Team Notes Week 21 2017

With a two-week run-up to the Super Bowl, the New England Patriots faced plenty of questions about two things critical to the team's success: Tom Brady's right hand and Rob Gronkowski's head.

Brady answered most of the concerns about whether the hand injury would hinder him with a strong performance in New England's AFC championship game victory over the Jacksonville Jaguars.

Gronkowski, meanwhile, will spend at least part of this week going through the concussion protocol. He suffered the injury on a helmet-to-helmet hit from Jacksonville safety Barry Church.

The game-changing tight end is Brady's favorite target, and he missed last season's Super Bowl run after undergoing season-ending back surgery.

Gronk didn't take part in the bye week practice sessions last Wednesday, Thursday or Friday, but he was on the field Saturday and Sunday.

So even though he hasn't been officially cleared from the league's concussion protocol, he seems a near certainty to get cleared in time to play on Sunday. In fact, in reporting on Monday that Gronk went "full tilt" Saturday and Sunday, Boston Herald beat writer Jeff Howe added: "Barring a setback, clearing the concussion protocol is far more about when than if."{

It's safe to say there will be daily updates in the News and Views section of the site through resolution of Gronkowski's status (as well as that of any other significant players).

According to ESPN Stats and Information, Gronkowski has been listed on the injury report 49 times over his eight-year career, but never with a concussion. That doesn't include the times he was placed on injured reserve. In 2013, when he tore his ACL on a hit by T.J. Ward that ended his season, Gronkowski was believed to have sustained a concussion on the play as well.

More recently, New England has fared well when Gronkowski has been sidelined. But that hasn't always been the case.

The Patriots had plenty of time to adjust to his absence in 2016, when he played just eight games before the surgery. They also had Martellus Bennett to pick up the slack.

Since the start of last season, New England is 12-1 without Gronk. In those games, the Patriots' points per game actually increased from 28.6 to 28.8, although their yards per play declined from 8.1 to 7.6.

The offense was also better without him on third down and in the red zone. Over the past two seasons it converted on 49.3 percent of its chances on third down and scored touchdowns on 66 percent of its red zone trips without him, compared to 45 percent on third down and scoring touchdowns on 62.6 percent of red zone trips when he played.

From his rookie season in 2010 through 2015, his absence had a much greater impact.

The Patriots were 12-7 without Gronkowski over that span, averaging 31.5 points per game with him and 26.3 without him. The offense's average yards per pass attempt also fell from 7.8 with him to 6.6 without him.

Before he was injured, Gronkowski passed Dallas Clark to become the NFL's career leader for postseason yards at the position. And if the concussion were to sideline him for the Super Bowl, there's not much depth behind him. The only tight ends on New England's roster are Dwayne Allen and Jacob Hollister.

Allen has 10 receptions for 86 yards and a touchdown this season. Hollister has four catches for 42 yards and was inactive against Jacksonville.

Offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels said there is always a plan to adapt to injuries.

"You have to make some adjustments. We always go into the game with a certain idea of how we want to try to play it," he said. "It certainly doesn't always play out the way that you wanted it to or that you had hoped to or designed it to, but that happens in every game.

"So, everybody understands that that's part of the game and when that happens, you just have to embrace whatever role you need to take on to help the team win."

According to Karen Guregian of the Herald, Eagles defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz said he can't focus on Brady's favorite target even if he's well enough to play.

"In the NFL, in general, particularly the Patriots, you can't scheme for one player. If you do, they have plenty of other players that can make plays," Schwartz said. "You have to do a good job against their entire offense. You really can't make it about one person."

Still, as Profootballtalk.com's Darin Gantt suggested, it's obviously easier to deal with the offense minus the guy who accounted for 20 percent of Brady's targets this year.

Beyond that, Brady played against Jacksonville with stitches in his right thumb. Those stitches were removed last week, but the QB said on Sunday that his right hand isn't quite 100 percent.

"I'm still working on it," Brady said during a Sunday ESPN interview. "Again, it was only 11 days ago when I hurt it. But I think we're in a decent place and hopefully it can get better over the course of the next seven days. It's not quite where I want it to be right now, but hopefully by game time it should be."

Brady is wearing a glove to protect the area.

"Just trying to protect it the best way I can," Brady said during a Tuesday morning press conference. "It's obviously an important part of my body as a quarterback. Under Armour made it for me. It's a great glove. It's got a lot of recovery in it. It's what I need."

Still, after throwing for nearly 300 yards and pulling off the comeback against the Jaguars' speedy, No. 1-ranked pass defense, Brady admitted it was a unique week due to the issue.

