The New England Patriots (9-2) will be playing the rest of the season without their Pro Bowl tight end Rob Gronkowski while he recovers from back surgery to fix a herniated disc he sustained during the team’s Week 10 loss to the Seattle Seahawks. Lengl played against San Francisco when Gronkowski did not make the trip following the Seattle game. The Gronkowski family, however, are not known to hold back when it comes to vocalizing the status of their most successful child, and it should come as no shock that the initial report of the Gronkowski injury came from The Buffalo News. The Patriots could use this formation, and ones like it, to devastating effect in the coming weeks to help make up for the loss of Gronkowski.
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It’s concerning enough when one of the game’s more dominant weapons is sidelined. New England wanted a new, young wide receiver who could take the cover off defenses and give quarterback Tom Brady his first real deep threat since Randy Moss.
The Patriots are going to play it safe with Gronkowski, and he “could even start the preseason on the physically unable to perform list”, according to Rapoport.
The team expected he would be out for the season, but they made it official Saturday. That said, this isn’t one they’re going to be able to heal.
The New England Patriots just lost a prominent piece of their offensive game.
Gill has not examined Gronkowski’s most recent injury.
They continued, “We are committed to assisting Rob throughout his recovery and look forward to his return to playing football for the New England Patriots”.
With Trevor Siemian beginning to come into his own, the Broncos offense has been showing signs of life. Nobody is making excuses and certainly nobody feels sorry for the Patriots.
That’s obviously bad news for the 9-2 Patriots as they prepare for the stretch drive.
So while the Tom Brady-led attack would have liked to finish more drives with touchdowns against the Rams, they’ll take it and now look ahead to what should be a tougher challenge against the Baltimore Ravens on ESPN’s Monday Night Football on December 12. He returned two weeks later against the Jets only to go down with the back injury early in that game.
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The Patriots coaching staff raved about Mitchell, who is a fourth-round rookie out of Georgia, back in August. New England may have a capable replacement for Brady if he needed a game of rest with Jimmy Garoppolo, but it is not the same case for Gronkowski.
