regurgitation of his columns provide no value whatsoever in the realm of radio, or that Shank has a face for radio?

We gots to know!

Tuesday, January 09, 2018

Wash, Rinse, Repeat, Repeat, Repeat!

The sun will rise, the sun will reset, and Shank will beat on a dead horse one more time as he re-writes yet another column.
Forget the Titans. They have no chance vs. the Patriots

And so the Patriots get back-to-back bye weeks. Think of Saturday’s Titans game as a playoff layoff.

Again.
By way of comparison, here's Shank on December 13, 2015:
Five weeks later, the Texans came back for a playoff game and it was the same drill. I wrote that this matchup represented the first time in league history that a team had back-to-back bye weeks to start the playoffs.
Here's Shank, early 2013:
The 2011-2013 New England Patriots just became the first team in NFL history to get back-to-back byes before advancing to the AFC Championship game.
Back to the current story:
It’s hard to know where to start with the compulsory trashing of the not-ready-for-prime-time Tennessee Titans.

Let’s acknowledge up front that the Titans are professional football players who have achieved much by advancing to the divisional round of the NFL playoffs. Nashville is one great town and the Titans are an estimable organization. They almost won a Super Bowl in 2000, and they threw a big scare into New England’s Super Bowl champs on a cold night in Foxborough back in January of 2004.

All that said, let’s cut to the chase and call this what it is. The Titans are a joke and have no business making the trek to Foxborough for a divisional playoff game Saturday night. These Titans are accidental tourists in the 2017-18 NFL tournament. They are 13½-point underdogs. They have absolutely zero chance to beat the Patriots Saturday night.

I wrote this last year. I write this every year. Because nothing ever changes.
Why yes, you do write this every year!

Just a closing note to the fans, media and bloggers who are fans of and write about the Tennessee Titans:

DO NOT FALL FOR THIS CRAP FROM DAN SHAUGHNESSY.

This is his game, designed to piss off as many people as possible. That includes myself as well as yourself. Dan Shaughnessy Watch noted it last week and we did this two years ago. We seem to do this warning as often as Shank tries (and succeeds) to antagonize two entire fan bases, as these two links demonstrate. If you're still pissed off at Shank, send him an e-mail and give him some positive, constructive feedback!

UPDATE AT 5:15 PM - There were nineteen comments to that article when I was doing this post; now the Globe has removed all of them and you can't post comments now. I didn't think any of the comments were overly hostile; most of them were of the 'you wrote this column last year' variety. What gives?

UPDATE AT 7:45 PM - There they are - 83 comments. Now they're just messin' with me!

UPDATE AT 7:55 PM - Likely stealth edit by the Globe - Shank had the original date of the Titans / Pats playoff date as January 2003; a commenter pointed out the correct date as January 2004 at 12:45 this afternoon. I didn't read the column until the time noted below, so I wouldn't put it past them to change the date and not inform their readers.

Monday, January 08, 2018

The Belichick Anomaly

Is Shank calling New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick a liar? It sure looks that way:
Of course, this leaves out two or three possibilities. If someone briefed him on the story or if someone 'in Belichick's camp' fed information to Wickersham, he wouldn't need to read the column, would he? I believe this angle is the most likely one - maybe Belichick just doesn't give a rat's ass about anything that the media writes about him, good or bad. I can't recall Belichick ever preemptively reacting to a news story, so this would be consistent with past behavior.

I can't wait for Shank to regurgitate all of this on 98.5 The Sports Hub tomorrow morning...

UPDATE AT 2:25 PM - You know what just occurred to me today? I was just watching Felger & Mazz, which sealed it for me. Since this story came out on Friday, how many of you were caught up in it to some degree? I mean, ignore for now whether Wickersham's story is 100% right, 100% bullshit or somewhere in between. You know how some people describe pro wrestling as 'a soap opera for rednecks'? Don't these occasional Patriots stories feel that way to you as it does to me, that this is all a huge soap opera?

Sunday, January 07, 2018

Both Sides Of His Mouth - II

Shank wakes up, drinks his bitter coffee and continues his disingenuous attempts at trying to have it both ways:

You know how I know Shank's lying about this? Who did Shank think was going to win yesterday's game between the Titans and the Chiefs?

But wait - this gets even better!
To conclude - over the past three days, Shank writes a column saying the Patriots aren't a good team, piles on the 'Patriots are in disarray' story by ESPN, sends out numerous tweets severely discounting any chance the Bills, Titans or the Jaguars have of beating the Patriots (even if they suck lemons) and demonstrates one more time that he shamelessly recycles his old column themes, all designed to piss off as many football fans as possible.

The Boston Globe's sports section was once considered to be among the finest in the United States, if not the finest of them all. It is now reduced to their sole columnist more or less behaving like a spoiled, immature brat. How the mighty have fallen...

Both Sides Of His Mouth

Who cares about consistency if it gets him page clicks and TV appearances? A couple of hours after Shank's latest Patriots bashing column went live, he does the fastest 180 degree turn I have ever seen from him:



The responses to that last tweet are awesome- just click on it and check them out for yourselves.

