If Brissett is healthy enough, he might have to make another start with Garoppolo nursing a shoulder injury and Brady suspended for one more game before he’s eligible to return.
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Another Stanley Cup or two, and people will be rolling their eyes at the Chicago Blackhawks, as they did at the Edmonton Oilers during their five-Cups-in-seven-years run, and no doubt the New York Islanders and Montreal Canadiens before them and in pre-expansion days (honestly, you could look it up, kids) the Toronto Maple Leafs.
J.J. Watt was a non-factor one a week after he had 1 1/2 sacks and seemed to be on his way back to the form that won him the NFL Defensive Player of the Year award last season.
Even though there was no opportunity to run it in a live practice setting.
Rookie Will Fuller didn’t help out his quarterback, dropping a couple passes. If it does then it would take Brissett out of action for at least the next game.
The New England Patriots have done an enviable job of overcoming quarterback absences.
“Look, we just try to go out there every week and win”, Belichick said during a conference call Friday, his voice droning somewhere between contempt and superiority. Houston never got anything going with any consistency through the air, failing to even more into New England territory until very late in the third quarter. “But because LeGarrette flowed across the formation that dragged the linebackers with him. there was, as you saw, nobody left”. Jabaal Sheard was credited with both sacks, but on the other side, 31-year-old Chris Long-plucked from the scrap heap by Belichick in another offseason find-was also frequently in Osweiler’s face.
That drive ended when Edelman dropped a Brissett pass in the back of the end zone for a touchdown. “I was trying to hold him out of there, and he cut back on me. McKinney just didn’t really have a chance to recover”.
New England, however, could be forced to start their third quarterback in four games after reports surfaced yesterday that Brissett suffered a torn right thumb ligament in the second half against Houston and will likely undergo surgery. But they were able to hit on them successfully, which Belichick explained was a nod to the work that both the starters and the scout team did in walkthroughs that week. That’s a big part of what we talk about with our guys.
Next week, we’ll see Belichick match wits with Buffalo’s Rex Ryan, which will be the intellectual equivalent of a foot race between Usain Bolt and … well … All we could do was walk through them. They’re an astute group.
The greatest coach in football put together the greatest game plan and shut out his former coaching staff.
With all those guys not available to play, 2-2 was a good outcome for this team.
Brissett played admirably despite being the team’s third option. The offense was far from explosive or overly productive, but it was by no means a detriment to the team effort.
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“I do not think he took a step back, ” O’Brien said.
