The Patriots had one player on their injury report Wednesday and defensive lineman Deatrich Wise was removed from the report on Thursday, so they’re in fine health as they head to Kansas City for Sunday’s AFC Championship Game.
That level of health is rare for most teams and the Patriots usually turned in injury reports with a fair number of questionable players who had been limited in practice during the week. Tight end Rob Gronkowski often found himself in that group and he was asked on Thursday about how different practice has been with everyone able to go.
“Of course it does [help],” Gronkowski said. “When you’re dealing with that type of stuff with a lot of guys, you see what you can do and stuff like that. When that’s out of the picture, I mean, it just makes practice that much easier, that much better. Just go out there, do what we’ve got to do, focus on the job that you’ve got to do and do it at full speed, do it however you need to do during practice so you can go out and replicate on game day on Sunday.”
Gronkowski said that the playoffs call for players to be “on top of your toes and bring it at all times.” Not having injuries holding them back should make it easier for the Patriots to follow through on Gronkowski’s suggestion.