Sunday’s 16-0 beating at the hands of the Buffalo Bills might have been avoided if Jimmy Garoppolo had been playing quarterback for the New England Patriots instead of an injured Jacoby Brissett.
It was reported Friday by WEEI that Garoppolo, who suffered a sprained AC joint in his throwing shoulder two weeks ago, would be healthy enough to start Sunday versus the Bills after missing the previous game. However, Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels said on WEEI Monday that he was told “a few hours before kickoff” that Garoppolo was out and Brissett would start.
Garoppolo’s toughness and willingness to play through the injury has since been questioned in the media and other sports betting sites. It has been rumored that he may not have wanted to play hurt because he didn’t want a poor performance to affect his stock going forward with the Patriots or possibly another team that might want to acquire him.
In an interview during The Kirk & Callahan Show this morning on WEEI, ESPN NFL analyst Tim Hasselbeck alluded to this.
Asked how close Garoppolo was to playing Sunday, Patriots coach Bill Belichick got testy with reporters.
“Well, the decision to make him inactive was just like the decision to make the other six players inactive,” Belichick said, according to masslive.com. “I mean we do that every game. Every game there’s seven inactives.”
“We listed him as questionable. So, when we list a player as questionable it’s 50-50 that we think they can play. That’s why they’re listed as questionable. I mean look, you can’t do an injury report every five minutes. So five minutes after the injury report or five minutes after that, and you know, at some point that 50-50 either goes to they can play or they can’t play. We listed him on the injury report based on what we knew at 4:00 p.m. on Friday or at whatever time the injury report was turned in. That’s what it was.”
Brissett, playing with a thumb injury, was sacked three times and the Patriots offense was held to 277 yards and 1-of-12 on third down with the rookie quarterback under center. Had Garoppolo started, the Patriots would not have been forced to play a basic offense, which the Bills thrived in shutting down yesterday.
“We had some inside knowledge that he [Brissett] was probably going to play today,” Bills linebackers Preston Brown said, according to masslive.com. “Knowing that he was going to play we knew we were going to get a lot of passes to our left side, easy one-sided reads, so we tried to limit that and pack that side.”
With Tom Brady coming back from suspension this week, the Patriots will not have to make any more difficult decisions at the quarterback position, but the drama that has unfolded with Garoppolo doesn’t help his situation going forward.