Could any one injury really derail Patriots' season?

Share

The Patriots are the best team in the NFL, so it should come as no surprise that if there’s single team that could afford to lose literally anybody and still be a Super Bowl contender, it’s them. 

Let me rephrase. Lose anybody with the rest of the team staying relatively healthy. If the Pats lose seven anybodies and those anybodies happen to be named Brady, Gronkowski, Hightower, Butler, Gilmore, Cooks and Solder, then yeah, they’re probably in a lot of trouble. But one guy? There’s no single injury you could give this Patriots team that would make this look like a lost season.

MORE ON EDELMAN

The discussion comes up, of course, as the Pats have lost Julian Edelman for the season with a torn ACL in his right knee. 

But what would it mean? For as impactful a player as Edelman is, would it change the Patriots’ season by even one win? Maybe two? 

It’s a weird question to ask, because to say the Patriots would achieve the same result without Edelman sounds like saying the team is just as good without him. That is obviously not the case. Edelman is not a replaceable player. It’s just that the Patriots are so much better than the rest of the league — certainly better than the rest of their division — that they could dominate even without the receiver. 

The same goes for so many other stars. This team went through the postseason and won the Super Bowl with Rob Gronkowski, who is arguably the greatest tight end of all time. 

If the Patriots can survive without Gronkowski, relying instead on the very-good-but-not-Gronkowski Martellus Bennett, a receiving corps that added Brandin Cooks, has seen Chris Hogan get better and better and could conceivably get better production from Malcolm Mitchell (if healthy) in Year 2 could survive without Edelman. 

Offensively, the only thing worse than losing a Gronkowski or an Edelman would be losing Tom Brady, but the Pats went 3-1 without him last season because of their depth at quarterback. Does anybody on the planet think the Patriots would not only make the playoffs but easily win the AFC East with Jimmy Garoppolo as their starting quarterback for 16 games? Would any team in the AFC be a clear favorite over them to make the Super Bowl? 

Again, it’s not about the single player. It’s not to say Tom Brady isn’t the biggest impact player in the league or that Jimmy Garoppolo could march to the Super Bowl with no postseason experience. It’s just about the Patriots being that much more loaded at most positions than everywhere else. 

In most other cities, an injury like Friday’s might end a team’s season before it begins. The 2017 Patriots might actually be immune to that feeling. 

Contact Us