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Despite Injuries, Patriots Already September’s Biggest Winners in the NFL
- Updated: September 22, 2016
The New England Patriots are the most annoying team in the National Football League.
At least they are to fans of teams in Cleveland and Buffalo and Los Angeles—cities where bumbling front offices and inept coaching staffs seemingly can’t go one week without shooting themselves in the foot.
Where those franchises pitch and lurch from one bad decision to the next, the Patriots somehow always make the right move. Where those teams are all about taking one step forward and then two steps back, the Pats are forever onward and upward.
And where for those teams losing has become a way of life, the Patriots are the biggest winners of September despite an injury-ravaged roster.
If you were a casual fan of the NFL and took a quick glance at the AFC East standings, you might well assume it was just business as usual in Beantown. Through two weeks the Patriots sit right where they usually do—on top of the division, a game up on the New York Jets and two up on the winless Buffalo Bills and Miami Dolphins.
But it’s been far from business as usual in Boston in 2016. The Patriots’ four-time Super Bowl-winning quarterback has yet to take the field this season due to his four-game Deflategate suspension.
New England’s superstar tight end hasn’t played yet due to a balky hamstring. Arguably their best defensive lineman is both injured and suspended. And the team’s most talented tailback had knee surgery before the season.
For any other NFL club, that attrition would be a death knell, a season-killer. And yet the Patriots have shaken it off like it’s more annoyance than apocalypse.
They’ve been able to compensate for the loss of Rob Gronkowski with tight end Martellus Bennett, who they acquired in the offseason via a trade with the Chicago Bears. Bennett hauled in five catches for 114 yards and a touchdown in last week’s win over Miami, telling Ryan Hathaway of Boston.com that he’s having a blast.
“I’m just having a lot of fun right now with these guys, I love my teammates, I love the coaches, I love this environment and these fans,” Bennett said. “For me that’s all it’s really about. Just going out and doing the things I love to do—and have fun doing it.”
Amazing what winning (or even just the expectation of winning) can do for a player’s attitude.
The torn triceps and four-game performance-enhancing drug suspension that have combined to sideline veteran defensive end Rob Ninkovich have barely made a ripple on the defense, thanks to the presence of Chris Long.
Long, who the Patriots picked up off the scrap heap after he was released by the Rams, has pitched in five tackles and a sack in two games. Teammate Danny Amendola, who played with Long in St. Louis, told Zack Cox of NESN he was confident a move to New England would fix all that ailed the 31-year-old:
We’ve played in St. Louis, and I’ll tell you what, we weren’t a very good football team for a long time. I always tell him I am eager to see the Patriot Way evolve in him and how he molds as a player. When he was looking to come here or go to another place, I had a lot of conversation about I wish he would come here for at least the end portion of (his) career or at least a year to see how it’s run, because I know where (he) had been in the eight years and I know what it was like playing in St. Louis.
Amazing what winning (or even just the expectation of winning) can do for a player’s productivity.
With running back Dion Lewis on the shelf, the Pats have done …