"Never had anything like it. Well, I've had a couple crazy injuries, but this was pretty crazy. They come up and you just deal with them," Brady said. "I think it sounds kind of arrogant to say, 'Oh yeah, it bothered me,' when we had a pretty good game. So, I wouldn't say that. Doesn't that sound arrogant if I said that? It's like when Tiger Woods said, 'That was my C game,' and he won the tournament."

Belichick also jokingly dismissed the hand issue.

"Look, Tom did a great job and he's a tough guy. We all know that, alright? But, we're not talking about open-heart surgery here," Belichick said in his trademark dry tone.

No one, though, could dismiss the well-rounded effort that led to the hard-fought victory.

Danny Amendola came up huge again with a pair of fourth-quarter touchdown receptions as well as a key 21-yard gain on third-and-18 just before his first score. Defensively, New England stopped running back Leonard Fournette down the stretch and got timely pass defense, none more so than cornerback Stephon Gilmore's pass breakup on Bortles' last-ditch final fourth-down throw of the game.

"This was a great football game," Belichick exclaimed shortly after accepting the Lamar Hunt Trophy signifying the eighth time New England will represent the AFC in the Super Bowl since he arrived in 2000.

Meanwhile, the trip to Minnesota for Super Bowl LII has some added personal meaning for Brady, as his mother's side of the family is from the state. The connection was noted during the CBS broadcast of the Patriots' win over Jacksonville.

"My mom [Galynn] grew up in central Minnesota, a small town called Browerville," Brady explained. "My grandparents lived there, and my grandma died of multiple sclerosis quite a few years ago. She was in a nursing home and my grandpa was a farmer; he was a dairy farmer, had a lot of cows and he farmed corn.

"So every year we would go back in the summer and spend weeks. We'd go fishing in the summer, ice fishing in the winter, and milk the cows with my grandpa and just kind of tend to the farm. It was a great experience for me, [being] born in California."

This will be Brady's eighth Super Bowl appearance, which extends his own record. His previous trips were played in New Orleans, Houston (twice), Jacksonville, Indianapolis and Arizona (twice).

Minnesota will stand out to him.

"I've always felt a connection to Minnesota. It will be fun because my uncles live there, my cousins. We were just back there last year when my grandpa passed away," Brady said on WEEI. "It's just a great place. It's really special to go back there. The last time we played in Minnesota [Week 2 of the 2014 season], I had a lot of people come; a lot of family and extended family.

"So it will be a lot of great support there in Minnesota too."

Fan support notwithstanding, Brady has plenty of post-season experience -- and production -- to hang his hat on.

As PFT's Michael David Smith laid it out, Brady has thrown for at least 280 yards in eight consecutive postseason games. Which means that in Super Bowl LII, he's likely to do something totally unprecedented: Surpass 10,000 career postseason passing yards.

Brady has thrown for 9,721 passing yards in the postseason in his NFL career. That's by far the most in NFL history. Peyton Manning, at 7,339 career postseason passing yards, is next, and more than 2,000 yards behind Brady.

If Brady manages 279 yards in the Super Bowl against the Eagles, he'll reach 10,000 postseason passing yards in his career, a total that may never be approached again.

After Brady, the active player with the next-most career postseason passing yards is Ben Roethlisberger, with 5,256. Given that Roethlisberger is barely halfway to 10,000 and is already 35 years old and musing about retirement, it's highly unlikely that he'll reach 10,000.

Next among active passers is Aaron Rodgers, at 4,458. Rodgers may have several more postseason appearances ahead of him, but it's hard to believe that, at age 34, he has more than 5,000 passing yards in the postseason.

Drew Brees is next after Rodgers on the career postseason passing yardage list. Brees is even older than Roethlisberger, so he's no threat to catch Brady.

Among active players under 30, Russell Wilson is the active leader with 2,777 career postseason passing yards. He might have the best chance of any active player to reach 10,000, but even Wilson, who will turn 30 this year, seems awfully unlikely to have more than 7,000 career postseason passing yards left in him.

So Brady's career postseason passing yardage record may simply be unbreakable.

Or, if it's ever going to be broken, it's going to be many years from now, by someone who's not even in the league yet.

As for this week's matchup, head coach Doug Pederson's team has plenty of talent and production on both sides of the ball. The Eagles finished the regular season with the No. 7 offense and No. 4 defense in terms of yards, the second straight game New England will face a postseason foe ranked in the top 10 on both sides of the ball.

Defensively, Schwartz, a Belichick assistant on his staff with the Browns in the early 1990s, has a unit that ranked No. 4 in points allowed, No. 3 on third down and No. 4 in takeaways.

