New England Patriots - NESN.com
The New England Patriots will be without three impact players in Week 10 on Sunday.
Ahead of New England’s pivotal road game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel ruled out three players with injuries.
“Statuses would be, Rhamondre (Stevenson) will be out, Kayshoun (Boutte) will be out, and (Christian) Elliss will be out,” Vrabel said to the media, via Mike Reiss of ESPN.
Stevenson is dealing with a toe injury and will miss his second-straight game due to the injury. With the running back out, TreVeyon Henderson figures to be the starter with Terrell Jennings serving as the backup.
Boutte, meanwhile, is out with a hamstring injury. Boutte suffered the injury during the second quarter in the Patriots’ 24-23 win over the Atlanta Falcons. He failed to record a catch on just one target.
The final player that Vrabel ruled out is Elliss with a hip injury. Elliss is a starting linebacker for the Patriots who recorded five tackles in New England’s Week 9 win over Atlanta.
The Patriots will look to extend their win streak to seven games on Sunday when New England plays the Buccaneers, which Vrabel knows will be a difficult task, especially going against Tampa Bay’s offense.
“A lot of stuff before the snap we’ll have to be great with,” Vrabel said on Wednesday. “Just the motions and the shifts. And again, give them credit, they’ve got guys going in different spots, jet motions and fly motions getting guys open because defenses are having issues with their eyes, they’re looking at this tight end, the other one’s releasing and he’s wide open.
“Baker can extend plays or even manufacture the keepers to both sides. It’s not like he’s just moving the pocket one direction. If you give him a clean look, he’s going to be able to function extremely well. And then they’ve got backs that can really hurt you. It’s downtown to get it to one of these backs and then it’s an open field tackle drill. They’ve created X plays that way and they’re hard to tackle.”
New England is a 2.5-point underdog against Tampa Bay on Sunday.
