Bert Breer Reveals New Details on Will Campbell’s Injury & Patriots Playoff Plan

Bert Breer Reveals New Details on Will Campbell’s Injury & Patriots Playoff Plan

Bert Breer is here and Bert uh you were reporting before Monday night’s game about I do want to talk to you about this because we put a video up on Instagram and people were furious some people about what my comments on it is that uh Will Campbell’s injury now people are mad at me when because I said he’s hurt what is going on with Will Campbell from your reporting so he has a grade three MCL spread which essentially is an MCL tear. Um, and it’s not going to require surgery, but it is a very significant injury that generally takes at least four to 6 weeks to recover from. Part of the reason they put them on injured reserve is that sometimes guys, especially at his position, try to come back faster and reinjure it or aggravate it. And so, they’re essentially putting a governor on them and saying, “Take care of yourself.” Like, don’t push it. We don’t want you, you know, we don’t want you going back out there and injuring it again. So, we’re going to give you some time to to rehab it and get back to as close to 100% as you can hopefully be when you rehab something like that in season, but it’s a serious injury and like there’s a reason why it actually makes sense because I I think I heard David Andrews talk about this um after he know. So he had like this injury and yeah he had this injury and he said and I like I I David I hope I’m getting your words right here but he said he heard a pop and when he had it right and so he thought it was an ACL because that’s a tell explain the reaction which explain the reaction like right like where if you hear a pop like then you think you think you’re done. Yeah, right. Like, so, um, I mean, clearly they dodged a bullet here because this could be way worse. And I think we all thought could miss most of next season. Yeah. I thought I thought like the same thing everybody else thought when they were loading him on the cart and he had the towel over his head, which is that this guy’s got a torn ACL and he’s gone until at least the beginning of next year. And so, the fact that that’s not the result is is really, really good. Okay. But that doesn’t mean it’s not a significant injury. Do you play Will Campbell in the last game of the season if it’s meaningless? I think it depends on who else is playing. Um, if you are, in other words, if the last game of the season is meaningless and you look at it like we have a young team out here, right? And they don’t have playoff experience. They haven’t dealt with having a buy before. So we can’t have them going week 18 off by week then and so like you want to get those guys two or three series then you play him with the starters. If the starters aren’t playing I think that’s where you don’t play him. Okay. So but if the if his MCL is torn like in weaker and I know you rehab around it and I know that he can play. Uh, are you at all concerned that just you’re playing with fire because there’s always that concern. No, I know. But in a I mean I’m obviously if I’m the team and I’m Will Campbell, I want to play if there’s a chance at a Super Bowl. But if Rael is building something, if he wants to make sure that all the young players come or you’re healthy for the playoffs, like let me be clear about this part of it too. Like it is common that guys will play on this after like five or six weeks. Like that’s not uncommon. Right. So, coming back as just a football player, being a football player, if you push it more than that is where you can get yourself in some trouble. Um, I don’t think it’s like I honestly think like the Jared Wilson injury maybe not as serious, but that’s a big one, too. Like a high ankle sprain again, like the way these things are described sometimes doesn’t do the players a service. A high ankle sprain is like serious ligament damage. It’s not like a regular ankle. It’s not like you turning your ankle on the freaking curb. You know what I mean? Like a hand high ankle sprain is generally like you when you see a guy’s like leg lower leg bend like that. Like that’s a high ankle sprain. And it’s the ligaments getting stretched out. And um that one’s another one where if you push that one, that one’s like a like if you push it like at 70%, you might be 50% for the next month. You know what I mean? Like so like these are both injuries that have that to me like like you dodge bullets and that you like and again this is like good injury luck and that you haven’t had m like like a major piece of your team anyone on your team where you’re looking like that that this guy’s out for the year. So you have dodge some bullets but both these injuries are injuries that you can aggravate. So, it’s interesting when you talk about whether or not you would play him or are you building something because I I’ve thought back on this a couple of times as we all have the correlation between this Patriots season and the Commander season last year and it looks like, you know, if you’re if you’re playing this the right way, you go all in on the season where it seems to be clicking for you and you don’t just assume that you’re going to build upon it the next year. Oh, no. No. I’m playing everyone for the playoffs. I And if there’s something to play for in week 17 or 18, I’m playing everyone to play. Even if it’s for home field, I’m playing them. But I guess I I’m just saying if there’s nothing to play for, right? But but when comparing these two teams, are there stark differences where