After losing wide receiver Julian Edelman the Patriots seemed like they were still in decent shape at the receiver position heading into the rest of the regular season.
However, Monday night’s win over Buffalo left New England with some serious questions after losing both Danny Amendola and Aaron Dobson to injuries, leaving them now incredibly thin at the receiver position heading into one of the most critical games of their final stretch of the season.
Amendola’s loss was the most significant of the two, with the wide receiver finishing with a big outing against Rex Ryan and the Bills. He was targeted 12 times and had nine receptions and after he went down with an apparent knee injury late in the contest, his absence was significant, especially with Dobson out of the line-up.
Fortunately there was some good news and it looks like neither player suffered any significant injuries. According to the Boston Herald, a source told the newspaper that X-rays on Dobson’s foot came back negative, and Amendola has a knee sprain, an injury that shouldn’t keep him out for an extended period.
As it stands right now the Patriots are down to Keshawn Martin, Chris Harper, and Brandon LaFell as the team’s remaining receivers, while Rob Gronkowski and Scott Chandler are healthy at the tight end position. That puts New England in tough shape heading into Denver this weekend for what will likely be a key game in trying to stay on pace to lock up the number one seed in the postseason.
Offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels said on Tuesday that these types of situations are just part of the game and they’re just doing the best they can to adjust.
“You always have questions about who may or may not be able to play,” said McDaniels. “You have to put a game plan together with some potential contingency plans in place, and as the week kind of shakes out and unfolds, you just have an opportunity to maybe kind of center in on what you can and can’t do by the time the game comes around. That’s a very normal occurrence at this time in the year.”
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Ian Logue is a Seacoast native and owner and senior writer for PatsFans.com, an independent media site covering the New England Patriots and has been running this site in one form or another since 1997.
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