DHL Dan CCXXIII - Back To Earth

It's safe to say any buzz there was over the 2024 New England Patriots has worn off, with a brutal loss to the New York Jets on Thursday night:

We knew it was going to be bad for the Patriots this season, but not this bad, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while noting that the NFL’s new “dynamic” kickoff rule has basically changed nothing . . .

▪ The moribund Red Sox got shut out and managed only one hit Thursday against the Rays at the Trop.

And still . . . they gave us a better offensive show than the Patriots.

Yikes. We have to watch 14 more of these?

The final score was Jets 24, Patriots 3. Bigly misleading. It might as well have been 73-0. The Patriots were thoroughly pantsed by the Jets.

That’s right. The (gulp) Jets; the team New England beat 15 straight times before last year’s season’s finale. The Jets: the Sultans of suck, the masters of the buttfumble, the team that hasn’t been to the playoffs in 13 years, the team that’s riding a streak of eight losing seasons, the team Bill Belichick hates with the power of a thousand suns.

The Sultans of Suck - I'm stealing that one!

Borrowed Line?

Shank describes the injury to Aaron Rodgers, who got injured on the fourth play of his first game as a Jet, with this phrasing:

Aaron Rodgers’s season-ending injury is the Most Jets Thing Ever

Take it from one who knows about sports curses: This Jets thing is real.

As you all know by now, Jets quarterback/savior Aaron Rodgers suffered a torn Achilles’ tendon in the opening minutes of “Monday Night Football” and is lost for the season.

The Most Jets Thing Ever.

I think I've seen that phrase before!

Punting On A Good Column

As is usually the case with many Shank columns about a win by the New England Patriots, it's not that the Patriots won but rather it's the Jets who lost the game:

Why didn’t the Jets punt the ball out of bounds instead of to Marcus Jones? Because they are the Jets.

In the end, the Jets are going to Jet. And Belichick is going to Belichick. And just when you think you have wasted three hours of your life, the Patriots reward you with one of the most exciting plays in sports; an 84-yard, last-minute, game-winning punt return by a player who is unknown to most New England sports fans.

The Patriots beat the Jets, 10-3, Sunday and Jones won the game.

Not quarterback Mac Jones.

Not ballhawk defensive back Jonathan Jones.

Not Dalton Jones, Sam Jones, K.C. Jones, Popeye Jones, Adam Jones, Tom Jones, nor Me and Mrs. Jones.

Now that's some Pulitzer Prize level writing right there!

Hot Gameday Takes, By Dan Shaughnessy - II

Never heard this one before!

This will be a double-score day for Pats. Bank on it. Last minute of first half and first possession after halftime.

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) November 25, 2018

Hot Gameday Takes, By Dan Shaughnessy

...and here we go!

I like the Patriots, 73-0 today against the mighty Jets.
J-e-t-s
s-u-c-k

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) November 25, 2018

The Sun Will Rise, The Sun Will Set - II

...and Shank will make another painfully predictable tweet (or three or four) during a Patriots game.

Commenter Jason Herra, at 2:28 yesterday afternoon (halftime) - "And you can add shortly that he will cry about when is it the right time to take out brady and gronk after the lead is big cuz dan is a football expert all of a sudden"

Shank, one hour later:

Thank god brady still out there slinging it up 24-3 vs. Jets in 4th

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) December 31, 2017

The Sun Will Rise, The Sun Will Set

...and Shank will make painfully predictable tweets during a Patriots game.

Pats win toss and take ball?
First sign of the apocalypse.
Must have something to do with cold.
BYW: The Sat night playoff game vs Tenn was colder

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) December 31, 2017

Reasons To Be Worried

A few things to note here - during the first quarter of the Patriots - Jets game, Shank tweeted 'beatdown of epic proportions' and '#73 - 0'. Today things are described quite differently.

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — You have seen this game one million times. Maybe two million.

The Patriots struggle. The other team plays over its head. It looks like we might witness an upset loss for the team from Fort Foxborough. And then all the usual elements emerge and the Patriots cut out the hearts of their rivals. Tom Brady plays cool, flawless football down the stretch, the Patriots wait for the other guys to step on banana peels, and New England walks out of another enemy stadium with a hard-fought victory.

“It says a lot about our team,’’ Bill Belichick said Sunday night after the Patriots trumped the Jets, 22-17, at MetLife Stadium. “Their resiliency and mental toughness. How they execute under pressure. A lot of games in this league come down to the last series or the last plays or whatever it is. You battle it out for 59 mintues and it comes down to one or two plays . . . We’ve had a lot of those come up.’’

Now check out this paragraph (emphasis mine):

The Patriots beat you because they are smarter and tougher. They never take the apple. If you are from Buffalo, Miami, or the Meadowlands, they take away your will to live. They make the plays when the plays need to be made and they wait for you to tie your shoelaces together. Which you inevitably will do. It is all so predictable.

