DHL Dan CCXXXIX - All Hail The King!

What is this? A Boston Globe writer, jumping on the Trump Train?

If elected King of Sports, here are my Day 1 decrees, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while wondering what the crowd’s going to look like for Monday’s Truck Day festival at Fenway . . .

▪ Pardons and executive orders are all the rage in these early days of 2025. In this spirit, I am here to tell you what I’ll do when elected King of Sports.

On my first day as King of Sports I’ll call the media to my Ovaltine Office — I drink the delicious malt every day — and wave my pen as a ceremonial sword, righting all wrongs and making sports great again.

This revolution of sports common sense no doubt will be controversial, but it’s necessary. We’re going to take our sports back.

Henceforth, I decree:

▪ All postseason baseball games will be played in the afternoon.

▪ From this day forward, there will be only two ways to score points in basketball: Free throws and 2-point field goals. I am eliminating the 3-point shot. End of story.

▪ No more offside in hockey or soccer. Let’s open up these games.

▪ No more analytics departments. The reliance on analytics in sports ends.

▪ No more corruption-ridden “extra time” in soccer. There will be a clock that winds down to 0:00, just like in football, basketball, and hockey.

▪ NFL kickoffs will go back to the good old days when men were men.

▪ The Calipari statue comes down in Amherst.

Is power dangerous in the wrong hands? Just asking!

DHL Dan CCXXXVIII - What Might Have Been

Shank's wondering whether a late season win by the New England Patriots might've shaken up the draft board:

If not for a late-season win in 2023, the Patriots may have drafted playoff hero Jayden Daniels, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while praying the pipes don’t freeze …

▪ Three questions on this cold conference championship weekend:

1. Did Bill Belichick and Bailey Zappe inadvertently crush the Patriots on the way out the door when New England beat Denver on Christmas Eve 2023?

2. Had the Patriots drafted second instead of third last spring, would they have selected Drake Maye over Jayden Daniels?

3. At this hour, would Patriots fans rather have Daniels than Maye?

The performance of Daniels in these playoffs coupled with the nonstop news spilling out of Foxborough has me wondering how we’re going to be feeling 15-20 years from now when the dossiers of Daniels and Maye are complete.

Maye certainly made a strong showing in his limited time as New England’s starting quarterback in 2024. Surrounded by the worst roster in the NFL, he demonstrated good pocket poise, completed 67 percent of his passes, and averaged 7.8 yards when he ran. He didn’t start until Week 6 in Houston, and wound up throwing 15 touchdown passes with 10 interceptions while being sacked 34 times.

Comparison Made

Leading up to the Super Bowl gives us many columns about one or both teams that'll be playing next Sunday night. Shank sets his sights on the Kansas City Chiefs and makes a comparison of them with... the New England Patriots!

These Chiefs will never be the Patriots, but it’s time for New England to embrace their modern-day dominance

Don’t fight it any longer, New England.

It’s time to adopt the Kansas City Chiefs.

They are you as you are they and you are me and we are all together. Kansas City’s coach, Andy Reid, is “The Walrus.”

There’s a lot of regional and national negativity directed at the Chiefs. Fans outside of Kansas City largely hate them. They win too much. They are always programmed in coveted prime-time slots. They get all the calls from the officials. They have an ever-clutch quarterback who’s constantly on TV selling us something. They are invariably lucky.

Sound like any team you loved from 2001-19?

Face it, Pats fans. Aside from the cheating and the paranoia, today’s Kansas City Chiefs are your New England Patriots in the first 18 years of this century.