Big Steaming Heap Of Bullshit

There are multiple angles to take with this latest Shank column, so I think I need to give this one an old fashioned Fisking.

HOUSTON — NFL commissioner Roger Goodell was at it again Wednesday. The man is a master of passive aggression and manipulation. If his ginger hair were on fire, he would calmly tell you that he is not warm.

Shank is also a master of passive-aggressive behavior; he's spent the past two years attacking and criticizing the Patriots and Tom Brady on the issue of Deflategate in particular and is now about to change his tune because it suits him, and he has cover from other Boston area media. He has done the same with the Patriots for over two decades, criticizing them at every turn, then pretending to support them whenever they made serious playoff runs. These two sons of bitches ought to be exchanging notes.

Roger Dodger (never heard that one before! - ed.) held his annual Super Bowl media session Wednesday at the Houston Convention Center. We will not bore you with anything Goodell said about the Chargers’ move to Los Angeles, the Raiders’ move to Las Vegas, “Thursday Night Football,” or NFL games in London.

I'm thankful for small favors - let's get ready to rumble!!!

All we care about is Deflategate, and Goodell allowed five Deflategate queries during his 45 minutes at the podium.

Give him credit for taking some bullets. The typical NFL method is to deny the obvious and censor all dissent. In a room with hundreds of hungry reporters, it would have been easy for Goodell to rig the session and make sure he took no questions from New England. He did not do this.

Bear in mind that Shank was quite pleased with this investigation and its eventual outcome, with Shank concluding that Tom Brady and the Patriots are lying cheating bastards as he scolded the entire Patriots Nation.

The Globe’s Ben Volin was first up, and he told the Commish that Bob Kraft (who was sitting in the front row with Jonathan) is still going around telling folks that Goodell got bad Deflategate advice from folks in the league office.

Goodell quickly dismissed that with, “We had a violation. We went through a process. We applied the discipline in accordance with our process. It was litigated, as you know, extensively and validated by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, so we’re moving on.’’

What Goodell doesn't mention is the transmogrification of this case from an equipment violation to a 'conduct detrimental' matter in order to impose the four game suspension on Brady.

Moving on? Not bloody likely. The Patriots and their fans are not moving on. In this spirit, we went at the Commish with both barrels. We fired all the muskets at once. This was no time for decorum.

Need I remind anybody about Shank's passive-aggressive behavior?

“Tom Brady Sr. was highly critical and personally insulting toward you last week,’’ I reminded the commissioner. “You’ve not been in Foxborough for two years since the Deflategate investigation. Your explanation strains all credibility — that you needed to be in Atlanta two weeks in a row.

“It appears you were avoiding Foxborough. The Patriots are here in this game . . . it feels like there is still a war between the Patriots and their fans and you. How would you characterize the situation, and is it not awkward?”

“I would say that it is not awkward at all for me,’’ started Goodell (nose growing). “We have a job to do. We do our job when there is a violation. We apply the process and discipline and we came to a conclusion that was supported by the courts.

This is simply astounding - Shank used Deflategate to beat the ever loving shit out of the Patriots and Tom Brady for two years, and this line of questioning was conspicuously absent from the many, many colums he devoted to the subject. I'll call it breathtaking hypocrisy; pure fucking theater.

“So from our standpoint, we understand that fans who are loyal and passionate for a team object and don’t like the outcome. I totally understand that. And I was in Boston two seasons ago for two consecutive playoff games, the same way I was in Atlanta this year. That happens.

“So from our standpoint, this is just about making sure we take care of business and do it in a way that is right and upholding the integrity of all of our teams and our rules for all 32 teams.”

“So you’re not avoiding Foxborough?’’ I yelled. “You would come back there, if they win, for the flag raising?”

“If I’m invited back to Foxborough, I’ll come,’’ he answered.

How many of you are buying that?

Intrepid Bert Breer of MMQB tried to clarify that comment a few minutes later and asked, “To the best of your knowledge, over the last month have you been welcome in Foxborough . . . by the team?”

“I have no doubt that if I wanted to come up to a Patriots game and I asked Mr. Kraft, he would welcome me back,’’ said Goodell. “That’s up to him, though.’’

Breer followed up by asking Goodell how his relationship with the team has changed over the last two years.

“Listen, we had a disagreement about what occurred,’’ said Goodell, sounding a little sick of the topic. “We have been very transparent about what we think the violation was. We went through a lengthy process.

Being sick of the topic seems like the right response when your position is untenable or the matter just comes up too many times for your liking. Maybe it's a variant of the old saw - 'Have you stopped beating your wife?'

“We disagree about that, but I continue to respect and admire Robert, Jonathan, the entire organization. They are an extraordinary organization and they are extraordinary people in my view, so I have a very deep and close relationship to them.

“I’m not afraid of disagreement. I don’t think disagreement leads to distrust or hatred. It’s a disagreement . . . That’s what it is. It’s not personal hatred, which I know people like to make it, but for us it’s about making sure we do what’s right for the league, long-term.’’

