Open Mouth, Insert Foot

An amusing tale of two tweets:

Colts are probably better at this hour, but since best thing for Patriots is Houston winning . . . Houston will win. Pats always get the easiest path.

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) January 5, 2019

Yikes. Texans lose.
No layup in Divisional Round for New England.
If Pats want to get to the AFC Championship Game again, they may have to earn it. What a concept.

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) January 6, 2019

Shameless Shank - always trying to have it both ways. What are the odds of Shank calling the Colts 'frauds' and 'tomato cans' by the time Thursday rolls around?

Twitter Trolling

Shank's gonna have to step up his game if he's trying to antagonize everybody in Indianapolis:

Lot of confidence in pats winning in a blowout Sunday. Too much?

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) October 15, 2015

Quality Trolling, By Dan Shaughnessy

It seems the folks at the Indianapolis Star noticed Shank's most recent column.

Shank's Huffing Leaves Readers Deflated

Leave it to Shank to take the tiniest infraction and, well, blow it up.

For those who have been off the planet the last few days, apparently there's a bunch of footballs that are shy a little bit of air. So what? As The CHB says, "[I]t didn’t matter in Sunday’s game" pitting the sky-high Patriots against the, ahem, deflated Colts.

If that's the case, when why all the fuss? We need only hold our breath until the next line to have that explained to us:

"But what about all the other games?" The CHB hyperventilates. "If the Patriots are cheating, are they not cheating systematically?"

Obviously, right? Let's just jump to the conclusion, damn the smoking balls.

Take a breath, Dan.

But wait a minute. Isn't the Patriots schedule filled with "tomato cans?" Weren't the Patsies playing patsies? That's what The CHB has led us to believe this past season (actually, not to get long-winded about it, but he's been huffing and puffing about that for the better part of a decade).

Everybody exhale. Like a fart in the wind, this too, shall, pass.

Second Verse, Same As The First

To the fans of the Indianpolis Colts as well as to our fellow bloggers and sportswriters in the Indianpolis area:

DO NOT FALL FOR THIS CRAP FROM DAN SHAUGHNESSY.

We at Dan Shaughnessy Watch have been waiting for this column for four days. The sun will rise, the sun will set, and when the Patriots are in the playoffs, Shank will write a column designed to piss off as many people as possible. And today, he delivers once again.

Feel free to scroll down to other recent Dan Shaughnessy Watch posts, where we've documented this fourth-degree black belt in trolling, which he's successfully developed in his thirty-three year career at the Boston Globe, and how he successfully trolled all of you in the past. More on that in a moment while we sample today's wares:

We respect the Indianapolis Colts. They’re a solid organization with a smart, classy coach and one of the finest young quarterbacks in NFL history. The Colts have great helmets, and they play in a beautiful indoor stadium in the heart of one of America’s most underrated cities. They pummeled the vaunted Broncos, in Denver, to qualify for the AFC Championship game.

There. So much for the compulsories.

So, he's bullshitting you right off the bat - Clue #1...

Now let’s get it over with and say what everyone, everywhere in football America is saying and/or thinking.

He's lying to you again - Clue #2...

Sorry. I know the fanboys don’t like to hear this and I will be accused of recycling thoughts from previous years (when the themes change, the thoughts will change, promise), but everybody who is remotely paying attention knows what is going to happen.

This is not an accusation - it is well established, irrrefutable fact - Clue #3...

Also note that comments to this perennial shit-stirring column are closed, which has been happening with greater frequency in the past few weeks and months - Clue #4...

...

Coach Hoodie recognizes the demon of overconfidence.

And Shank's going the other way on purpose, just to piss you off. Don't bite on it. If you'd like, you can drop him a quick e-mail and tell him to fuck off go pound sand, asshole tell him how much you appreciate his thoughts.

Douchebag Alert - III

While we eagerly await Shank's next Globe column, presumably on the upcoming Patriots / Colts game, he continues to make an ass out of himself on Twitter:

Or maybe that's what he wants us to think!

Then again, Steve Buckley (via Boston Sports Media Watch) is saying the same thing, but Buckley is not a world class genius troll like the CHB.

Douchebag Alert - II

The Indianapolis Colts beat the Denver Broncos on Sunday, 24 - 13, for the right to play the Patriots on Sunday for the AFC Championship. You'd think that a seven point road underdog pulling off that win would raise some eyebrows. It definitely caught the attention of a certain head coach, noting that the Colts have improved since their last meeting with the Patriots. That would seem to be a logical conclusion.

Then there's this guy:

We know how the game's played by now; take it away, Josh Hubbard (responding to this inane tweet)!

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

There's also another angle that Shank can 'play' here - pretend he's still on the bandwagon and write another insincere, slobbering column like he did right after the Pats / Ravens game. You could call it Trolling 301 (new and improved!), since Shank's got this schtick down cold after three decades of ripping Boston area professional athletes and teams.

Or put another way, as we noted nearly four years ago:

Looks to me like Shank, as always, raised his expectations to unreasonable levels after Belichick & the Patriots ran the table this year, and now decides to take the annual dump on them for failing to meet those unreasonable expectations. Factor in the six draft picks in the first three rounds of next year's draft, and you'd think that gives reason for optimism next year. Like we'll ever see that in a Shank Globe column...

"Don't bother me with the facts - I have an agenda to push!"

Radio Chaos

Here's what well-known football critic and Boston Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy told an Indianapolis radio station today:

"I’m begging [the Colts] to come in here and play up to [their] potential; in my view, [the Patriots] are one of the worst 12-4 teams ever assembled.”

(And no, The CHB did not mention the other crappy 12-4 teams on his list.)

Rooting for the story, eh? Well the story is The CHB's incessant flip-flopping, which at this point is probably giving him whiplash.

The One Where He Wants It Both Ways

The Patriots stink, but they will still win on Sunday because the Colts stink more.

That's The CHB's take today.

The Colts are 22-10 over the past two years. It's tough to call them patsies. (The Pats have won 24 over that same time.) It is not, as The CHB says, "just like two years ago." Andrew Luck is not Tim Tebow.

But here's where Shank goes off the ledge: "The abject mediocrity of the AFC is now the Patriots’ best friend. And so we can only ask: In a season in which no team has distinguished itself, why can’t a depleted Patriots team go all the way to the Super Bowl?"

Well, why doesn't he answer that himself, like he did on Dec. 16:, when he asserted that "these Patriots simply are not that good. [T]he notion that they were the AFC’s top seed is laughable."

To sum up Shank's argument: the Pats will make it to the Super Bowl, but it's because no team in the AFC, Patriots included, are any good.