On the Patriot wounded

By Os Davis  |   Wednesday, August 20, 2008  |  Comments( 4 )

New England Patriots
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A classic sportsworld cliché of our time: The only team that can beat [here, the New England Patriots] is themselves. While the snarky may snickeringly retort that a second team can beat these Patriots -- i.e., the New York Giants -- more realistic still is that a third bugaboo remains most likely to stop the prospective AFC champions on their most quixotic of all runs in this memorable decade.

What can stymie the irresistible force? Injuries.

Through two “games” – and the term is used way loosely – the Pats have been assembled with patchwork ingenuity and lots of scotch tape, as the hurt beleaguers a roster still laden with more question marks then a “Best of Jeopardy” DVD.

On the eve of Friday’s preseason matchup against the Philadelphia Eagles, RealFootball365.com composes an injury list for the M*A*S*H-looking Patriots. Our speculation is guaranteed to be at least 100 percent accurate; after all, New England Patriots Football Inc. is just makin’ it up during the regular season anyway.

Probable: Rodney Harrison, LaMont Jordan, Lewis Sanders, Adalius Thomas, Kelley Washington, Jonathan Wilhite.While most have been ripping the Patriots’ woeful offense in this preseason (and though it’s very tempting to lay all the blame on the helmet of wickedly bad play from the quarterback), the New England defense has been particularly sorrow-inducing in the six-state area as well. In fact, the mincemeat-making by the Buccaneers’ Dan – I mean, Brian – Griese-led offense may now be officially recognized as the longest nine and a half minutes in recent New England sports history.

Addition of John Lynch or no, a secondary laid bare by key departures led by Asante Samuel is still, well, pretty bare; expected to assist in trauma surgery are veteran Sanders and new graduate Wilhite. At that point, Sanders must start on the New England ‘D’ from Minute 1. The bar for Wilhite, No. 129 overall in the 2008 draft, is reckoned to be set pretty low, and all this former Auburnite really need do is stay healthy.

Most of the others listed here are quite simply key Patriots. At 31, Thomas needs to stay on the active roster because he could well see more plays in ’08 than he has in his career thus far. Despite adding any number of potential special teams guy, Washington is still considered an alpha dog on the third unit.

As for Harrison, hyperbolizing his importance to the Pats' defense is impossible; and Jordan’s energized 76-yard performance in Game 1 made him a rare standout for the offense thus far. (Randy Moss is the other.)

This quintet has all reported back to practice this week after missing any length of off-field action; most missed around a week. Of chief importance here is that Harrison, Sanders and Thomas all sat out Game 2; the optimistic may excuse the ‘D’ on these grounds, but this trio can scarcely afford to miss regular-season action, it would seem.

Out: Brandon Meriweather, Stephen Neal, Oliver Ross. Neal and Ross have spent the majority of the offseason on the physically unable to perform list, and the apparent lack of progress here has to cause dismay in Patriot quarters. Indeed, one wonders if Ross will ever see action as a Patriot at all. After joining the team as a free agent, all the O-tackle has done to this point is join the PUP list. While the offensive line is not exactly without depth, what was once (say much of the past two to five years) the game’s best looks much more XLII than XXXIX today. Run, Brady, run!

Meriweather suffered a leg injury last weekend in the Tampa Bay debacle ... wait a minute, Meriweather plays safety, doesn’t he? And the secondary is ... right. Worried yet, Patriot backers?

Questionable: Sam Aiken, Tom Brady, Kyle Eckel, Russ Hochstein, Matt Light, Ryan O’Callaghan, Mike Richardson, Le Kevin Smith, Stephen Spach, Jason Webster. In looking over this list, consisting of guys who hadn’t practiced as of Tuesday and mostly sat out the game on Sunday, two names quite obviously stick out: Kyle Eckel and Stephen Spach, of course.

Kidding. Well, half-kidding, anyway.

One of the best-kept secrets about the 2008 Pats may well be just how thin the squad is at tight end. The onetime prospective No. 2, Marcus Pollard, was cut last week, and the physical well-being of young David Thomas is precarious enough to have earned the immortal Tyson DeVree a re-invite to play with the big club weeks after he was cut. Scary to think that Spach could be tops at the position by year’s end, but very possible.

Want a little solace, Patriot haters? Check out this dinged-up line that’ll be taped together to protect Brady. Neal and Ross are out for now, while everyone from the still-dazed Matt Light to pine guys like O’Callaghan is reporting some sort of malady.

Of course, all eyes are really on Brady. The Pats’ bad news here is that the übermensch most likely won’t do much (if anything) in Friday’s game against the Eagles; the good news is that Brady can actually stand on two feet and was back to prove it by Wednesday’s practice.

Naturally, cooler-than-thou Tom is chillin’ about it, too, telling the Boston Globe that “the preseason is important, but I think the idea is to be ready for when the regular season kicks off.”

Well, OK. But you've gotta wonder how the mere mortals in Patriot Land are dealing with the constant flow of medical information emitted from Foxborough, and just how the effects of rust and dents will manifest come the September slate of games.

Meanwhile, Junior Seau is still out there somewhere ...

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About Os Davis

Os Davis has taken a twisted route to get to RealFootball365.com in his nearly 17 years in professional writing, working in any number of capacities in the sportswriting, news reporting and film criticism worlds. In print media, Os has served as editor at a few publications, including Albuquerque's ...
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