When Sports And Politics Collide

Who responds to their own tweet, other than to bask in what he thinks is a clever observation?

I rest my case https://t.co/tkMxzeDTg9

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) February 26, 2020

It's more like the Lions, Browns and Bengals, but that's just me.

Question for Shank - will your wife be donating to another Democrat from your joint checking account this election cycle?

Shank's Back On The Warpath - II

Today we have another column in a continuing series of Shank rewriting column themes in order to criticize the New England Patriots in every conceivable fashion possible.

All of it is very real.

And none of it means anything.

Things really are frosty at the top of the Patriot pyramid. We are not making this up. We have the sound bites from Tom vs. Time, and Tom with Oprah, and Tom with Jim Gray, and Tom abruptly ending interviews when he gets asked about Alex Guerrero.

Bill Belichick is still angry about having to trade Jimmy Garoppolo (he did not deny that he texted Jimmy G after every 49ers win last year). Bill isn’t happy that he is forced to tolerate Guerrero in the locker room and on the team plane. Bill is never going to tell us why he ordered the Code Red, and he will mock any reporter who pins their hopes to a phone bill or objections from disgruntled ex-Patriots.

But that's not my main point of contention with this column. Rather, it's the continued assertion of Shank's (and local radio people) that the AFC East is a horrible, terrible, awful division chock full of patsies and 'tomato cans':

In dramatic lore, they were known as Famine, Pestilence, and Destruction. These are only aliases. Their real names are the New York Jets, the Buffalo Bills, and the Miami Dolphins — New England’s ever-wretched competition in the AFC East.

What has been true in 15 of 17 seasons since 2001 (since Brady became Belichick’s starting quarterback) is true today. The New England Patriots, with all their flaws, simply cannot lose their loser division. For the millionth consecutive season, the Jets, Bills, and Dolphins are reinventing themselves with kid quarterbacks and doofus coaches.

Funny you mention doofuses, Shank! This column theme is used every single year and, like this column, Shank does not offer up any statistics to back up this assertion. This 'tomato can' division theme of his is completely unsupported by any meaningful examination of team and division records over any peroid of time, and Shank (to the best of my recollection) has never done this in the past ten years. This blog keeps pointing out the outright lie this is each and every single fucking time this lazy son of a bitch brings it up, yet it never stops. Nor will our rebuttals.