Glenn’s Injury Becoming Fishy
🕑 Read Time: 4 minutes
Posted Under: 2001 Patriots Season
🕑 Read Time: 4 minutes
New England Patriots > Patriots Blog
FOXBORO, MA — There’s something fishy about wide receiver Terry Glenn’s recent hamstring injury that kept him out of last Sunday’s game against the Indianapolis Colts, and it appears that the star receiver may or may not be trying to keep himself out of the line-up.
After missing the first four games of the season while serving a suspension for violating the league’s substance abuse policy, Glenn received a fairly warm welcome from his teammates as well as from head coach Bill Belichick. By warm that simply means that Belichick didn’t make any negative comments to the media, and actually gave Glenn praise that week leading up to his first game against San Diego.
Glenn took the field that Sunday and delivered, catching 7 passes for 110-yards and a touchdown. All the negative talk about the receiver went away after he proclaimed his new desire to play football and he appeared to be sincere about it. He said while he had been out it was tough watching his teammates play from far away and missed being a part of it.
But all of a sudden the following Wednesday Glenn pulled up lame while running passing drills. He reportedly injured a hamstring and didn’t practice much on Thursday. However after hearing the cheers from people in the stands as well as the positive comments from his teammates, Glenn apparently wanted to be in the line-up on Sunday. It appeared by Friday he was feeling better.
”It doesn’t feel that bad right now,” he told the Boston Globe prior to Sunday’s game. “It feels better than it did Thursday. If it stays this way, I’d like to play. I’m looking forward to it, but if they feel it’s not good enough, I would think that decision would be made at game time. But I don’t know.”
Glenn did make the trip but was listed as inactive by game time and didn’t dress for the game. He stood on the sidelines in street clothes with his teammates and watched their 38-17 victory over the Colts.
By Monday an article in the Globe revealed that Glenn’s agent Jim Gould was upset that Glenn wasn’t active for the game and he reportedly blamed the injury on the Patriots coaching staff. Gould said that Glenn told the coaches before Wednesday’s practice that his legs were sore. His agent told the newspaper, “Terry informed his coaches that his legs were hurting but they ran him anyway and blew him out. After his performance last week, you’d think they’d want him on the football field.”
“The gloves are off,” said Gould. “If they want to ruin Terry Glenn’s career, they’re going to have to go through me. I’m sick of it.”
Belichick wasn’t too pleased with that accusation and said there weren’t any issues between he and his star receiver, saying he felt they had a good relationship and called the comments “ridiculous”.
“I have talked to Terry,” said Belichick. “I don’t think there is any problem with Terry and I don’t feel like I have any problems with Terry. The quote from his agent is just ridiculous.”
“I talked to Terry for quite awhile last night. That doesn’t have any effect on me. What affects me is my relationship with Terry and I think that it is good.”
However there apparently may be something going on behind the scenes that may have changed Belichick’s thoughts about him. Glenn reportedly did very little in practice on Wednesday and it appeared by Thursday the Patriots head coach’s patience may have been wearing a little thin. Belichick was asked by reporters that day if he thought Glenn was going to try and practice.
“Will he try? I mean you’ll have to ask him,” replied Belichick.
He was then asked if he was surprised that he hadn’t practiced after his claims of wanting to play last weekend.
“I don’t know if surprised is the right word,” said Belichick.
He was asked what the right word would be?
“Give me the thesaurus and let me flip through it,” he replied. “I don’t know. I don’t know what the right word would be. Surprised would not be it though.”
Belichick downgraded him on Friday to “doubtful” after Glenn apparently told him that he was feeling worse. He said that Glenn didn’t re-injure it, but that it was simply getting worse.
“When I talked to Terry, he has done less and he feels like he can do less than he could a week ago,” said Belichick on Friday. “Even though he really hasn’t done anything except get treatment in the last week, he’s telling me that it’s worse and he feels like he can do less than he could before we went to Indianapolis, so that’s why he’s downgraded.”
He was then asked how that was physically possible.
“I’m not really sure,” he replied. “I can’t answer that question. I’m a little confused by it, but if that’s what it is, then I guess that’s what it is. It’s not my leg. I can’t speak for [him]
“He’s been getting treatment since last Thursday. We went out and we ran before the Indianapolis game, it looked like there was a good to reasonable chance that he would play in that game. Sunday he didn’t feel like he was able to, and now we’re at Friday of the following week and it sounds like it’s a lot worse than it was last Saturday. I don’t have an explanation for that.”
It sounds like something strange may be going on.
It may be time to wonder if Glenn may simply be trying to sit out and miss time on the field. Gould’s comments throughout Glenn’s previous legal battle as well as his suspension have certainly shown that he has some issues with the Patriots organization, and it may be time to speculate as to whether or not he’s advising his client to keep himself out as long as he can to not risk injuring himself and jeapordize a future with another team. It remains to be seen if he’ll recover his signing bonus which has been withheld throughout the majority of the offseason, and that may be one of the roots if any to this fishy situation.
Belichick has yet to call Glenn out on this whole situation, but if things continue it may not be long until the soft-spoken coach finally lets loose on a player who since his return he hadn’t made a bad remark about. Gould may be his representative, but it’s been his coach who up to this point had given people a reason to believe that he had finally come around.
He said last Friday he wanted to play and “felt better”, but it’s one week later and now he says he’s getting worse. Whether or not it’s his hamstring or his future that is getting worse may be another story.
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