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.