...says the columnist who predicted the exact opposite at the start of the game. Schmuck.

This is a year in which there are no great NFL teams, and in that spirit the Patriots are certainly in the Super Bowl hunt . . . but the Patriots hardly looked championship-driven for most of Sunday afternoon/evening in the Meadowlands. Those of us who trade in analysis and negativity will have much to chew on this week.

I think the Dallas Cowboys, currently at 10-1 and the Oakland Raiders, tied with the Patriots at 9-2, might have something to say about that. Does Shank expect the 1985 Bears or the 2000 Baltimore Ravens to be resurrected somehow? And when is the last time Shank offered up anything remotely resembling 'analysis'? At least he got the last part right about trading in negativity, him and his asshole colleague Ben Volin.

Can't wait to hear Shank regurgitate this column tomorrow morning with Bettle & Zolak - riveting radio, everyone!

UPDATE AT 8:00 PM - Minor spelling error corrected in the penultimate paragraph of this post.

Boston Globe Asshole Update

This tweet went up a few minutes before Tom Brady tied the game at 10-10 as well as hitting 60,000 career passing yards:

Have to wonder if Patriots might be better off with Garoppolo at QB. Brady isn't right

— Ben Volin (@BenVolin) November 27, 2016

Would you mind letting the fucking guy play the entire game before you second guess him? Thanks.

Lack Of Knowledge

Now that the Jets have a 10-0 lead, let's note Shank isn't banging out any more smug tweets right now. He conveniently forgets to mention the recent history of close games between the two teams in order to keep peddling this bullshit.

Johnny One Note

Nope - this'll never get old!

Pats win toss. AGAIN. Defer. Double score in play. Game over early again. Jets never had a chance

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) October 25, 2015

Shank's aware these games have been close in recent years, right?

A Well Known Subject

Shank is familiar with this theme. A week or two after helping to get Kirk Minihane shitcanned from Comcast SportsNet, he can't help but wonder:

The hate has drained out of Patriots-Jets

Jet Week was too tame for me. Robert’s Rules Of Order replaced the Hatfields and McCoys. We saw respect from both camps. We heard one polite comment after another. In a week that’s traditionally full of fury and foolishness, trash talk was banished to the curb.

So little emotion. No cheap shots.

Any theories?

...
I think I can explain this absence of malice. From the New York side, folks are simply consumed with the Amazin’ Mets, who look like they are going to win their first World Series since the 1986 Metropolitans shocked Bill Buckner and the Boston Red Sox. The Mets’ magic ride in October of 2015 is the stuff of legend and has taken Apple folks’ eyes off the matchup with the Patriots.

Here in New England, the Jets have moved to the back of the pack of Patriot enemies. There are so many teams we hate more now. In the wake of Deflategate, the Colts and Ravens have moved to the top of New England’s Nixonian enemies list.

It’s hard to get fired up about Ryan Fitzpatrick when the region has so much hate reserved for Roger Goodell, Chris Mortensen, Bill Polian, and Bob Kravitz. After decades of annoying the Patriots, the Jets played virtually no role in the Deflategate debacle.

In conclusion...

...
Doormats in recent seasons (4-12 last year), the Jets are a surprising 4-1, losing only to the Eagles. All of New York’s victories have been by margins of at least 13 points. New York’s defense ranks first in the league in points and yards allowed. The Jets have an easy schedule the rest of the way. They have a rookie coach (Todd Bowles), who presents as a mature adult instead of a rat (Mangini) or a clown (Rex Ryan).

So much for the Tomato Can Division theory...

The One That Got Away

This column just showed up in Shank's Globe timeline. It was written just before the Patriots / Jets game on Sunday, and for the most part a decent Shank columm.

NEW YORK — I am feeling a little sorry for the Big Apple on this pre-Christmas weekend.

Christmas in Gotham is always a treat. We’ve got folks skating in Rockefeller Center, drinking hot chocolate, talking about miracles on 34th Street. You can go to Macy’s Santaland, or watch the American Ballet Theatre’s performance of “The Nutcracker” at the Gilman Opera House.

Too bad you can’t find any good professional sports teams.

Wow. After all these years of arguing with our New York friends, most of that thrill is gone. Think kids at Boston University or NYU still argue about Celtics vs. Knicks, Red Sox vs. Mets, or (gulp) Patriots vs. Jets?

Let’s go down the list:

That's all well and good, but let's look at a couple of semi-interesting descriptors:

The 11-3, Super Bowl-bound Patriots storm the Meadowlands on Sunday in a game that serves nicely as Rex Ryan’s opening farewell to Jets fans.
...
The Patriots are going to the Super Bowl and the Jets are one more sad franchise in New York’s losing state of mind.

It's worth pointing out the before and after ever-so-slight change of attitude after the close Patriots win over the Jets on Sunday. There's rarely any middle ground with Shank.