Tom Brady’s Injury Not Serious

Brandon LaFell, Scott Chandler, Keyshawn Martin and Chris Harper have all had forgettable stretches. Coming into Sunday the loss of LeGarrette Blount continued to loom large and they haven’t had much of a ground game this season, so it was obvious that New England planned on trying to address that by giving Jackson a bigger workload. New England dropped to the No. 2 seed. Defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh played like a beast hit Brady low. Offensive lineman Sebastien Vollmer missed the finale with an ankle injury.

-Linebacker Dont’a Hightower (knee) was inactive in Miami after failing to finish the previous two games to the injury.

Brady didn’t miss a play until the Patriots plugged in Jimmy Garoppolo for the final four snaps with a 10-point deficit. “I just do what I can to make sure that decision is in my favor”.

Brady said on his weekly radio appearance it’s just part of football to have pain after 17 weeks.

“I’m pretty sore”, Brady said, “but I’ll be all right”. “I always want to be in there fighting with my teammates”. Believe me, I’ll be doing everything I can to be out there. “What are you talking about, I mean everybody played”. And right now, we definitely have to hit the reset button and get ready to go… But more upsetting to the Patriots was the possibility that his injury could affect him when they return to play Cincinnati, Houston or Kansas City on January 16.

“We’ll find out where we are in a couple weeks”. “We’re going to try to take advantage of the time we have and use it as productively as possible as it relates to us and as it relates to who the potential opponents are”.

The same applies to anyone who might be interested in joining this franchise, taking the head coaching job for a team that hasn’t produced a winning season since 2008.

Like McCourty, fellow captain Matthew Slater is grateful for the week off from game competition as the team prepares to defend its Super Bowl crown.

“We obviously didn’t do enough things well enough today to win”, Belichick said. The regular season, no matter how it ended, is in the rearview, and now the focus is one game – but three teams. Brady achieved a career high in completions…. Brady should’ve rested the rest of the game after getting banged up.

“It wasn’t the season we wanted to have”, Tannehill said, “but you get to leave with a good taste in your mouth, and that’s what we wanted”. McCourty and cornerback Logan Ryan struggled mightily in coverage, at times in conjunction with each other. He was not intercepted and was sacked just once.

Tannehill hooked up with Greg Jennings for 31 yards on the next drive, and then got the Dolphins into the end zone with a 15-yard strike to DeVante Parker.

And when the divisional round takes place, Brady says the Pats will be a “different team”. Miami recently fired Dennis Hickey, and replaced him with long time director of college scouting Chris Grier.

Coach Bill Belichick delivered much the same message Monday during his conference call. If it was not for the Patriots 10-0 start the Jets may have posed a serious threat to the patriots for AFC East crown.

-The Patriots are not playing their best football heading into the bye week. An MRI on Monday revealed no fractures and Brady is expected to be ready for the first playoff game. We didn’€™t have many possession in the first half. The Pats seemed to lack motivation and the only form of execution they showed was their own, on-field suicide.