Assuming Gronkowski is available and a full go, the Sports Xchange believes the Patriots will likely look to find personnel advantages and be aggressive early on in the passing game. Brady has opened the postseason with two impressive performances in which he's completed 67 percent of his throws, has five touchdowns and no interceptions and a 105 passer rating. His ability to take care of the ball negates one of Philly's greatest strengths, notching 19 interceptions during the regular season and two more in last weekend's NFC title win.

With Gronkowski on the field, it gives Brady a dominant force down the middle, a key slot option in the surging Amendola (18 catches for 196 yards and two scores this January), a dangerous deep threat in Brandin Cooks and a pair of pass-catching back options in Dion Lewis and James White. That gives him the ability stretch the Eagles' pass defense both vertically and horizontally.

Many believe the Eagles' cornerbacks are a bit underrated, but they could still find themselves the target of many of Brady's passes on the outside to Cooks, Chris Hogan and others.

Remember; Cooks had six catches for 100 yards against the Jaguars and was also in the immediate vicinity of a pair of long pass interference penalties, which bought them another 68 yards.

It's certainly reasonable to suggest that the Eagles' corners aren't as good as Jacksonville's Jalen Ramsey and A.J. Bouye, and that Cooks is positioned for another big game.

The biggest issue, as always, is New England's offensive line dealing with dominant interior force Fletcher Cox and a rotation of very capable edge defenders.

Schwartz, who has Belichick's respect, uses a lot of bodies and looks up front in the pass rush and has built one of the best third-down defenses in football. As the Xchange put it, "This will be a battle of wits between two experienced, heady minds. It's a battle that could decide the game."

As is so often the case for the Patriots, the running game will be a complementary factor against Cox and the league's No. 1 rush defense. ...

Other notes of interest. ... Rex Burkhead (knee) returned to action against Jacksonville after missing the previous three games. Burkhead only played three snaps on offense and four on special teams before being sent to the sideline by game officials after getting up slowly following a first-half incomplete pass. He finished with one rush for 5 yards.

Mike Gillislee (knee) was again inactive, missing his third straight game. The veteran did practice on a limited basis last week and his absence may have been as much about Burkhead's return to the lineup as it did his own knee issue.

Receiver Bernard Reedy was a healthy scratch against Jacksonville, just days after re-signing with New England while Kenny Britt was a healthy scratch for the second straight week of postseason action. The veteran played in reserve action in the final three regular-season games after signing with New England in December.

Hollister was a healthy scratch against Jacksonville, the first game the undrafted rookie didn't play in since the season opener. ...

And finally this week. .... Both of Belichick's longtime coordinators are about to move on. McDaniels had his second interview for the Colts' head coaching job last Friday, a meeting that should end any doubt that McDaniels will be taking the job. And defensive coordinator Matt Patricia will be announced as the Detroit Lions' head coach shortly after the Super Bowl.

Who on the current Patriots staff could replace McDaniels?

According to Boston Globe staffer Ben Volin, there are really only two options, and Belichick could give both more responsibility. McDaniels wears two hats, as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach, and replacing him with just one coach won't be easy.

One prospect is assistant quarterbacks coach Jerry Schuplinski. He has been with the Patriots for five seasons, in his current role for two. He worked heavily with Jimmy Garoppolo and Jacoby Brissett, and he earned high praise inside the organization for getting Brissett ready to start two games last season.

The other is Chad O'Shea, who is the most realistic internal choice for offensive coordinator. O'Shea has been the receivers coach since 2009, and before that was a special teams coach and a college quarterback at Houston, so he knows all aspects of the game. In addition to coaching receivers, O'Shea is the Patriots' red zone offense coordinator, drawing up those areas of the game plan each week.

Patricia has an obvious heir -- linebackers coach Brian Flores, who has been with the organization for 14 years. Flores has worked in the scouting department, as safeties coach, and as linebackers coach. Like O'Shea, he's also the red zone coordinator. According to Volin, Flores is a coach and mentor for players across the defense, not just the linebackers.

And he even received an interview from the Cardinals this month for their head coaching job, a sign of how quickly his profile is rising inside the NFL.

Given the franchise's overall success, it's no real surprise the rest of the league has been trying to tap into it.

"I think we've had five or six of our people are either general managers or head coaches at other teams," Patriots owner Bob Kraft said, via ESPN. "It's a credit, as long as we don't populate the whole league, but if we're worthy, I mean, I think it's a great credit to Bill and the coaching staff for what they've been able to accomplish."

DEPTH CHART
QBs: Bailey Zappe, Mac Jones
RBs: Rhamondre Stevenson, Ezekiel Elliott, JaMycal Hasty
WRs: DeVante Parker, Demario Douglas, JuJu Smith-Schuster, Tyquan Thornton, Kayshon Boutte, Matt Slater, Kendrick Bourne
TEs: Hunter Henry, Mike Gesicki, Pharaoh Brown