On Sunday, the Patriots secured at least a first-round bye and a home game in the Divisional Playoffs.
With so many players in states of disrepair, a 26-day window (the length of time from now until Divisional Round Saturday) gives New England terrific options for getting players as close to full strength as possible.
How will the team approach finishing the final two games, pursuing home-field advantage and keeping guys out of harm’s way until the most important games are upon them? Bill Belichick was fairly detailed in explaining the mindset during a Monday conference call.
“We do the best we can to manage all those things (nagging injuries, more serious injuries and players coming back to action),” Belichick explained. “They’re all somewhat of a consideration. We just gotta try to balance it. Each part of the question requires some thought and every decision impacts other things as well. You can’t act independently. When one thing happens, there’s a residual effect to it one way or another. We’ll just have to do the best we can to balance all those things out. It’s something we’ll have to give some thought to and get as much information as possible because there are some guys that are in various states of physical health.”
On Sunday, Dont'a Hightower returned after missing two games with an MCL injury. He wasn’t able to finish the game. Danny Amendola, who’s been dealing with a knee injury as well, left the game after aggravating that on a punt return.
Both players are critical to the team’s postseason success as are guys like Julian Edelman, who’s working his way back from a broken foot, and Devin McCourty who has a high ankle sprain.
Belichick discussed the process of trying to determine how much a player is used when he’s cleared to play but less than 100 percent.
“The first thing is, strictly, what’s the player’s medical condition?” Belichick explained. “If he’s out, he’s out. Then it’s, ‘Can play but less than 100 percent’ and that conversation continues to how it goes in practice, how it looks in practice, how the player feels, possibly what you’re gonna be asking him to do in the game if you can determine that.
“Depending on what his position is, you can maybe narrow down what the role would be and what you’d ask him to do. How long (can he play) is another question. How many (snaps) and how long? Can a player go out and play two or three plays? Probably. Can he play 60 plays? No, you wouldn’t do that. So you talk about what’s the right number in there. Maybe you talk about that during the game or try to talk about it before the game. But you still have to play the game and there are circumstances that happen within the game that you can’t plan for. So once you get into the game you have to be able to utilize the players available in a competitive way during the game. It’s a long complicated discussion.
Once a player’s cleared to play, he’s able to play, he feels confident he can play. Until that point, there’s nothing to talk about.“
But there’s plenty to talk about when it comes to sussing out who should play and for how long as this regular season winds down.