Other Than That, How Was The Game Shank?

It seems that Shank didn't like certain aspects of last night's game between the Rams and the Buccaneers:

Vomit-inducing: randy moss interviewing Gronk for MNF. Why not Deion Sanders and Antonio brown? Hate-watch is underway

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) November 24, 2020

I think we all know that Brady’s greatest weapon in 2020 is pass interference

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) November 24, 2020

Brady gets away with another fumble that’s not called. What a joke

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) November 24, 2020

There's Always Something To Complain About

There's never an offseason for Shank criticizing the New England Patriots.

Looks like Shank isn't too pleased with Rob Gronkowski's decision to unretire in order to go to Tampa Bay and play football with Tom Brady:

So I guess it was never The Patriot Way. It was The Brady Way. Good luck to Gronk playing tight end with his new David Bowie body. In the end, he totally screwed the Patriots.

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) April 21, 2020

Compared to Gronk, Manny Ramirez left Boston in a blaze of glory

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) April 21, 2020

Jimmy Fund people told me many times over the years that Gronk did more stuff with no publicity than anyone. And somehow Dan hates him more than Aaron Hernandez. Was Dan this pissed when Gasper left for another job? https://t.co/3PBQZyYczD

— Kirk Minihane (@kirkmin) April 21, 2020

The One Where Shank Pretends To Like A N.E. Patriot

Rob Gronkowski retired from football yesterday, and Shank's there pay fake homage.

There are certain sobriquets that resonate viscerally in Boston sports, conjuring wistful feelings of fandom. They’re more than nicknames. They’re shorthand for the lasting impression left by greatness. Yaz. Cooz. Espo. Hondo.

Gronk.

Like one of his trademark spikes, Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski left his mark not only on the NFL as possibly the greatest tight end of all-time, but on Boston sports as a football folk hero — a one-of-a-kind tight end who could play and party with the best of them.

UPDATE AT 1:22 PM: Whoops! The column was written by Chris Gasper. That became obvious once I got to read more of the column, and it was an unusually long column. I'm saying to myself 'Funny - Shank never puts in this much effort into a column', and that's why. My bad!

Since it's Gasper, it's worth reading in full.

Gameday Tweets, By Dan Shaughnessy

In case you were mislead about Shank's seemingly positive columns this week, look at the gossip he just passed around:

Report: Pats feel TB12 Method is linked to Gronk's injuries https://t.co/6URjJYJBgf

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) February 3, 2019

Most people are aware that Gronk has had a number of injuries throughout his career, but the article nonetheless states:

The New England Patriots are about to play in their third consecutive Super Bowl, but they feel that tight end Rob Gronkowski's struggles this season might be caused by his use of the TB12 Method, according to NFL Network's Michael Giardi.

Giardi reports that the Patriots feel Gronkowski's injuries to his ankle, Achilles and back are due to his preference to use the TB12 Method over the team's workout program.

"Internally the Patriots feel like Gronkowski brought some of this on himself," Giardi said. "During the offseason when he reported, he came in not as strong, not as fast and not as explosive ...The Patriots feel as though if maybe he had done it their way, as opposed to the TB12 way, of which Gronk is devoted to, maybe things would have been different."

Note that, as with other stories of this type, no one in 'the Patriots' is named or even alluded to, such as 'a Patriots representative who wishes to remain anonymous' or other similar disclaimer.

The five-time Pro Bowler first dealt with Achilles tendonitis in Week 5 that was listed as an ankle injury, reports NFL Network's Ian Rapoport. He later suffered a bulging disc in his back in Week 7 and spent most of the season on the team's injury report.

Rumors swirled that Gronkowski would retire after the 2017 season, and speculation has continued to grow this year. It was reported in January that the tight end is expected to weigh retirement again this offseason.

Gronkowski is reportedly feeling "100%" headed into the Super Bowl, according to Rapoport.

I like Giardi and generally trust his reports, but not this one.

Mountain Out Of A Molehill - IV

The New England Patriots won in a convincing fashion yesterday, 23 - 3. Leave it to Shank to focus entirely on the one bad play of the game for the Patriots.

Rob Gronkowski deserves a suspension for his cheap shot on Bills cornerback Tre’Davious White late in the fourth quarter of the Patriots’ 23-3 victory in Buffalo Sunday.

There. Was that so hard?

This is not to say we don’t like Rob Gronkowski. He is one of the best tight ends in the history of football. When healthy, Gronk is virtually unstoppable. He’s also a fun goof who donates to charity, engages fans, and has never been in trouble with the local authorities. He has been a great Patriot and a good citizen and teammate. He’s a Hall of Famer.

More at the link, if you can stomach it.

UPDATE AT 3:55 PM - Gronk's suspended for one game, and Gronk says he will appeal.

Return Of The Tomato Cans

So, this is how Shank writes a column after All World tight end Rob Gronkowski has surgery on his back - listen to Felger & Mazz for a few days, pretend to put a positive spin on the situation, and - voila!

No Gronk. No problem. The Patriots are still going to the Super Bowl.