When Kelly Sullivan of WPRI in Providence asked Goodell if he’d talked to Brady this year, the commissioner said he does not disclose conversations he may or may not have had with players.

I'll go with 'No, I did not talk with Tom Brady...'

Now, with more explosions!

Tom Curran of CSNNE fired this salvo: “From the players in the league, to fan bases in San Diego, St. Louis, New England, there seems to be an erosion of public trust in you and your office. Do you acknowledge that, and is there any way that you would go about repairing that if you would even seek to do so?’’

This produced a tower of Goodellspeak.

“The thing you have to always do, every day, is earn that trust, earn that credibility by how you act and how you do things,” he said. “Be transparent and make sure people understand the decisions you make.’’

There were many more words, but no true meaning.

The commissioner is not transparent. Fans do not understand the decisions he’s made.

And despite what Roger Dodger says, this is really awkward.

You might call it a big bowl of awkward, to borrow a phrase from the Shankster.

Only 12th?

I was cruising around this afternoon and stumbled across this story by Matt Keller that ranks the villains in the Deflategate saga, which I find to be dead on:

Boston sports fans are insane. I should know: I have been one my entire life (it’s like being Jewish – we can criticize ourselves). Deflategate turned into a massive rallying point for the entire region, and if you aren’t from New England, you may have a hard time comprehending just how big of a controversy it was. After sides were taken, anyone who came at Brady or the Patriots was turned into an enemy by a rabid fanbase (some of whom happened to work in the media). Twitter battles ensued. And the pro-Patriots media and bloggers, led by people like Jerry Thornton of Barstool Sports (then of WEEI), didn’t hesitate to take each perceived enemy to task for their sins. With Jerry’s input, I compiled a list of the biggest Deflategate villains.

Out of fifteen media villains, Our Man Shank only bags 12th place?

No 12: Dan Shaughnessy (Boston Globe)

Nicknamed Shank in Boston for the way he sticks the knife into his targets’ backs in print (close enough! - ed.) , Shaughnessy has always delighted in ribbing Boston fans with purposely contrarian viewpoints. Deflategate was manna from heaven for the curly-haired columnist.

That's it - I count thirty-six posts on this site that contain the word 'Deflategate', most of those being columns or tweets by Shank.

Special mention goes to the 2nd biggest asshole in the whole saga besides Roger Goodell (#2 under the NFL category):

No 2: Ted Wells

He authored the Wells Report, which was either an incomplete report that may have relied on some faulty assumptions and didn’t offer much in the way of proof (according to most unbiased observers) or an unscrupulous hit job by an NFL stooge that contained too many errors to count and was never meant to be objective (anyone living in New England, especially media members and Patriots employees).

So even if you split the difference here, the most charitable description you can assign to the Wells Report is that of a hatchet job, which Shank once called 'embarrassing' but given that he was burying the Patriots the entire time, it's safe to say he meant 'embarrassing - for the Patriots'. Just to remind people - once again, logic and Shank took different roads.

It's Official - Shank's Back On The Pats Bandwagon

After winning three games in a row with multiple starters out of the lineup in each game, why wouldn't you shamelessly start rooting for the Patriots again?

Memo to Patriots fans: Deflategate is your friend. It has given birth to absolute truths that serve only to magnify and solidify that local notion that Bill Belichick and the Patriots are 10 times better and smarter than every other NFL team.

The first-place, 3-0 Patriots will enjoy a well-deserved day of rest Sunday, but a message has been delivered to NFL America. It is not a comforting missive for the 31 franchises that hoped to prosper when NFL commissioner Roger Goodell dropped the hammer on the Team Everyone Loves to Hate. The Patriots are on a mission. They are kicking butt and taking names. The 2016 Patriots are waging war on the rest of the NFL and the commissioner who overly punished them for driving 68 in a 65-mile-per-hour zone.

A decent enough column ensues from here (Nitty Gritty Dirt Band lyrics aside), but I think Shank overstates something towards the end:

This cannot be a great feeling for Brady. Deflategate has established that any Jimmy, Jacoby or Matt can play quarterback for the Patriots and still win. Belichick and the Patriot Way are the big winners.

I don't think you can use a three game span like the most recent one and dismiss the contributions of one of the top quarterbacks in NFL history.

On second thought, since I don't feel like erasing the previous sentence, Shank's not dismissing Brady, he's simply discounting it and attributing the team's success to the team. Seriously, it didn't kill me just now to agree with Shank! Still, I think that point's fairly debatable.

Points awarded to Shank for being consistent on this point (not Deflategate as a whole, where he once called Tom Brady a cheater and gave it its own column):

The Patriots would secede from the NFL if they had anywhere elso to go, but they don’t. They will settle for winning another Super Bowl and rubbing everyone’s face in the dirt. Tom Brady is taking his punishment and it’s Scorched Earth Time here in Hatriot Nation. Our long national nightmare is over.

Back to the original column:

Feel the fire. Embrace the hate. Deflategate is the Patriots’ friend.

