Saturday night’s potentially serious injury to Patriots cornerback Isaiah Bolden has prompted a somewhat surprising decision by the team.
The Patriots have canceled this week’s joint practice against the Titans.
The announcement appears at the bottom of the Patriots’ update on the health of Bolden, who was released from the hospital and will return to Boston with the team.
“Due to the circumstances surrounding the abrupt and unexpected ending to last night’s game, the Patriots will return to Foxborough today,” the Patriots said. “The joint practices that were scheduled with the Tennessee Titans on Tuesday and Wednesday are cancelled. The team will train in Foxborough this week and fly to Nashville on Thursday for Friday night’s game.”
No specific explanation was given for the decision to cancel the joint practices. Either the players are sufficiently rattled from last night’s incident to not be ready for potentially intense practice sessions (which would be completely understandable), or coach Bill Belichick is rethinking the wisdom of back-to-back practice battles followed by a full game between the same two teams.
When Belichick is inevitably asked the question by reporters, here’s hoping he provides a full and complete answer, and not something like his characteristic, “I don’t know.” At a time when rethinking two days of full-padded practices between two teams who will then play a full game seems to be taking root in some NFL circles, Belichick is in a position to influence many other coaches, if his decision flows from concerns that it’s just too many live reps in too compressed of a period of time.
