Patriots coach Bill Belichick did not exactly reveal his game plan yesterday when asked how the loss of tight end Rob Gronkowski affects his offense.
“Well, we’ll see,” Belichick said on a conference call with New York reporters. “I don’t know. We’ll see.”
OK then.
The Jets fully expect the Patriots to come up with a way to compensate for the loss of Gronkowski and still be the potent offense they always are.
“It seems like they always reload,” safety Yeremiah Bell said. “When one guy goes down, another one steps in. It’s an unfortunate injury for them. At the same time, we have our job to do so we’re not too much worried about that.”
The Patriots may have tight end Aaron Hernandez back from an ankle injury, although they have not said what his status is yet.
“They have Hernandez, (he’s) great and I think he rested last game,” safety LaRon Landry said. “He’s definitely going to be fired up to play us and he can fill in the shoes of Gronkowski. So we still need to play a ball game as if he was playing.”
* Rex Ryan does not hide his affection for Ravens safety Ed Reed, who played for Ryan in Baltimore from 2002-08. Asked for his reaction to Reed initially getting suspended one game for repeated hits to the head, Ryan praised the league for trying to improve safety but defended Reed. The suspension was later lifted and Reed was instead fined $50,000.
“Ed Reed is a great, great football player,” Ryan said. “I think there’s no way Ed would purposely go out and hurt somebody. I haven’t seen the hits. We all know the league is very serious about the protection of the players and it should be. This is a great game because of the players. Obviously, the league wants to protect the players and that’s the way it should be.”
* The Jets waived WR Jason Hill and LB Marcus Dowtin yesterday, leaving three open roster spots. The Jets are not expected to officially fill those until tomorrow. The Jets worked out WR Patrick Turner, according to a source. Turner has been cut twice by the Jets this season. … Weird scene in the Jets locker room yesterday with a bunch of balloons at QB Tim Tebow’s locker. They were sent by a fan, but more than one player cracked that they might be from an anonymous teammate.