you see, well, the Commanders really didn’t have this, this, and this, and the Patriots No. No. I mean, like I I I don’t know. like it. The Commanders, first of all, the Commanders had the Eagles in their division, which is why they didn’t win their division, right? Like, so take that piece of it and throw it out. They they played in a more difficult division because, well, maybe not. I don’t know. Because Dallas and Buffalo Dallas and the Giants were down. Were Dallas and Giants as bad as Miami and the Jets have been? I guess that’s a little more arguable, but the reason they didn’t win their division was because the Eagles were firing on all cylinders. They went into Tampa and won. They went into Detroit and won and then like you know obviously they they ran into a buzzsaw and that was that. I I don’t know what this Patriots team what you could look at and say they have that those commanders didn’t have like I think there’s like a lot of similarities in that like there’s a lot of good veteran players. They did a really good job in free agency bringing in guys who have background in the system and um and you know like that commanders team got hot at just the right time and like so they had and they won two games in the road which like in the playoffs is really difficult and if the Patriots win their division they won’t have to do that you know so um I you know like I think there’s still there’s a ton of similarities and I don’t Like I think even down to like the way the quarterback’s playing, like Jaden Daniels was playing at a historic level for a rookie last year, feels like Drake May’s playing at a historic year level for a secondyear player. Now, um there’s still a ton of similarities and and like the the the buyin, the program buyin is the other thing like the program buyin um with Dan Quinn was off the charts last year and I think you can say the same thing for Mike Brael here. Now, you cover the entire league. If we look at the AFC, uh it doesn’t seem like there’s any team that’s Yeah. definitely better than the Patriots. It’s wide the hell open. Yeah. Like so. But that I mean that creates opportunity for Houston. That creates opportunity for a Denver. Like that it creates opportunity. How good is Denver? All jokes aside, how good is Denver? Their defense is outstanding. Their defense is I mean their defense was playing at like a top five in the league level even without Patrick Certan who is probably one of the 10 best players in the league regardless of position. Do people talk about Denver’s schedule as much as they talk about the Patriots schedule? Cuz Denver’s is the third easiest by the schedule metrics. Maybe not because they’re in the most difficult division. Yeah. And some of that or we thought they were. But no. Well, I mean the playing the Chiefs is playing the Chiefs. Playing the Chiefs. Yeah. Like the Chiefs record used to be well look at the Chiefs schedule. The Chiefs have the Chiefs have like had to go through a gauntlet. Like so I like all that stuff is relative. I I think if you look at the if you if you take a I mean the the Broncos have beaten both Super Bowl teams. I like there’s just I would look at the Broncos schedule. If you actually look at it and not like just some chart that tells you whose schedule is the easiest, you’ll you’ll find a lot of landmines on there. Well, yeah. They played the Colts, the Chargers, the Eagles, the Cowboys, the Texans, the Chiefs. They played the Chargers before the before Joe Alt was hurt, right? Like so they played the Chargers in LA before Joe Alt was hurt. Like there’s just And that’s the other piece of it is like when you played these teams, they played the Eagles at the beginning of the year, but it but before the Eagles really started struggling. But in fairness, it proves out that this your strength of schedule doesn’t have any bearing on how well you do in the playoffs. So essentially, a win’s a win. If you look, at least in recent history, having an easy schedule is not a detriment necessarily. Didn’t we talk about this last week, though? Go ahead. Yeah. What’s your thought? Am I wrong? No, I think that there’s like context to that. Like I I think you know I had that argument with Felgger a couple weeks ago and like you know I understand Mike’s point on it but like I remember like you know on TV they put up this chart and it was like well yeah like like the the three of the teams that won the Super Bowl are the Chiefs and like the Chiefs the first year the Chiefs had like with Momes they went to the AFC Championship game and lost and like that was a pretty battle tested team to begin with because that team was making the playoffs before Mahomes was the quarterback. And so like I think there’s like the context at least as I see it is if you are a team that has already been there before and has been through it before like then yeah like an easier schedule can benefit you because you have higher seating, maybe you’re healthier. If you haven’t been there before I think that that’s different. Like that’s just the way I look at it is like a younger team needs that needs like the needs to be calloused, needs to be scarred a little bit more than like Kansas City and Philadelphia don’t need it anymore. But the Eagles like look at the Eagles when they went with Serriani in a second year, not last year, but when they went to the Super Bowl in 22, right? That division that year was freaking loaded. Like that was the year day ball got the most out of Daniel Jones. The Cowboys won 12 games that year. Like so the Eagles like the first time they