Stirring The Pot, Fanning The Flames - II

You just knew Shank would not be content just to tweet about Friday's ESPN column by Seth Wickersham, right?
We may never know who ordered the Code Red (a.k.a. the trading of Jimmy Garoppolo), but fallout from two days of blockbuster stories is sure to shake the holy trinity of Patriot Nation.

On Friday, ESPN released an exhaustive report of trouble in Patriot Land, reporting that Bob Kraft mandated the Garoppolo trade and detailing hard feelings between Bill Belichick, Kraft, and Tom Brady, much of it owed to the Jimmy G. trade and treatment of Brady’s personal training guru, Alex Guerrero. The story largely made Belichick look good, made Brady look bad, and made Kraft look like a meddling owner.
This part of the story, of course, completely ignores the joint statement by Brady, Belichick & Kraft that Wickersham's story is Grade A bullshit. Also of note - Wickersham's story does not identify a single source by name. Does this tactic sound familiar to you?

I hope you're sitting down - behold as Shank tries to take at least partial credit for all of this:
This is what happens when ESPN shines a light on the egos and strained relationships inside the walls of Fort Foxborough.

If you’ve been paying attention, it’s no surprise really. We’ve been telling you all along that Kraft ordered the trading of Jimmy G. against the wishes of Belichick. We’ve exposed the fraudulence of Guerrero. Thumbing through Brady’s fitness book, or listening to the quarterback talk about Guerrero, suggests that Tom has been kidnapped by aliens. It’s more cult than sports culture. Belichick restricting Guerrero’s access and availability to other Patriot players at team facilities this season has agitated Brady and divided the organization. Tossing a little more tension on the pile, we have the beloved/needy owner who thinks of Brady as a fifth son.
Although I think Guerrero is a shady character, I have one simple question / retort for Shank and other Guerrero critics - how, then, can you explain Brady's MVP-worthy performance at 40 years old?

Eventually, Shank's hard-on wore off and he returns to earth:
It might be as simple as this: Belichick had a quarterback succession plan, but Brady’s level of performance outlived Bill’s plan.

Still, the vaunted Patriot Way for 18 years has been to get rid of a guy too early rather than too late. For some reason, that time-tested logic went out the window when it came to Brady. Now Kraft is asking us to believe it was all Bill. So, here we are.
Yes, it could be as simple as that, but Shanks wants to make Mt. Everest out of a molehill, again.

Friday, January 05, 2018

Stirring The Pot, Fanning The Flames

Shank's at it again, this time piggybacking a story by ESPN's Seth Wickersham about potential trouble in Patriots paradise:
THE PROBLEM WITH living your life under the spotlight is that the camera captures only the public eruption, not the months of silent anger. On Dec. 3, when the New England Patriots played the Buffalo Bills, Tom Brady walked to the sideline after throwing late and behind receiver Brandin Cooks on third down, ending a first-quarter drive. Brady was angrier and more irritable than usual, as has often been the case this season in the eyes of some Patriots players and staff. As he unsnapped his chinstrap, Brady passed offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels on the sideline.
It's worth the read if you have the time - looks like a 15 minute column at a minimum. I'm inclined to believe a majority of a column of that length where it is obvious the column spans a good part of the past football season and Seth is a fairly connected journalist, so unlike Ron Borges relying on Drew Bledsoe as his sole source, Seth can compare and corroborate statements from multiple sources for better story accuracy.

But that's not the primary focus for us, dear reader - let's get Shank's take on the matter:
I know Shank's just trying to stir the pot some more, but is he also saying that the local Boston sports media just got punked again by a national reporter who put all the pieces together into a single, splashy comprehensive story and they did not? This happened with Yahoo Sports breaking the Red Sox 'chicken and beer' story five-odd years ago.

Thursday, January 04, 2018

And So It Begins

Longtime readers will be familiar with the following themes raised in this post, but I'd like to put it out there for some of the folks who are not familiar with Shank when it comes to his treatment of the New England Patriots during the NFL playoffs. The Patriots will be hosting a divisional round game next week with three possible opponents; the Buffalo Bills, the Jacksonville Jaguars Tennessee Titans (corrected, sorry! - ed.) or the Kansas City Chiefs. We've been waiting for this column since Sunday, and we say this as a guide / warning to the fans and sports media of those three franchises:

DO NOT FALL FOR THIS CRAP FROM DAN SHAUGHNESSY!

Contrary to his opening sentence, he does the same tired shtick just about every god damn year as he's done with his latest column. It's as predictable as the snow that lands in my driveway every winter. He's done this to the fans of the St. Louis Rams, the Houston Texans (twice!) (sorry - make that thrice!), the Indianapolis Colts, and this style of column even extends to other sports, like the Boston Celtics against the Cleveland Cavaliers and others which I won't bother with because it's overkill and I'm tired from getting rid of snow for two hours. Regardless, the above links demonstrate a clear and consistent pattern - write columns that are designed to piss of as many people as possible, and the best way to do that is to antagonize both / all fan bases and the media that covers the teams. Let me borrow from the words of Bruce Allen at Boston Sports Media Watch (written four years ago):
...
This resistance to change is apparent in his work, where he provides a mad-libs series of column templates, which are used over and over again. Within these recycled columns, he even recycles elements and references, (tomato cans, Animal House, Warren Zevon, Amos Alonzo Kraft, etc etc etc) most of which are terribly dated, but as mentioned, Shaughnessy’s not big on change.

