Who Loves Ya, Baby? - II

In light of Tom Brady making his 14th NFL conference championship game this coming Sunday against the Green Bay Packers, Shank recounts all of them:

Tom Brady is going to Green Bay on Sunday to play in his 14th conference championship game. This will be his first NFC title joust. Brady’s original 13 were played when he was a New England Patriot, and he won nine. Here’s a thumbnail history of Brady’s conference championship games with the Patriots:

▪ 2002 at Pittsburgh. W, 24-17. Brady’s first, and the only one he didn’t complete. The Patriots were underdogs on the road, and Brady came out of the game early with a sprained ankle after he was was taken down by Steelers defensive back Lee Flowers.

Drew Bledsoe, who had been The Franchise, threw a touchdown pass to David Patten almost immediately and managed the game the rest of the way.

Who Loves Ya, Baby?

Is Shank trying to pull the wool over our eyes?

Go Browns. Go Cleveland.

These are strange times for New England sports fans. We are coming into the divisional round of the NFL playoffs — wall-to-wall with big games — and the Patriots are not part of the action. We are in search of a team to adopt.

It’s easy for a lot of you, I know. Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski are with Tampa Bay, and the Buccaneers play the New Orleans Saints in the Superdome Sunday night. It’s the marquee matchup of the weekend, and lots of Patriots fans have adopted the Bucs.

Not me.

I am all about Cleveland. The Browns will be playing the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs at Arrowhead Stadium Sunday afternoon, and they need my love a lot more than Brady does.

Imagine being anything in need of Shank's love - I'll opt for being fed to hungry Australian sharks. From there the column devolves into boring, Shank-like rote recitals of Cleveland playoff futility and hard luck. Let's not forget, however, a time when Shank wasn't all hugs and kisses for our friends from Ohio, like when he Shanked the whole city of Cleveland nearly six years ago.

Adding Insult To Injury

To paraphrase Peter in Office Space, 'I wouldn't say I missed this column...'

It looks like Shank wrote something a few days ago speculating on the New England Patriots run in the upcoming playoffs. My first thought was 'great - it'll give him a chance to rewrite some columns from previous playoff runs'. It's actually worse then that:

In all likelihood, get ready for a Patriots-Chiefs rematch in the playoffs

Things could still change, of course. Technically speaking, the Patriots could lose to the Tank-Palooza Miami Dolphins at home next weekend. Lamar Jackson could get hurt if John Harbaugh allows the MVP to play against the Steelers in Week 17. And the Chiefs could lose a wild-card weekend home game against the Steelers or the Titans.

But probably not. In all likelihood, we now know what it’s going to take for the Patriots to get where they want to go.

In all likelihood, the Patriots will get their coveted, hard-earned, first-round bye. Then they’ll have to beat the Chiefs at home, and the Ravens on the road to get to Super Bowl LIV in Miami Gardens, just 73 miles south of Orchids of Asia.

What a classless son of a bitch. For what it's worth, I read the first 50 or so comments on the article, and he was uniformly trashed for saying it, and generally being a douchebag has-been who should retire. On the bright side, this will lead to a few more cancellations of Boston Globe subscriptions.

Merry Christmas, everybody!

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.