Everybody loves Rob Gronkowski. The big galoot (sorry, Curt Schilling! - ed.) is tons of fun, on and off the football field. We root for his full recovery from a third back surgery and hope there are more rumbling, smashmouth/stiff-arm touchdowns and spiked footballs in his Patriot future.

But everybody needs to calm down regarding what this does to the Patriots’ chances. Of course the Patriots are better with Gronk than without him (don’t underestimate Gronkowski’s contribution to the running game), but take a good look around the AFC. Who is better than the Gronk-less Patriots? Nobody, that’s who. Even without one of the greatest tight ends of all time, the Patriots still have a clean, clear path to Super Bowl LI in Houston in February.

And you know what that means:

It’s clear by now that there are no dominant teams in the NFL. The 11-1 Cowboys are the flavor of the month and it’s nice to see the Oakland Raiders make some noise on the left coast. But the Patriots’ schedule this year — clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right — tells you everything you need to know about where this is heading. After late-November road wins against the hideous 49ers and Jets, the Patriots return home Sunday to say hello to the 4-7 Los Angeles Rams — the sui generis of Tomato Cans (Bill Belichick has beaten Rams coach Jeff Fisher by an aggregate 104-7 in their last two meetings).

New England will be 10-2 after Sunday’s layup and should finish no worse than 13-3.

How'd Shank's prediction work out last week? Anybody?

Just a reminder - Shank isn't exactly writing this column because any of the things mentioned about the Patriots are true. He's writing this column to do what he does every single year - in order to take a world class shit on the Patriots, Bill Belichick and especially the Kraft family should they fail to win the Lombardi Trophy in February.

Messing with Texans

Here's The CHB a couple days ago as the Patriots headed into a matchup with the Texans:

[T]he Patriots are a team on the way down. They have lost two in a row. The Texans, meanwhile, are 6-6, hungry, and serious. Patriot Nation is a little nervous about this one. Me, too. There will be no taunting from this space. The wounded, reeling Patriots are on the road against a legit team and fear losing a third consecutive game for the first time in 13 years.

And here's The CHB today, following last night's decisive Patriots victory:

Put your hand to your ear and listen: That clinking and clattering is the sound of Tomato Cans falling down on the Patriots’ path to Super Bowl 50 in Santa Clara, Calif.

In just two days, Shank's flip-flopping goes from unintentional constipation brought on by some serious ass-clenching to his typical a-hole boasting about Patriot/Super Bowl inevitability.

The absolute low-light of the column is when he mocks "the immortal Whitney Mercilus" (once again, it's a minority who is singled out) for missing a tackle on Rob Gronkowski: "Great idea having a linebacker try to cover Gronk."

Which goes to show what The CHB knows about football. (Nothing.)

Indeed, those teams who have attempted to cover Gronk with a defensive back end up peeling the unfortunate souls off his cleats in the end zone.

Yet had The CHB had looked past Mercilus' uniform number and knew anything about his actual experience, he would have correctly noted that a defensive lineman (Mercilus' position in college and before they signed 2012 overall first pick Jadeveon Clowney) caught Gronk from behind 40 yards from the line of scrimmage. That's not such a good thing.

Any chance The CHB will "parachute down from Planet Patriot and get in touch with reality" anytime soon?

Texans Redux

Now that the Patriots / Texans game is in the books, here are some questions I'll pose about Shank's next column. These are not mutually exclusive questions.

* Will he be his usual, insufferable self after correctly calling the outcome of this game? Monkeesfan, let us know what he says on the Gresh & Zolak show tomorrow or Tuesday!

* Will he dump on the Texans, and Houston / Houston fans in general, one more time?

* Will he dump on Bill Belichick because Rob Gronkowski reinjured his forearm and is out for the rest of the season?

* Will he have the balls to trash talk Baltimore and Ray Lewis like he did Houston and Arian Foster?

Whiner's Lines

The CHB is all in a huff today because the Patriots aren't ... well, they aren't something.

First it's that Rob Gronkoswki was playing near the end of a blowout victory. "Gronk didn’t need to be on the field and the grid god got even, breaking the bone of New England’s Sub Zero superstar," sayeth His Shankness.

Oh, but it seems anyone who actually knows something about, you know, football defended the decison:

• "Jeff Saturday was my right guard on the PAT team, and I'd never think of taking him off," says ex Super Bowl winning coach Tony Dungy. "All my years in football, I never heard anyone, never heard Chuck Noll saying, 'Well, we better get Jack Ham off the PAT team.' It's not something I'd question."
• "You always leave your starters in on the PAT, even on the field-goal block team," says ex Super Bowl winning linebacker Tedy Bruschi.

So Shank moves on to the next bitch:  "We can’t go there yet because the Patriots haven’t even acknowledged the injury."

Except that they have: "Asked for an update Monday on Gronkowski, coach Bill Belichick said, 'I don't really have anything. I know that our medical people are looking at all the players today when they come in, trying to assess their situation, like we always do on Monday. I'll catch up with them as they've had a chance (to gather that information).' "

So we go to the third and final whine, which is really the point of the entire column: "Belichick stonewalls just because he can." Yes, yes he does. And so far, that seems to be working. Five Super Bowl appearances, three victories...seriously, you really need the coach to be Smilin Jack Connors?

Next complaint, please!