Writer Trashes Texans, Inspires Star's Avatar

You can understand why some New England Patriots fans are angry with Boston Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy today.

The longtime Globe writer published a column over the weekend in which he describes how confident he is that the Patriots will beat the Houston Texans on Saturday in the AFC Divisional round. He calls the Texans "fraudulent" and "terrible" in the first three paragraphs.

As if the Texans needed any more motivation for their matchup against the defending AFC Champions, they've got it now.

Texans running back Arian Foster saw Shaughnessy's column on Monday, and before long the Twitter-savvy star had a new avatar.

Here is the introduction to the column, which Foster is now using as his avatar:

The 2012-13 New England Patriots just became the first team in NFL history to get back-to-back byes before advancing to the conference championship game.

Could this get any easier?

I mean, seriously? The planets are aligned and the tomato cans are in place. The fraudulent Houston Texans are the only team standing between the New England Patriots and a trip to the AFC Championship game. All the Patriots have to do is beat the terrible Texans. One week from today. At Gillette Stadium.

Foster may well be the first professional athlete to use a string of newspaper text as his avatar. It is quite the dubious honor for Shaughnessy.

You can read Shaughnessy's full column here.

(H/T to Larry Brown Sports)