Promise Made

Who believes this crap?

Yikes.Ravens win toss/defer
No deception there/Harbaugh paying attention
We're in for a real game. Promise not to tease Pats if they win

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) December 13, 2016

No Tomato Cans This Week?

Shank's apparently finished his Christmas shopping and is back to write a column about tonight's Ravens - Patriots game, heavy on past history and light on everything else:

Bill Belichick cares about football history more than any coach in the NFL. He’s speaks minimally on the current state of his playoff-bound Patriots, but get him started on Amos Alonzo Stagg, Paul Brown, or the 1941 Detroit Lions (for whom his dad Steve was a fullback) and stand back for a discourse that will have the depth of a Ken Burns documentary delivered with the eloquence of Winston Churchill.

All of which makes New England’s “Monday Night Football” match with the Baltimore Ravens much more interesting than your run-of-the mill routs that have dotted the Patriots’ 2016 schedule with alarming and boring regularity.

Sorry, folks - no Clive Rush reference!

By the way, how many 'blowouts' do you see in the 2016 Patriots schedule? I see four or five, not as many as Shank's trying to make you believe.

There's a shift in the middle of the column, as Shank needs to downplay the previous 13 games the patriots have played this season:

History suggests that the Patriots have reached the end of the Tomato Can Road (really, could they have faced more impotent offenses, horrible quarterbacks, frightened coaches, and teams whose best player was injured?). This entire Patriots season has been nothing more than a layup drill with an 8-foot rim. Week after week we have learned nothing about the Patriots.

Remind us again, Shank and the Boston Globe - how many beat writers do you have assigned to the Patriots, and they've managed to learn nothing about this team in over three and a half months? How can Shank write such drivel with a straight face? Is this what's now being called 'fake news'?

He then goes on to recount the history between the two teams that he probably copied and pasted from previous Ravens - Patriots columns, then concludes on this line of bullshit:

It’s all about the history when it comes to the Patriots and Ravens. The games are generally good, but some of the history is bad. Which is why we can’t wait for Monday night.

'The games are generally good', except for Shank's prediction about the previous game between the two clubs:

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

— Josh Hubbard (@Bet_on_Hubb) January 13, 2015

...and that's how Shank plays the game, folks.

Banal And Insipid / DHL Dan XXXVIII

After one of the most intriguing playoff wins ever by the New England Patriots, what does 'Patriot Hater' Dan Shaughnessy deliver as a follow-up column? The usual bullshit - a standard game recap, a few quotes from Brady & Belichick and some historical statistics. In other words, the template behind approximately twenty percent of all of his columns since he's been writing for the Globe back in 1981.

Get a load of this USPS quality mailed-in crap:

FOXBOROUGH — It was better than Christmas morning, better than New Year’s Eve, even better than the Olympics in Boston.

In a game reminiscent of their glory days from more than a decade ago, the Patriots came back from two 14-point deficits and defeated the Baltimore Ravens, 35-31, on the frozen tundra of Gillette Stadium Saturday night. New England advances to the AFC Championship game next Sunday against either Denver or Indianapolis at Gillette. The Patriots and their fans are planning on a trip to the Super Bowl in Arizona Feb. 1.

No matter where this season goes, it’s unlikely that anything will top what we saw in Bob Kraft’s frozen mansion Saturday. This struggle for survival had everything except Tom Werner chanting, “Let’s Go, Patriots!’’

A full forty-eight hours after he takes a major shit on the team, all of a sudden they're the best thing since sliced bread.

Hear us now and thank us later - do not believe a fucking word this guy churns out. Ever.

Frauds?

If there's anyone out there thinking that anything Shank wrote in praise of the 2014 - 2015 New England Patriots was in the slightest bit sincere or honest, guess again.

Longtime readers of this site are well aware that Shaughnessy has hated this team since / shortly after Robert Kraft assumed ownership, and anything he's ever written in praise of the team from that point forward has been insincere, dishonest and bullshit. There is nothing more entertaining for Shank than to pull the endless Sybil / Jekyll & Hyde routine so as to give some sort of lame and semi-deceptive appearance of evenhandedness, and he tries to pull the wool over the Boston Globe readers one more time.

This guy's all over the fucking place. From today's column:

Are the 2014-15 Patriots Super Bowl-bound, or are they Adams Division/Presidents’ Trophy “more days in first place” frauds?

Here's Shank, rubbing their balls on November 14, 2014, with a 9-2 record:

See you in Glendale Feb. 1.

Behold, Shank's complete and utter hatred for anything connected with this team (most likely because they refuse to give him 'comped' meals):

This game against the Ravens is a valid test. It’s going to tell us whether these Patriots are the real thing, or yet another January patsy, artificially inflated by the clown show that is the AFC East, unable to punch back when they get smashed in the mouth in the playoffs.

There’s a lot to love about this Baltimore-New England matchup. It’s not another All-Access “try-the-burgers-at-the-CBS-Scene” layup. And that’s good. You’re supposed to win hard games in order to advance to the championship. And for all their regular-season success, it has been a while since the Patriots won the hard games in the playoffs.

Try this on with your Patriot Place footie pajamas: Since running the table in 2007, the Patriots have one postseason victory against a quality opponent. One.

He then goes on to mention the Patriots' playoff performances since 2004, when they won their last Super Bowl. Conveniently ignored are a) the Patriots vast improvements in the defense, notably the free agent signings of Darrelle Revis and Brandon Browner, and b) the fact that ten regular season games are played outside of the 'tomato can' AFC East, which isn't even the worst division in the NFL (NFC South).

It's one thing to mention the Baltimore Ravens and the problems they've posed to the Patriots in recent years. It's quite another to do what Shank did with this column and rub his hands with obvious glee like Mr. Burns in The Simpsons.

Shank On Ray Rice

Instead of crapping on the Patriots yesterday, today we get a column about Ray Rice, formerly of the Baltimore Ravens.

Things moved quickly on NFL Monday.

At 4 a.m., TMZ released video showing Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice delivering a left cross to the face of his then-fiancée, Janay Palmer, in an Atlantic City casino elevator back on Feb. 15. Palmer was knocked out cold.

Reaction was predictable. Social media exploded and there were calls for Rice to be banished from the NFL. There were also suggestions that NFL commissioner Roger Goodell be fired if he had seen this video before handing out his hideous two-game suspension.

At 10:08 a.m., the NFL issued a statement in which it contended that the video was not available to the league when Goodell delivered his wrist-slap to Rice.

At 2:18 p.m., the Ravens announced that Rice had been released.

I was expecting a bit more self-righteousness from this column. I'm sure it will show up again eventually...

No Light Shined on Ray

It was a column about nothing.

Handed an always provocative subject (veteran Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis) on a golden platter (SI did the heavy lifting with a piece about Lewis' supposed use of PEDs during his recovery from a torn biceps this season, and the last time "Lewis" and "Super Bowl" were being mentioned in the same sentence, he was being accused of murder following a shooting outside an Atlanta nightclub after attending a Super Bowl party), The CHB suggests, hints at, insinuates, but never comes out and says, well, anything.

Is Lewis guilty of something? Is he a victim of bad luck and timing? The CHB ain't saying.