Will Campbell Injury Not Season-Ending; Patriots Dodge Bullet

Will Campbell Injury Not Season-Ending; Patriots Dodge Bullet

Christopher, I will you take the ball. U people are sick of hearing me talk about it. What are you hearing on the injury front? Will Campbell’s going to be back before the end of the year and I think that’s where that’s as good a place to start as any given how bad the injury looked on Sunday. There were initial thoughts that he was going to be gone for the season. They were going to have to figure things out at left tackle long term. And when I say long term, I mean the rest of the year, obviously, but uh if you’re able to get him back before the start of the postseason, then you’re going to be in good shape. The apparently the the same is is true with uh Jared Wilson. Really, I think the most important thing for this team right now is to figure out a way to get that number one seed. And I think if you go four- one the rest of the way, if you can figure out a way to go four- one the rest of the way, that should be enough to lock down the number one seed. The team that that I think that you’re probably right now at least a little bit worried, not worried about, but you you know you’re most concerned about is probably Denver. So I basically though to answer your question, he’s going to be back between now and in the start of January. It’s just a matter of when. Okay. When will you know kind of or ever what happened with Campbell in terms of will they ever get into like what was he was told on the sideline? Reese was on yesterday. He said that he was still on a cart, you know, well after he had been taken off the field. Um, you know, he obviously was very upset when he found out what happened. And, you know, they can do stuff on the sideline. They obviously thought it was bad. Vable thought it was bad. It seemed after the game, um, will you ever really get a definitive idea of what they had to do? I’d imagine they had to scope it and stuff. I don’t imagine they just went with an MRI, but maybe they did. Uh yeah, I I will say this though, Fred, that that he was good enough to fly home with the team and that’s look admittedly a low bar, but I think that’s again as good a place to start as any. If he, you know, if he had to stay in Cincinnati overnight for observation or whatever the case may be, then I think that, you know, you’re talking about a more serious again a more long-term thing. But right now as it exists, I think there was real concern in the moment that it was more severe than ultimately it it turned out to be because again like you said, look, Vel was not happy about it after the game. Vrabel was was clearly, you know, a little bit upset. Some of the rest of the offensive linemen really didn’t want to talk about it as well. So, uh, you know, you you understand that and, you know, you kind of move on from there. But again, I I think that the big thing is he’s back with the team. He’s in New England. He was okay to travel. And so all signs again point to the fact he’s going to be back before the end of the before the end of the regular season. And that’s good news. And just one final word on that is when will we know if they put him on IR? They will probably make a move here within the next couple of days if they are going to put him on IR because they have to start, you know, obviously game planning and and thinking about, you know, the best possible 53 or 48 or whatever it is that they put out there for the Monday night game against the Giants. So they’re going to do it. If they’re going to do it, they’re going to do it sooner rather than later. And how do you explain the reaction, Chris? We we’ll get to Wilson in a second, but how do you explain Campbell’s reaction and the reaction to those around him? And kind of juxtapose that with the ultimate diagnosis. I mean, you see a towel over his head. He’s openly weeping. He gets carded off. You know, the the lineman didn’t want to talk about it afterwards. And then it comes back that we may see him in a month. And you know, Jared Wilson leaves and you see Morgan Moses go over and put his hand on his shoulder as if a veteran saying, “Don’t worry, you’ll be back. Maybe this season is out.” It just both looked a lot more serious after emerging from the blue tent that it ultimately turned out to be. How do you how do you figure that in those moments? They’re very emotional moments and there’s a lot of adrenaline going and it’s in the first kind of blush of of what happened. And so I I can completely understand there is a level of not excitement but a level of you know like I said the adrenaline is is is rushing. The adrenaline in that moment is is you know maybe causes you to think oh no this is a long-term thing. This is a more serious thing than it turned out to be. But it turns out that hey you know everything was okay or not okay but you know again uh it wasn’t as bad as they thought it would you know was ultimately going to be. Okay. So, the the offensive line have been playing, I think, better than a lot of people’s expectations. Um, and maybe we saw some of these things start to manifest in the game. Frabel said yesterday that, you know, their inability to punch it in when they were down on the on the one yard line. Uh, you know, they wanted to run some big personnel packages that they couldn’t and that’s, you know, that that impeded how they wanted to run things. How is it going to affect them starting as early as this Sunday with those two absences? What do you think they will do to to kind of balance that? Hardy, I think it wasn’t just the struggles in the red zone where we saw, you know, the the fact that they were down a couple of offensive linemen. The fact that uh I I don’t think they took a lot of shots to Kahan Booty and maybe part of that is just because he was, you know, back after a couple days or a couple games on the shelf. I I don’t think that this is going to be an offense that’s missing, you know, a couple offensive linemen. I don’t think this is