Did Shank just channel the Emperor from Star Wars?

Shank On Roger Goodell's Press Conference

Shank was on hand yesterday to cover the NFL commissioner's press conference, primarily focused on DeflateGate.

PHOENIX — The Super Bowl is Sunday. But it’s Game On for Bob Kraft vs. Roger Goodell.

NFL commissioner Goodell, speaking to the media for the first time since
“Deflategate,” said during his “State of the NFL” address Friday that the AFC Championship game in Foxborough was played with some footballs that were not in compliance with the rules, and that the league is trying to determine whether “this was the result of deliberate action.’’

I'll summarize the rest of the column for you - Goodell's had a bad year, the bag job of an 'investigation' into DeflateGate is pretty much a foregone conclusion, and Goodell makes a lot of money. That last point is mentioned thrice in Shank's column, just in case you missed it the first two times.

Curses - Foiled Again!

Three weeks into the Patriots' 2015 season, Shank is predictably declaring them AFC champions and riding his new Curse cliché hard:

Patriots romp while Curse of Deflategate rages on in rest of AFC

FOXBOROUGH — Can we just fast-forward to Feb. 7 in Santa Clara for Super Bowl 50? The Revenge Tour looks like it’s going to roar into Levi’s Stadium where the Patriots will dare Roger Goodell to show up and present another Lombardi Trophy to Bob Kraft.

The Patriots clinched another AFC East title Sunday with a 51-17 blowout of the Jacksonville Jaguars. The non-contest featured another glut of Patriot riches while The Curse of Deflategate raged on in the rest of the AFC. The Deflategate-ratting Ravens lost yet again (now 0-3), the Jets were beaten by the winless Eagles, the Steelers’ Ben Roethlisberger suffered what could be a season-ending injury, and Philip Rivers got hurt and was pulled from a Chargers loss. Looks like Cincinnati’s overmatched Bengals and clueless Marvin Lewis might be the best bet to get crushed at Gillette in the AFC Championship game come January. The Waltz of the Tomato Cans is a marathon dance number that never stops playing on the flagship station of the New England Patriots.

UPDATE AT 9/30/2015, 2:25 PM - Linked to article added; apologies.

Piling On

Shank invents a lame excuse to continue to pile on the New England Patriots, and devotes this column to Tom Brady in particular.

SAN MATEO, Calif. — It could be Boston College High School on Morrissey Boulevard or Xaverian Brothers in Westwood. It could be Catholic Memorial in West Roxbury or Archbishop Williams in Braintree.

Except for the trophy case.

Except for the plaques on the school’s athletic Hall of Fame.

It’s there that you see that this is not your ordinary Catholic high school. It is there that you see photos of two of the greatest athletes of all time. It is there that you see Tom Brady. And Barry Bonds.

I flew to San Francisco to cover the Red Sox series against the Oakland A’s, but that plan blew up Monday when the Deflategate sanctions were levied by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell. It is one of the biggest sports stories of our lifetime and it is my our only topic for the foreseeable future.

Lovely - we have three hatchet job columns and this one in the past week on Deflategate, and now we can expect more? Just fuckin' shoot me now...

Filling In

Shank's latest column attempts to create as much doubt as possible about Tom Brady's replacement for tonight's game (and the next three as well):

GLENDALE, Ariz. — Twenty-four-year-old Jimmy Garoppolo — who has never played a meaningful snap in the NFL —

Naturally, meaningful is undefined, as this suits Shank's agenda of creating doubt so he can shit on the Patriots tomorrow should they lose. Shank mentions Jimmy G. going 20 of 31 in 11 games, and all of that activity is deemed meaningless.

will stand behind center and in front of the nation Sunday night when the New England Patriots play the Arizona Cardinals at University of Phoenix Stadium. It will be the highest-rated television program of the weekend.

Pure speculation, but then again, this may be Shank's 'blind squirrel finds a nut every now and then' prediction he actually gets right.

Jimmy G is being asked to command the SS Belichick while Tom Brady, the greatest quarterback of his generation, begins serving a four-game suspension for his ambiguous role in the interminable, litigious, and abjectly stupid drama known as Deflategate.

You remember Deflategate - the one that Shank actively cheered on and eventually called Tom Brady a cheater. Funny how Shank conveniently forgets that when he needs to.

Man Crush Alert, or just want you want to read when you go to the Sports section:

Other than the superficial observation that Garoppolo is perhaps the only American athlete even more handsome than Tom Brady (not that there's anything wrong with that - ed.), we know virtually nothing about Jimmy G.

Too bad there's really no way to research that sort of thing...

He played his college ball at Eastern Illinois (never to be confused with Alabama or Southern Cal) and has not started a regular-season game in two seasons with New England. He has been the clipboard holder and mopup man for Brady, completing 20 of 31 passes in 11 games.

The goofy-yet-intriguing situation is without parallel in the long and fabled history of New England sports.

You can skip the next several paragraphs, as Shank falls back on an unimaginative, tired and longstanding formula of comparing this situations to past situations with the Red Sox and Celtics. But it helps to complete the column, so...

This is different. Garoppolo is replacing a legendary champion . . . but just for four games. And we have no sample to suggest how Jimmy G will do against the Cardinals, Dolphins, Texans, and Bills.

Shank, aware or not, then goes on to give just that sort of sample:

Backup quarterback Matt Cassel stepped in for Brady in 2008 when QB 12 got his knee blown up in the first game of the season. Belichick made things simple for Cassel and the Pats won 11 games, but they did not make the playoffs. Cassel parlayed his tryout into a big contract with the Chiefs, while Brady came back better than ever in 2009.

We suspect the Hoodie will dumb it down for Jimmy G. The quarterback looked shaky against the Panthers in his final preseason game, but he has yet to play with the full complement of New England’s offense weapons, and he won’t have Rob Gronkowski on Sunday. Look for a lot of short passes, tosses to the tight ends, and a smashmouth running game. Nothing high-risk. No stretching the field. Let your defense win the game. This will be Game Management 101.

If Shank thinks this is what Belichick is going to do, bet on the exact opposite.

...
So the Patriots’ quarterback situation at this hour is fascinating in addition to being unprecedented. The Patriots are going to play four games with a new guy behind center. Fair or unfair, it’s going to constitute a referendum on who’s the most important figure in Foxborough. Jimmy G’s success or failure will fuel the age-old argument regarding who gets credit for New England’s dominant run. Is it Tom or is it Bill?

I wonder why Shank always has to make such situations strictly binary? Is it because he's stupid? Perhaps, but again, it doesn't exactly suit him to share credit between Brady and Belichick. He needs to assign credit to one and by definition, blame or discredit to the other. This is how his mind 'works', for lack of a better definition.

Brady has been to six Super Bowls and won four of them. Belichick has been his coach for every game of his career. As noted by former Globie Ron Borges, in seven-plus seasons without Brady as his quarterback, Belichick is 52-62 and has missed the playoffs six times. The Hoodie is 1-1 in playoff games without Brady.

See what I mean? Of course, that leaves this question unanswered - what is Belichick's record when you remove his tenure with the Cleveland Browns? Take it away, commenter Shsnatick:

Dan:
Once and for all let's set the record straight regarding Bill Belchick's record without Tom Brady. The Browns had a record of 3-13 in 1990. They hired Bill Belichick. His record:
1991 6-10
1992 7-9
1993 7-9
1994 11-5 (beat Patriots in the playoffs)
1995 5-11 (after Art Modell gutted the team in preparation for move to (Bal)
2000 NE Patriots (house cleaning year)
The rest is history.

Belichick's record with the Browns: 36-44, so the record with the Patriots and without Brady is 16-18. Just a bit different, no? Once again, that doesn't support Shank's argument, so you won't see it. And if you have to rely on Ron Borges, a plagiarist, for your statistics, you're already halfway to losing that argument.

Fifth Time's A Charm

From Shank's column, May 12, 2015:

It is one of the biggest sports stories of our lifetime and it is our only topic for the foreseeable future.

How right he is! It should be obvious to anyone by now that 1) Shank hates the New England Patriots football team and 2) five columns in six days from the normally non-prolific columnist is proof positive that he is motivated primarily by any combination of the following traits - jealousy, envy, hatred, antipathy, pettiness, grudge holding and negativity.

Deflategate thoughts as we await appeals and Bob Kraft perhaps ponders seceding from the NFL . . .

■ I remain impressed by the physicists, magicians, jugglers of truth, and truthfully mad scientists who have made it their life mission to poke holes in the easily poked Wells Report. These folks are Tom Brady Vulcans and Klingons, speaking a language no one else knows. They are Krafty Krishnas, banging tambourines, chanting, and dancing around Gillette Stadium.

They are like the thousands of conspiracy theorists who have written books and devoted millions of hours to the flawed findings of the Warren Commission. They are Wells Report buffs, and they will not rest until Brady and the Patriots are cleared of all these trumped-up charges.

Among hundreds of missives I’ve received from the buffs, my favorite was from the gentleman who wrote, “I have a PHD in engineering specializing in process engineering (keeping things within tolerance). I spent 24 or so hours analyzing the Wells Report and writing this rebuttel. I would like to see it published somewhere before Tom Brady gets suspended.’’

The gentleman’s eight-page, single-spaced “rebuttel” concluded with, “Summary: The Wells Report is wicked stupid . . . Tom Brady is freakin’ awesome . . . Go Pats!!!!!”

Which has been Shank's M.O. from the start of this recent barrage of columns - dismiss and discount any evidence supporting the Patriots and relentlessly hammer away at the evidence making the Patriots look bad.

Toward the end of this column, however, it seems that Shank acknowledges some of these points:

■ Deep down, everybody (even you, Keyshawn) knows these punishments are too harsh. The Patriots are paying for a decade of flipping off the league, noncompliance with Wells, Spygate, and the league’s clumsy attempt to right its own ship after a year of horrible publicity over botched punishments.

■ Deflategate will not affect the Patriots competitively this season. Brady probably will get a couple of games shaved from his suspension. Meanwhile, the Patriots will get a good look at the future in Jimmy Garoppolo. The AFC East will still be the Warhol Division; the Patriots will win it easily, getting their first-round bye and second-round home game. They will also have the “us against the world” mentality that motivated them to 18-0 after Spygate in 2007.

■ I can’t help but wonder whether Matt Estrella ever hung out with Jim McNally and/or John Jastremski. Those three could get busts in the Rogues Wing of the Patriot Place Hall of Shame.

What's Old Is New Again

The controversy that will never die.

They are like those random Japanese soldiers who combed the jungles of the Philippines and kept fighting World War II years after Japan’s formal surrender in 1945.

They are the Deflategate Truthers and they got some new energy in recent days when Jay Glazer of Fox Sports reported that the Giants sent a couple of suspiciously deflated footballs to the NFL office after losing to the Pittsburgh Steelers Dec. 4 at Heinz Field.

The report was shot down swiftly by the league office with this statement: “The officiating game ball procedures were followed and there were no chain of command issues. All footballs were in compliance and no formal complaint was filed by the Giants with our office.’’

That, naturally, did not cut it with the Deflategate Truthers. The Patriots Media Cartel swung into action and apologies are being demanded once again. Jonathan Kraft took his message to the airwaves on the Patriots’ in-house pregame show Monday night.

Plus, there's this:

The science has never mattered.

It may be a bit different with footballs, but I ride a road bike during the non-winter months, 700 CC rims, 23 cm wide tires in the front and 25 cm in the back. Generally I put 100 PSI in the front tire and 110 PSI in the back. Since I'm an old fuck, I ride every other day. When I get to the next ride, both tires bleed at least 5 PSI over that approximate 48 hour period. Rubber is porous, regardless how it's used, and anyone who has bothered to learn basic physics or atmospherics can tell you air molecules condense when it gets cold. When it comes to science or numbers, Shank is a blithering idiot.

Good Things Come To Those Who Wait

Eight days after berating Patriots quarterback Tom Brady for not speaking to the media, Shank finally gets his wish.

Tom Brady speaks!

Stop the presses. Freeze Twitter. Close the New York Stock Exchange for 10 minutes. Interrupt all Trump coverage.

Brady ended his six-month silence Friday morning at Patriots practice when he took eight questions from the local football media for approximately five minutes. It was a shoutdown frenzy, and Tom found

Were you happy with Brady's comments?

No.

We got Patriotspeak. Bradyspeak. Zzzzzzz.

And the home stretch:

So now we know how it’s going to be. No surprise there. Led by quarterback Tom Brady — who has been court-ordered to wear the Scarlet D of Deflategate — the Patriots are going to carry themselves publicly as if none of this over-punishment is happening. And then they are going to scorch the earth of Goodell’s NFL America.

That might be the first time Shank described Brady's four game suspension as over-punishment, but in every single column about Deflategate that he wrote, it is perfectly clear that Shank's quite pleased it happened.

And Why Shouldn't He?

A lazy, lethargic Boston Globe sports columnist takes nearly a full day to deliver his take on last night's Patriots / Colts game. The entirety of Shank's column is so chock full of lies, bullshit and borderline slander that the only effective remedy is for this blogger to deliver the required Fisking of the column in its entirety, or close to it.

Angry Tom Brady is force to be reckoned with

Once again after the Patriots’ 34-27 victory Sunday night in Indianapolis, Tom Brady was quick to brush aside the media.

By Dan Shaughnessy Globe Staff October 20, 2015

Tom Brady is an angry man. This is probably a good thing for the Patriots and Patriot fans.

No more Mr. Nice Guy. Brady is captain of the Revenge Tour and he no longer cares about hurting anybody’s feelings. He’s not going to go out of his way to help, or be nice to folks who weren’t nice to him after the air was taken out of the balls last season. After Sunday’s 34-27 win in Indianapolis, Brady blew off NBC’s Michele Tafoya, then issued three terse answers when asked about keeping a souvenir football or two.

Please explain the rationale for being nice to a group of people who, on a collective basis, called you a cheater or worse and doubted your integrity for the past nine months, Mr. Shaughnessy. Naturally, that rationale is not provided here.

Q: “Did you keep the football after the game, and if so, I was curious what that meant to you and what make you want to keep that football?”

A: “I didn’t keep it.’’

Q: “I saw you kept two balls for a keepsake, one after LeGarrette Blount’s touchdown run, and then at the end of the game you put the football in your helmet. Why two footballs? Are you giving it to somebody else?”
A: “I didn’t keep them.’’

Q: “Are they going to somebody else?”

A: “I don’t know.’’

Deflate that.

Whatever that's supposed to mean!

But wait - it gets better:

Brady has been brief and joyless in his mandated weekly and postgame sessions with folks who cover the Patriots. He is doing the minimum and nothing more. He will take a few questions, move his lips, then wrap up abruptly with, “Thanks, guys.’’

Any reason why this might be the case, Einstein?

It doesn’t matter, of course. All that matters is what Brady does on the field and the results are thus far unimpeachable. Brady no longer has Randy Moss or a veteran line, but he is more precise than ever. He has one interception in five games and that was a ball that bounced off Julian Edelman. Not Tom’s fault.

Brady was clearly angry at the end of the game. A lot of that anger comes from his insistence on perfection.

You're sure about that?

He can’t stand leaving points on the field. He knows that the Patriots’ offense could not shut the door Sunday night. They could not put the game away the way they wanted. Like coach Bill Belichick, Brady wants to finish strong every week. When he doesn’t finish strong, he’s angry.

The most telling statement he made to the local media last week was an acknowledgment that “I’m human.’’

He’s human and the fallout from Deflategate has made him angry. After the AFC Championship game, Brady was hung out to dry by just about everyone except his dad.

And including a certain Boston Globe sports columnist! Eager to keep the fires of DeflateGate burning, in an impressive display of passive / aggressive behavior, Shank goes on:

First his coach said, “Ask Tom.’’

Shot at coach Belichick? check.

Then his owner, ever hungry to keep his seat at the NFL’s Big Boy table, played footsie with the Commish and the other owners and accepted the largest punishment in the history of the league. This made it open season on Tom, his legacy, his honor.

Except that this 'open season' on Tom Brady by the NFL league office exceeded / violated their own rules on this sort of thing.

Then it was leaked that Brady destroyed his cellphone on the day he was called to testify before Ted Wells.

It's of questionable legal or NFL precedent / requirement whether Brady was required to turn that data or phone over to Ted Wells. This is just further evidence into Shanks lack of knowledge of the situation.

When the starry-eyed judge ultimately lifted Brady’s suspension, the haters (a.k.a “realists”) were quick to remind everyone that Brady was not cleared of guilt as much as he was allowed back on the field because of the bungled procedures by the league.

So we're supposed to believe that the NFL's appeals process, clearly lacking in the due process department and clearly stated as such by Federal judge Berman, was overturned on a mere technicality?

Tom is human so he’s no doubt wounded that so many were quick to brand him as a liar and a cheater. Longtime Patriot watchers know that Brady’s greatness and his honors are owed to talent, hard work, and a magical coach-player relationship unseen since Messrs. Auerbach and Russell ruled the basketball world.

We don’t really know Tom.

Jesus H. Christ, where have we heard this disingenuous tripe before?

But we have seen him grow and mature in his 16 seasons in Foxboro. We have seen him cultivate and polish an image as a man of wealth and taste. We have seen him marry a woman more wealthy and famous than himself. We have seen him applaud one president at a State of the Union address, then snub another president when the Patriots were invited to the White House. We have seen him demonstrate more emotion and anger on the sideline.

Meanwhile, we are hearing him say less in almost every public forum.

This year, he’s done a couple of friendly sitdowns with former Patriot quarterback Scott Zolak on “Patriots All Access”, but that’s about it as far as television goes. On the radio side, Brady’s remained loyal to WEEI’s “The Dennis & Callahan Show,” which promises to feature Tom again Tuesday at 9 a.m.

Again, why should he appear on hostile media shows after the beating he's taken over the past nine months? Inquiring minds might need that answer.

Is this misdirection?

Last week’s Brady segment on WEEI was revealing, and at times, disturbing. Brady was neither terse nor angry. When effectively cornered by host Kirk Minihane regarding Brady’s disgraced training guru Alex Guerrero, Brady spoke passionately and at great length. Brady correctly reminded us that his good health and great play is the best advertisement for Guerrero’s alternative methods, but also sounded like a man who has come under the spell of manipulative forces. There was a Tim Thomas/Tom Cruise level of discovery in that interview that made some of us wonder who’s pulling the strings behind Brady’s iron curtain.

Brady’s personal health choices are his and his alone, and worthy of great respect, but he gets into a dangerous area when he promotes his body coach/business partner with statements such as, “What I want to provide to athletes — so much of it is being pro-active — not wanting to get sick, not wanting to get injured. Lifestyle choices are very important to your health and wellness.’’

It appears to the casual observer that Brady has done just fine in this department as it concerns personal health. But hey, Shank's just asking the question!

Swell. But there’s a hint of blaming victims in all this. Let’s not suggest that everyone who gets cancer or a concussed could have prevented it with better eating habits. Please don’t try telling us that “when you get hit the head,’’ you should ask yourself, “What have you done previously to try to prevent those things?’’

Brady is taunting the sports god when he suggest that avoiding NFL injuries is a “lifestyle choice.’’ What’s the magic potion that saves any quarterback from the Bernard Pollard hit?

This is disingenuous in the extreme - you need to read into that and draw false conclusions to conclude otherwise. From this standpoint, Tom Brady has taken care of himself physically and, aside from that Bernard Pollard hit, has largely avoided serious injury. This blogger is pretty sure this angle is not subject to debate.

But by all means, let's bring up something from thirty fucking years ago!

Something tells me that the Patriots hierarchy is not pleased that Guerrero is traveling with the team and working with multiple players. It reminds me of a situation with Celtic scorer Scott Wedman and his personal trainer when the C’s played the Lakers in the epic 1984 NBA Finals. Wedman’s guy, Steve Krischel, was banned from the locker room after he worked on Robert Parish’s shoulder. (”I thought the guy was a plumber,’’ said Celtic trainer Ray Melchiorre.)

That’s not going to happen to Guerrero. The Patriots are going to let Brady do anything he wants. He’s the ticket to Super Bowl 50.

Tom can say whatever he wants. Or say nothing.

Terse or talkative, an angry Tom Brady is good for the business of winning another Super Bowl.

Deflated Column

As we wait for the Federal court proceedings to work itself out, Shank may have finally come down with Deflategate Fatigue Syndrome.

The symptoms are obvious.

You are tired, edgy, and have bags under your eyes. You scan your monthly National Grid bill looking for language about ideal gas laws. After you have blood drawn for your annual physical, you call the doctor’s office to ask about your PSI levels. You know way too much about the vacation schedules of Gerry Callahan and Michael Felger. You get angry every time Chris Mortensen comes on ESPN. You sleep in a Free Brady T-shirt.

But you don’t sleep much.

You have Deflategate Fatigue Syndrome, a.k.a. DFS.

One of his better efforts recently.

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...

Eight Men Out

Shank goes a century back in time to recount the Chicago Black Sox scandal, from the hotel room where it all happened:

ROOM 615, BUCKMINSTER HOTEL — This is where the greatest professional sports scandal in American history went down. Bigger than Deflategate. Right in the very spot where I am sitting.

I am talking about the Black Sox scandal of 1919. And I am sitting in the spot where the idea was hatched. Right here in the shadow of the Citgo sign (it wasn’t there in 1919). My room is less than 300 feet from the Green Monster, which was part of the landscape in 1919 when Chicago White Sox first baseman Chick Gandil sat with Hub gambler Joseph “Sport” Sullivan and agreed to get some teammates to throw the upcoming World Series against the Cincinnati Reds.

It's a good read, but Shank simply can't help himself and mars it by mentioning Deflategate one more time, as well as working in a reference to the chicken & beer fiasco five years ago.

Fine Their Asses!

Shank wasn't happy about last night's game:

Doug Pederson is a disgrace to professional sports.

— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) January 4, 2021

In fact - he was so pissed off about it he cranked out a column calling for some heads:

NFL should come down on the Eagles for Sunday night’s performance

Maybe they should, but they probably won't.

The Philadelphia Eagles are a disgrace and should be punished by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.

The Eagles intentionally lost a “Sunday Night Football” game that had massive playoff implications for two other franchises. Philadelphia’s tank job served to improve its draft position from ninth to sixth, so the league should take away that first-round pick. Then fine the owner, suspend coach Doug Pederson, and apologize to all of us for insulting our intelligence and allowing Philly to throw a game.

Remember Deflategate? The Patriots lost their first-round pick, a fourth-rounder, got fined a million bucks, and saw Tom Brady suspended four games just for taking a little air out of the footballs. The Patriots were punished for breaching the integrity of the game. Tampering with the footballs was deemed a competition violation.

Based on that premise, his logic is sound. However, to use Shank's phraseology Deflategate was a bag job of a punishment and doing the same thing here would establish an ability to second guess a coaching decision, which is somewhat defensible were it not for the three pick improvement in draft pick. I'd be on board with that one at least being pushed back to the original slot; maybe taking it away completely would be a useful deterrent for future wannabe tank artists.

The rest of the column's worth reading and it'll be interesting to see what NFL commissioner Goddell does with this hot potato.

Shank's Second Victory Lap

Tom Brady's four game suspension for his 'involvement' with DeflateGate was upheld by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, and Shank couldn't be happier about it.

In a 20-page decision that was released at 2:32 p.m. Tuesday, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell upheld Tom Brady’s four-game Deflategate suspension. In the day’s most shocking revelation, the commissioner revealed that Brady ordered his assistant to destroy his cellphone on the same day (March 6) Brady was interviewed by NFL investigator Ted Wells. Brady did not disclose this development for several months and it was not confirmed until the day of his suspension appeal hearing, June 23.

What do you say now, Patriot fans? Still think the NFL is out to get the Patriots? Still think Tom Brady is clean? Still think this is a witch hunt?

Of course you do. And that is why at a time when you should be embarrassed, you are probably emboldened.

Please. Give up. It’s time for local loyalists to parachute down from Planet Patriot and get in touch with reality. Stop twisting yourselves into knots to justify the petty crimes and coverups of the Patriots and their quarterback.

Predictions

1) Will Shank tweet before and during the game?
2) How many tweets will contain the following - defer the kickoff, double score and / or tomato cans?
3) Any more comparisons of Deflategate and the Red Sox' sign stealing saga?

