And Now For More Boston Globe Bashing - XLVIII

That depends on how you define 'nearly', doesn't it?

"Nearly pulled off a historic upset" (but fell just short, by 18 points). Your Red Sox Globe, ladies and gentleman. pic.twitter.com/dpX5TZuM0u

— PatriotsSB51 (@PatriotsSB49) January 15, 2017

No Imagination

It looks like Shank's running out of material leading up to Saturday's game.

Has there ever been less drama, hype, or anticipation for an NFL playoff game?

Here in New England, we openly mock the opposition. We ridicule the Houston Texans as a team with no chance to beat the Patriots at Gillette Stadium in the divisional round. The team from the land of “Friday Night Lights’’ will produce “Saturday Night Blights” in Foxborough and everyone knows it.

With all this ridicule, we get no resistance from anywhere in the heart of Texas. The people who cover the team and the Texans fans offer no alternative outcome. They are prepared for a major beatdown. Almost nobody in Houston is fighting back.

You'd think the Boston Globe would ask Shank to quit rewriting the same column, but you'd be wrong. Little wonder, then, that their readership numbers have been plunging for years.

An Uncertain Man, And Then Some

At the beginning of the month, Shank was leading the Patriots bandwagon to Houston. Today, he's not so sure:

Picked-up pieces while waiting for Thursday night’s Celtics game in Cleveland . . .

■ Why do I feel like I’ll still be saying I’m not sold on this Patriots defense when the Duck Boats are parading down Boylston Street Feb. 7?

Shank has always hated numbers and statistics. Today he loves them both, because it suits his agenda (this and his next paragraph):

■ Stat geeks and Patriot toadies are twisting themselves into knots to tell us that the Patriots really didn’t have an easy schedule this year, but we know what we saw. We saw them play a bunch of bum quarterbacks and almost zero elite offenses.

On Saturday, Shank didn't know much about the 2016 New England Patriots (this is a week after going to Denver and winning, 16 - 3):

Tomato Can season of 2016 marches on. Yet another game in which we learn nothing about the Patriots.

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) December 24, 2016

Four days later, however, he knows all about their defense:

When the season ends Sunday, the Patriots will have played half their games against teams in the bottom third of the league in offense. They faced none of the top six offenses. Here’s hoping they are ready if they face a competent QB/offense in the playoffs. Matt McGloin, Tom Savage, and Matt Moore no doubt have Bill Belichick lying awake at night.

Stolen from yesterday's Boston version of ESPN is this little tidbit - how few differences can you spot?

Since Belichick became Patriots coach in 2000, the AFC East has had 23 head coaches (including interims).

The rundown:

■ Since Belichick took over as head coach of the Patriots, the Bills, Dolphins, and Jets have had 23 head coaches and interim head coaches. The list includes legends such as Perry Fewell, Joe Philbin, Chan Gailey, and Dan “Tomato Can” Campbell. Over the same 16-year span, the second-best quarterback in the division is probably Chad Pennington.

At this point, you've read blatant examples of short sightedness, rank ignorance, duplicity, overuse of canned cliches (canned - get it?), stolen column themes and / or trolling behavior. While he didn't throw in an obligatory mention of Larry Bird, he came close with Kevin McHale. These are the problems with Dan Shaughnessy in general and especially with his mailed-in Picked Up Pieces columns.

And Now For More Boston Globe Bashing - XLII

This will shock exactly no one:

Staff at The Boston Globe worked with Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign to maximize her “presence” during her primary race against Sen. Bernie Sanders, new emails show.

The exchange is one of thousands from the inbox of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta leaked by the online hacktivist group WikiLeaks over the past week.

Bruce Mo** - still think the Globe has any credibility left?

And Now For More Boston Globe Bashing - XXXVII

With a Democrat in the White House for the past seven years and four months, the Boston Globe suddenly seems concerned about the potential abuse of executive power at the Federal level:

Donald Trump says so many things that are offensive, incorrect, and dishonest that it is often impossible to keep up. In just the past few days, he’s flip-flopped on his tax position, his support for raising the minimum wage, and his so-called Muslim ban.
...
But there’s a good reason why Bezos might be concerned about Trump going after him, if he became president.

Trump said he would.

So, Trump flip-flops on a lot of subjects, but Cohen takes him at his word on this one? How convenient, as the Church Lady would say!

Previous of Cohen's columns do not indicate an interest in this subject prior to Trump's bashing of Bezos, naturally. Da Tech Guy has a partial list of various authoritarian presidential actions since January 2009, not including the most recent and most ridiculous, under the threat of losing Federal funding.

Nice schools ya got there - would be a shame was sumthin' to happen to it...