The Real Deal?

That's what Shank's wondering after last week's New England Patriots loss to the Tennessee Titans:

Love or hate the Drake, you will always remember Maye’s Music City Miracle — and he looks like the real deal

NASHVILLE — Drake Maye did it all Sunday in Tennessee.

All except for the winning part.

One week after being sidelined by a concussion in the first quarter against the Jets, New England’s new franchise quarterback made his fourth career start and did a lot of everything.

With little concern for his personal safety, Maye ran the ball eight times for 95 yards, eschewing the safety slide on most occasions and coming within 5 yards of being the first Patriot quarterback in 48 years to rush for 100 (Steve Grogan, 1976).

Love the Drake!

He completed 29 of 41 passes for 206 yards and orchestrated two second-half touchdown drives.

Love the Drake!

He fumbled twice (losing one) and was intercepted twice.

Hate the Drake!

A Man Ahead Of His Time

Shank makes the call (?) on the possible end of Tom Brady's career as a New England Patriot:

FOXBOROUGH — The last moment is sometimes understated, underrated, and unknown.

Ted Williams’s Hall of Fame career with the Red Sox spanned four decades, but only an announced 10,454 came to Fenway on a drab Wednesday afternoon to witness the Kid’s final game. Bill Russell won his 11th championship when he beat the Lakers in the ’69 NBA Finals, but did not announce his retirement until three months later. The Beatles didn’t tell the world their 35-minute show at Candlestick Park in ’66 would be their final concert, and nobody knew mankind was leaving the Moon for good when Apollo 17 astronaut Gene Cernan ascended the steps of the lunar module in ’72.

Now it develops that we may have seen the last of Tom Brady as a Patriot at Gillette Stadium.

Now that the loss is official, expect more salvos over the next week or so, as Shank buries everyone he can.

Stepping Up The Trolling Game

A little over a day before the Patriots play the Tennessee Titans in the divisional round of the 2017-2018 playoffs, the Titans' team plane is having some problems:

The #Titans have been sitting in their plane on the tarmac in Nashville for over two hours. Not good, especially for the big guys with bad backs. #Patriots.

— Paul Kuharsky (@PaulKuharskyNFL) January 12, 2018

And so it begins . . . https://t.co/wF7HeyD3Q1

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) January 12, 2018

I guess the Shank Store's out of tomato cans?

Readers are having some fun with this:

pic.twitter.com/02fR7j7qoB

— Barry (@LiciousLounge) January 12, 2018

Delayed at the gate gate?

— Tony Calderone(@tonysee200x) January 12, 2018

And so @Dan_Shaughnessy begins to troll.... pic.twitter.com/8bJJYyzZXc

— Tim (@timkelly02) January 12, 2018

And the winner:

pic.twitter.com/d3WpdotEBO

— FBombah (@FBombah) January 12, 2018

Wash, Rinse, Repeat, Repeat, Repeat!

The sun will rise, the sun will reset, and Shank will beat on a dead horse one more time as he re-writes yet another column.

Forget the Titans. They have no chance vs. the Patriots

And so the Patriots get back-to-back bye weeks. Think of Saturday’s Titans game as a playoff layoff.

Again.

By way of comparison, here's Shank on December 13, 2015:

Five weeks later, the Texans came back for a playoff game and it was the same drill. I wrote that this matchup represented the first time in league history that a team had back-to-back bye weeks to start the playoffs.

Here's Shank, early 2013:

The 2011-2013 New England Patriots just became the first team in NFL history to get back-to-back byes before advancing to the AFC Championship game.

Back to the current story:

It’s hard to know where to start with the compulsory trashing of the not-ready-for-prime-time Tennessee Titans.

Let’s acknowledge up front that the Titans are professional football players who have achieved much by advancing to the divisional round of the NFL playoffs. Nashville is one great town and the Titans are an estimable organization. They almost won a Super Bowl in 2000, and they threw a big scare into New England’s Super Bowl champs on a cold night in Foxborough back in January of 2004.

All that said, let’s cut to the chase and call this what it is. The Titans are a joke and have no business making the trek to Foxborough for a divisional playoff game Saturday night. These Titans are accidental tourists in the 2017-18 NFL tournament. They are 13½-point underdogs. They have absolutely zero chance to beat the Patriots Saturday night.

I wrote this last year. I write this every year. Because nothing ever changes.

Why yes, you do write this every year!

Just a closing note to the fans, media and bloggers who are fans of and write about the Tennessee Titans:

DO NOT FALL FOR THIS CRAP FROM DAN SHAUGHNESSY.

This is his game, designed to piss off as many people as possible. That includes myself as well as yourself. Dan Shaughnessy Watch noted it last week and we did this two years ago. We seem to do this warning as often as Shank tries (and succeeds) to antagonize two entire fan bases, as these two links demonstrate. If you're still pissed off at Shank, send him an e-mail and give him some positive, constructive feedback!

UPDATE AT 5:15 PM - There were nineteen comments to that article when I was doing this post; now the Globe has removed all of them and you can't post comments now. I didn't think any of the comments were overly hostile; most of them were of the 'you wrote this column last year' variety. What gives?

UPDATE AT 7:45 PM - There they are - 83 comments. Now they're just messin' with me!

UPDATE AT 7:55 PM - Likely stealth edit by the Globe - Shank had the original date of the Titans / Pats playoff date as January 2003; a commenter pointed out the correct date as January 2004 at 12:45 this afternoon. I didn't read the column until the time noted below, so I wouldn't put it past them to change the date and not inform their readers.