going to be an offense that’s going to take a lot of deep shots. I think we saw that on Sunday where, you know, you leaned on Hunter Henry, who had a career day 115 receiving yards. You’re going to see more short stuff. You’re going to see more underneath stuff, and you’re going to rely on some of those pass catchers, the tight ends, the wide receivers, the running backs to put up yards after catch. I don’t think we’re going to see a lot of deep shots to guys like Booty or Pop Douglas. you’re going to have to kind of manufacture some yards in the passing game in some unique ways. So, the other thing with the red zone stuff, man, I I just you you really miss a guy like James Develin. And if you’re going to run this offense and if you’re going to continue to do that kind of stuff in the red zone, maybe you need a little bit of an upgrade at fullback. So, just a couple of different things specifically as it relates to the offensive line. They need to figure out a way to kind of scheme things up so you’re not uh you know, you’re not looking downfield. you know, taking seven step drops and looking downfield. What’s going on with the run defense outside of the absence of Milton Williams? It was so strong in the last few games, it’s not looked as good. Yeah, I think I heard you guys talking with Mike Reese about that yesterday and I would echo what he said. Look, it’s it’s the end of a very long stretch and you know, they had that they’re coming off after the Jets game, they had the three games in 12 days. They did have that mini buy kind of built in there uh you know leading into this one and they’re going to have a buy moving forward but you know they played 12 games and they haven’t had a break and I think that they could use a little bit of a jolt here down the stretch. Uh obviously like you said it starts with Milton Williams. The fact that Tonga was not at 100% as the game went on and when you run Cory Deran and Eric Gregory out there it’s not the same as running Milton Williams and Tonga and Barour in that group. So you’re going to see a bit of a step down with that personnel package. So there’s there multiple things there, but yeah, I think that we’ve just reached the point in the season where they’re kind of ground down a little bit and they need a little bit of a break. And you think the buy kind of rectifies some of that. Yeah, some of it. I do think that they’re going to have to figure some things out and I do think they also honestly catch a break because they’re not going to face Scataboot this weekend. Um, yeah, I think they’re gonna have to come on in. Not lightning over there. Oh, man. All right. They ran the ball pretty well against the Lions, I think. But, okay. Without scatter, but yeah, they’re they’re going to have to figure out a way to get back to where they were over the first month of the season because, you know, coming up, you know, they have James Cook, they have Derk Henry. They’re going to be tested on the ground moving forward and how they operate, what they do is going to go a long way toward defining the rest of the season. You know what’s funny is in unless the Baltimore gets healthier, I think the Patriots a better team than Baltimore. Yeah. Yeah. Baltimore is not impressive. Yeah. Lamar just came down with his third injury in three weeks. It’s a toe this time. Yeah. He looked bad on on Sunday against a bad defense. Yeah, I wonder if we’ve reached a point in the season with the Ravens where they’re starting to think about 2026 and beyond. I would never accuse a Baltimore team of kind of packing it in and and looking forward like that. But over the next couple of weeks, it’s going to be interesting to see how the Ravens operate from a personnel perspective because I can see getting to that game on the 21st and the Ravens, if they’ve lost a game or two between now and then, you know, being a little bit of an easier mark going into that game on the 21st. Yeah. Uh so going 4 and one doesn’t seem unrealistic at all. Uh no, no, it it it doesn’t. I mean, if you can there things, they’re problems, they’re issues. Like you talked about the run defense, the red zones, you know, the lack of touchdowns in the red zone. Uh the fact that they continue to give up opening points to opponents on their first drives. They’re they’re those types of things that need to be addressed between now and the start of the postseason, but those are manageable in the short term, especially if you get Milton Williams back, if you get Will Campbell, Jared Wilson. If those guys are back in your lineup, you can kind of scheme things up and figure out a way to go four- one between now and then. And again, kind of hold off the Broncos, I think you’re going to be in good shape because if you’re home, you just get healthy anyway. You know, the buy aside, you don’t have to get on a plane. You don’t lose the day. You can stay at home and I think that sets you up much nicer than if you had the two or three seat. Yeah, it should be interesting. 14 and three. That’s a pretty good record, unbelievable. Yeah, especially I mean given given what we were talking about last year that you know three or 14 and 13 and we were writing draft stories in you know before Thanksgiving it’s it’s quite a turnaround for this franchise. Yeah and Denver’s schedule is no joke. So uh yeah I think you’re right if certainly I mean they might even be go three and two and be get the first seed but it’s very good Christopher Price always appreciate it man. Thank you so much. Uh enjoy uh the weekend and uh we will talk to you very soon hopefully. If you like that clip and how could you not check out more videos from Toucher and Hardy here. Point slightly up and to the left. For more Patriots analysis and opinion, hit this playlist. Point slightly down and to the left. And for the latest from the sportsub download at 985thesportsub.com.

Christopher Price joined Toucher & Hardy to discuss the recent injuries to the New England Patriots.

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