Patriots’ Brady out for the year

Published 11:20 pm Monday, September 8, 2008

The NFL’s competitive landscape changed Monday when the New England Patriots announced they were placing Tom Brady, their three-time Super Bowl-winning quarterback and the reigning league most valuable player, on the season-ending injured reserve list because of the serious knee injury he suffered Sunday.

Brady will undergo surgery on his left knee, according to the team. He was hurt early in the Patriots’ season-opening triumph over the Kansas City Chiefs during a hit by Bernard Pollard, a Chiefs safety. That quickly, the Patriots’ league-record 20-game regular season winning streak, their string of five consecutive AFC East titles and their status as the sport’s most dominant team under Brady and Coach Bill Belichick were put in severe jeopardy.

“Of course we feel badly for Tom about the injury,” Belichick said at an afternoon news conference in Foxborough, Mass. “You hate to see anyone go down. Nobody has worked harder and done more for this team than Tom has, so it’s a tough setback for him.”

Brady underwent an MRI exam Monday. Belichick declined to provide details about Brady’s injury, his pending surgery or the length of his recovery period. But sources familiar with the situation had said earlier that Brady suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament and perhaps other damage to the knee.

Understudy Matt Cassel finished Sunday’s 17-10 victory over the Chiefs and now inherits the starting job for this weekend’s game against the New York Jets at Giants Stadium.

“He was the MVP of the NFL last year,” Cassel said while replacing Brady on the quarterback’s weekly radio appearance on Boston station WEEI. “He’s probably going to go down as one of the top five greatest quarterbacks to ever play this game. I’m not trying to be Tom Brady. I’m just trying to be Matt Cassel and I don’t know where that’s going to take us right now. But I know that I’m going to be able to go out there and give 110 percent effort and try to emulate Tom on the field and off the field and go from there.”

Brady had started 128 straight games for the Patriots and was coming off one of the best-ever seasons for an NFL quarterback. He threw 50 touchdown passes and only eight interceptions during the regular season last year while the Patriots went 16-0. They won two more games in the playoffs before being upset in the Super Bowl by the New York Giants.

Brady was plagued by a high-ankle sprain in his right leg, suffered during the AFC championship game, in the Super Bowl. He missed all four preseason games this summer because of a sore right foot, then was knocked out of Sunday’s game by what Patriots wide receiver Randy Moss called a dirty low hit by Pollard. That was denied by Pollard, and the league ruled Monday that the hit was legal because Pollard was coming off a block.

“We always taught our players that it’s their responsibility to hit the quarterback above the knees and below the shoulders,” Belichick said.

The Patriots will have to rely more heavily on their running game and defense. Cassel looked overmatched at times during the team’s winless preseason, and the Patriots are more vulnerable than during their championship run.

“This is not the same New England Patriots team without Tom Brady,” former NFL cornerback Deion Sanders told the league-owned NFL Network, for which he works as an analyst. “You can cancel the Super Bowl hopes.”

Division foes weren’t ready to pronounce that, but did seem to sense a rare opportunity at hand with the Patriots minus their former sixth-round draft choice turned larger-than-life, supermodel-dating football icon.

“I think it always has been wide open,” Buffalo Bills cornerback Jabari Greer said. “I think that we’ve taken that approach that no matter who’s playing we have an opportunity to win.”

The league also loses one of its most marketable players at a time when possible labor discord is brewing and there is talk of lengthening the NFL’s regular season to generate additional revenues.

“You never want to see any injury,” Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo said late Sunday. “When a great player of his caliber goes down, obviously it’s a lot more difficult for the league.”

Belichick’s teams in New England have been more resilient and adaptable than any other club in the league. Belichick could sign an out-of-work quarterback from a pool of candidates that includes Chris Simms, Tim Rattay, Vinny Testaverde and Daunte Culpepper. He could turn at some point to rookie Kevin O’Connell, a third-round draft selection last spring from San Diego State. He could re-sign Matt Gutierrez, who was released at the end of the preseason after losing the competition for the backup job to Cassel.

There was little sympathy around the league for the franchise that has been so successful and became more intensely disliked last season after the spying scandal in which it was involved.

“It’s a long season,” Jacksonville Jaguars Coach Jack Del Rio said at a news conference. “There are a few teams, half the teams, not real happy today and the other half are feeling pretty good. That’s the way it is every Monday in this league.”

Cassel said a week of working with the first-string offense on the practice field would help him as he readied to make his first NFL start. The fourth-year pro, a former seventh-round draft pick, wasn’t even a starter in college. He backed up future NFL quarterbacks Carson Palmer and Matt Leinart at the University of Southern California.

“We all just have to do our jobs,” Belichick said. “That’s what every player has to do. … (Brady) played one position. He played it very well. There will be somebody else playing that position now. I have a lot of confidence in Matt and everybody else does, too.”