Where’s the genius part, you ask?

Somehow, Shaughnessy has managed to continually pull off the exact same Jedi mind-trick over and over and over. He gets not only Boston, but opposing cities, and national networks to fall for his schtick and give him the attention (and yes, money!) that he is looking for.

Let’s run through the last 48 hours, so that you can see what I’m talking about here.

On Tuesday, Dan’s horrendous column on Patriots/Colts is published. It’s written in such a way that it will make both sides angry. In a nutshell, the theme is The Patriots suck, but the Colts still can’t beat them.

Patriots fans who read the column – and that number dwindles by the day – were furious. Just another hackjob on the Patriots, and this time he included among the usual drivel, the jab that Gerry Callahan suggested he should use – the one about the life guard chairs.

Even though the column is decidedly anti-Patriots, the title is Colts won’t be a challenge for the Patriots.
And what are we reading today from Shank?
Many of you are tired of me hammering the same old themes (not me! - ed.), so today I’ll leave it to former Patriots general manager Upton Bell to characterize the field of candidates in the NFL’s 2017-18 postseason tournament, which kicks off with four wild-card games this weekend.

“It’s the worst group of playoff teams I’ve seen in 40 years, maybe ever,’’ said Bell. “It’s truly the March of the Tomato Cans.’’

Couldn’t have said it better myself. And I’ve tried, believe me.
That, dear reader, is an understatement!

If you've read those links to his most recent 'work', Bruce Allen's concise analysis of Shank's columns before that time frame, and his most recent column, the pattern should be obvious and jump right out at you.

The words may or may not change, but the story is always the same, every single time. And the bonus? If the Patriots lose, he gets to take a major shit on them, because he's hated Patriots owner Robert Kraft for the past two decades:
What's interesting here is the italicized part above. When the New England Patriots played in their second Super Bowl in 1997, the Patriots threw a party and Shank was not invited. We believe this to be the point where Shank became a lifelong bête noire of the Patriots. If he disliked the Patriots at that point (or, more specifically, owner Robert Kraft), this snub was the proverbial nail in the coffin.

So, what you're seeing is another chapter in a long, long review of the Book of Shaughnessy. Read at your peril!

Wednesday, January 03, 2018

And Now For More Boston Globe Bashing - LXIX

So, the Boston Globe's had a lot of problems over the past year. They've been kicked out of their long-time home, can't seem to get the paper printing thing right, shitcanning some of their top 'talent', doing a hit piece on Tom Brady's charity, and the cherry on top of it all? They found a way to fuck up the biggest Boston sports story of 2017, just to name the big ones.

So how does the new year start off for Boston's Boring Broadsheet? How about possibly having to jack up the price of the newspaper because of a trade dispute with Canada?
There’s a new front in the Canada-U.S. trade war over trees: newsprint.

A Washington state paper maker is asking the U.S. government to impose duties on Canadian imports of uncoated groundwood paper, used in everything from newsprint to book publishing. North Pacific Paper Co., or Norpac, alleges Canadian imports are subsidized and are increasingly taking market share from domestic producers, according to documents filed Aug. 9 with the International Trade Administration.

The Washington, D.C.-based trade administration will announce its decision on whether to initiate an anti-dumping and countervailing investigation into Canadian imports on Wednesday, the agency said in an email Tuesday. The ITA enforces U.S. trade laws and ensures compliance of trade agreements.
$10 says the Globe will soon do a story on this issue, and they'll find a way to blame it on Trump.

Tuesday, January 02, 2018

Mounting The Shetland Pony Again

Not a surprise - Shank doesn't like certain types of sports fans:
Naturally, many, many people had a problem with this:




Here's my question - does Shank write one of those columns next week that troll an entire city? Stay tuned!~

Old Dogs, Old Tricks - Part Infinitum

You know how this works - set up stratospheric expectations for the Patriots so Shank can take the mother of all dumps on them should they lose.

And Now For More Boston Globe Bashing - LXVIII

Posted without the slightest bit of irony:
Something the Boston Globe refuses to report on and only does so when they received withering criticism when it comes to their own employees and 'subcontractors'?

Monday, January 01, 2018

The Sun Will Rise, The Sun Will Set - II

...and Shank will make another painfully predictable tweet (or three or four) during a Patriots game.

Commenter Jason Herra, at 2:28 yesterday afternoon (halftime) - "And you can add shortly that he will cry about when is it the right time to take out brady and gronk after the lead is big cuz dan is a football expert all of a sudden"

Shank, one hour later: