Boston Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy made a name for himself off the misfortune of Boston-area teams. He may have been the only person in New England upset when the Red Sox finally won the World Series (he wrote a book about "The Curse," which was obviously broken that year). But not even he's willing to write that the Texans will beat the Patriots this weekend in the AFC Divisional game.
Back in Week 14, New England stomped Houston, 42-14, and as far as Shaughnessy's concerned, there's no reason to expect a different outcome six weeks later. Here's part of his column from Sunday:
Shaughnessy added that the Texans "have absolutely zero chance of beating New England here next week. And everybody knows that this is true."
We highlighted these paragraphs because they now serve as Texans running back Arian Foster's Twitter avatar.
That's right, it's new-school bulletin-board material in this social-media world.
Patriots defensive coordinator Matt Patricia knows that the Texans' running game holds the key to that offense's success.
"With the run game going the way they had it going, obviously it sets up the play action pass game, whether it's the play action downfield shot in the move game that they have, or as we saw they got the screen game going a little bit too," he said via ESPNBoston.com. "But that complements their deeper, downfield throws along with their dropback game. …
"The more they can go ahead and establish a solid running game, and obviously they have the players to do it and be physical and aggressive, I think that's the way they want to go."
If nothing else, coach Bill Belichick will know who to blame if the Texans win. And Shaughnessy can claim responsibility for ruining the Pats' season. There might even be a book in there somewhere.