went under Sirriani, it was a gauntlet. Now the schedule wasn’t as hard last year, but they didn’t need that anymore, right? You know, like so I think that there’s like context into like where you’re once you’ve been battle tested, you don’t need it year after year. You got we got this. We got enough guys back understand what this is like. Yeah. Yeah. So, I think that that’s the context to it and like that’s why it’s going to be so interesting to see what this looks like. Um, you know, again, like all right, like Buffalo is not going to fall asleep against you this time around, right? Like Baltimore, it’s going to be like on paper, at least right now, it looks like Baltimore is going to be tooth and nail and the quarterback is hurt again. So, we’ll see what they get there. Um, you know, and then you like if whoever you like it’s like there’s going to be a luck at the draw thing in the first round too. Like do you get Jacksonville or do you get Houston? You know what I mean? Like if you get Houston like I’d argue like Houston could wind up going into the playoffs if CJ builds off of what happened last week. They have a tremendous pass defense but their defense is insane. Yeah. And like so if Houston’s got the best defense in the league and now all of a sudden like the Texans have rookie left tackle Arie Ursery the a rookie playing opposite Nico Collins and Jaden Higgins a rookie replacing Joe Joe Mixon at running back and Woody Marks a rookie offensive coordinator Nick Kay that’s why the offense didn’t look great early in the year and CJ Stra was hurt. So now if all of those things start to come together you’re talking about like a Houston team that suddenly looks a lot more dangerous. So, like maybe they’ll wear their varsity jackets again when they come in. Last night that was cool. Yeah. Last night’s like a great example. Like last night, Detroit wasn’t playing well. Dallas was like blowing people’s doors. Like Dallas looked great, right? Like Dallas beat the two Super Bowl teams in a fiveday stretch, had won three in a row. Their offense looked unstoppable. And Detroit kicked their ass last night. and like the lines weren’t playing well and I think it’s a good lesson on how week to week this stuff is you know what I mean like and it’s and so much of it it’s going to be like how you’re playing at the end of December and oh yeah of course I mean football is for it’s a great thing but it’s obviously incredibly overanalyzed week to week I mean it’s because there’s only 17 games there’s only 17 games and you have a whole week to talk about it so yeah that’s part of the reason it’s so popular is because you can overreact every week and uh I I’m not overly concerned about Baltimore. I’ve seen Baltimore play a few times if with Jackson is not good. He does not look the same and they he doesn’t look the same and that team just looks dead. They look dead against the Jets. I think the defense is fine. The def Yeah, it wasn’t in the beginning of the season, but you see here Derrick Henry finally hits the wall. Is that what happened? He He’s He’s fine when he gets going though. But he gets going. It’s not It’s not consistent. I’m telling you, the team just looks flat. Mhm. They just look flat. They I’ve seen them a couple times this year and then Buffalo is schizophrenic where like they look like world beaters. Like it could be like first quarter to second quarter. You know what I mean? Same game. Yeah. Like like it happened last week against the Steelers. Like they looked like they didn’t look good in the first half and then the second half it looked like they’re going to win the Super Bowl, right? It’s Yeah. It’s that’s the thing about the AFC is it’s great for the Patriots and the Patriots look as good as any team, but wouldn’t you be sh would you be shocked if they lost anyone is that is that you wouldn’t be shocked. No, that’s the best thing I can say about them is like they’re like just them and Denver like just you know you’re getting week the most consistent team but Denver’s needed heroics at the end of games and the Patriots haven’t. Patriots have even been more consistent than Denver. Like the just in terms of the way they’ve won games is they’ve just like that Giants win was really impressive to me because you know you had every excuse in the world. You uh and you and you came out against a team that in fairness did play very well. I I think I almost think the Giants would have been better if Dart didn’t play because I know I like Jamus has got a Jamus is going I had that discussion. I had the discussion. Jameus Winston when he finds his best game, that’s far better than anything Dart could have. Right. And he’s so entertaining. Yeah. You don’t know what you’re going to get. He can just be like shows up. Incredible stud, but it’s like he doesn’t care what happens. Exactly. Exactly. Like he’ll do anything. Playground and if he’s rolling, he’s rolling. I mean, he’s incredibly physically gifted. I mean, if he’s rolling, he’s rolling. For all the latest from the sports hub, download the app at 985 theshub.com.

Albert Breer says Will Campbell avoided an ACL tear but still has a serious MCL injury that will take weeks to heal, so the Patriots have to be careful about when he returns. The crew debates whether he should play late in the season and compares this Pats team to last year’s Commanders. They also break down a wide-open AFC, with teams like Denver, Houston, Baltimore, and Buffalo all looking unpredictable.

Image courtesy of USA TODAY NETWORK

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