Leave your own predictions in the comments.

It's On

In a Federal court filing a few hours ago, Tom Brady and the NFLPA sued the NFL, mentioning numerous items conveniently ignored by the 'ace' Boston Globe columnist:

Thumbing its nose at the Peterson order, Commissioner Goodell’s Award upholds Brady’s four-game suspension in its entirety despite the undisputed arbitration record of several egregious notice defects: Brady had no notice of the disciplinary standards that would be applied to him; no notice of the disciplinary policies that would be applied; and no notice of the potential penalties. In fact, the NFL collectively bargained over the punishments (fines, not suspensions) for alleged equipment tampering by players-including those designed to gain a competitive advantage-and was not free to disregard that CBA bargain and subject Brady to other standards, policies, and penalties without any notice at all.

Read the whole thing, and compare & contrast it to the completely one-sided bullshit posted by Shank in his most recent column and in previous Deflategate columns. It would leave no doubt whatsoever that Shank's been grinding an axe on this issue the entire time.

UPDATE, AT 10:50 pm - Is it even worse for the NFL?

Page 5

“10. On May 6, many months and many millions of dollars in legal fees later, Paul, Weiss and the NFL issued the ‘Wells Report’ summarizing the findings from their investigation. The purportedly independent Wells Report was edited by Pash, the NFL’s General Counsel, before its public release “

If I may be granted a moment to second guess (and why the hell not?), a word or two of advice to the 'ace' Boston Globe columnist. While this DSW blogger may not have done a ton of research into this matter, it's bloody obvious that neither did you, Shank. You might have tried considering the merits of both parties involved before running your mouth once again, producing another anti-Patriots screed in order to perhaps avenge that disinvitation to the 1995 Super Bowl party, this research being something someone of your 'stature' in the local journalism community is expected to do and not further contribute to the decline in quality in your sports section and your newspaper in general.

Dan Shaughnessy, Still An Asshole

The Boston Bruins have won five of their last seven games before tonight's All-Star game, the Boston Celtics have won five of their last six games, the Beanpot starts tomorrow (Go, Northeastern!), and spring training for the Boston Red sox starts in less then three weeks.

Naturally, the Boston Globe's sole sports columnist decides to devote a fourth consecutive column to taking yet another shot at the New England Patriots, using the old shopworn techniques of fiction, speculation and conjecture to drive the point home:

Patriots would have been Super Bowl’s biggest story

This is the story you should be reading today . . .

SAN FRANCISCO — Football America is agog waiting for Super Bowl 50, where the New England Patriots will play the 17-1 Carolina Panthers next Sunday night at Levi’s Stadium. The Pats hope to become the fourth team in NFL history to win at least five Lombardi trophies.

Still basking in the glow of their pulsating overtime victory over the Denver Broncos in the AFC Championship game, the Patriots arrived here late Sunday night and each member of New England’s holy trinity of leaders delivered a few remarks upon arrival in the City By The Bay.

We here at Dan Shaughnessy Watch cannot stress this point enough - this column, and nearly every one he writes about the Patriots, does not contain an ounce of honesty or sincerity in any of them. This is glaringly evident in the following paragraph:

“It’s great to be back here in the big game,’’ said Patriots owner Robert Kraft. “On behalf of my family and myself, I want to remind you that we are all Patriots. I would also like to remind you again that we did nothing wrong in that Deflategate matter. Even though I rolled over at the league meetings and accepted the largest fine in league history, and the loss of two draft picks, including a first-rounder, I would expect that the league would apologize to our team and to Coach [Bill] Belichick and Tom Brady for what they have had to endure. A year later, I am still disappointed in how this has been handled.’’

...and this one:

After their cross-country flight (Steve Burton, Richard Berman, Jim McNally, and Alex Guerrero all made the trip with the team, as did the Krafts’ custom-built lifeguard chairs), the Patriots retreated to their Super Bowl hotel headquarters inside the old prison walls on the island of Alcatraz.

Pass on the rest of the column; it's dripping with the same levels of raw hate and sarcasm as the above sampled paragraphs.

I wonder what Shank will be talking about on Zo and Bertrand come Tuesday morning? Is he really this predictable? If I was a member of the 98.5 management team calling the shots and knowing this would be his material, I'd tell him to take the week off.

Deflategate Is Over

As expected, the obligatory Shank column:

Let’s acknowledge once again that this was a minor infraction, never proved by the NFL. But the Patriots dug their own grave by behaving like a guilty party from the jump. The Patriots did everything a guilty man does. They failed to produce the equipment guys after damning texts were found. They suspended said employees and refused to talk about them or make them available. They issued their own version of events, the embarrassing “Wells Report In Context,” then summoned media friends from across the land to slaughter Roger Goodell — an easy errand. Brady destroyed his cellphone when he was suppposed to meet with Ted Wells.

But if it gives Shank another chance to shit on Robert Kraft, it's all good.