{"id":658267,"date":"2026-01-06T11:17:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T11:17:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/658267\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T11:17:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T11:17:11","slug":"patriots-injury-analysis-before-wild-card-playoff-game-vs-chargers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/658267\/","title":{"rendered":"Patriots injury analysis before wild card playoff game vs. Chargers"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New England Patriots\u2019 2025 regular season was a major success, and they managed to end it in style as well. Taking on the Miami Dolphins at Gillette Stadium, the team of head coach Mike Vrabel celebrated a 38-10 victory<\/a> to secure the second seed in the AFC and set up a wild card playoff game<\/a> against the Los Angeles Chargers next weekend.<\/p>\n

That was not the only positive coming out of the contest, though. The Patriots also appear to have avoided any major injuries, and are therefore trending in the right direction with their first postseason game in four years coming up.<\/p>\n

With that said, let\u2019s assess the damage after rewatching the win over Miami.<\/p>\n

Patriots injury analysis: Week 18<\/p>\n

ED K\u2019Lavon Chaisson: With 12:46 left in the third quarter, the Patriots\u2019 starting outside linebacker remained on the ground after a 9-yard run play. He was tended to by trainers on the field and slow to get up, but eventually walked off under his own power and into the blue medical tent. After a brief stay in the tent, he emerged and joined his teammates on the sidelines. Chaisson returned to the field on the next defensive series, having missed a total of two snaps. No injury status was announced by the team.<\/p>\n

What this means for the Patriots<\/p>\n

The Patriots had to deal with some injury woes recently, and were down four starter-level contributors<\/a> against the Dolphins. Left guard Jared Wilson missed the game in concussion protocol; defensive tackle Khyiris Tonga is nursing a foot injury; edge defender Harold Landry is dealing with a knee issue; Robert Spillane has been out since early December because of an ankle injury.<\/p>\n

The fact that the team emerged from its regular season finale relatively unscathed is therefore a definitive positive with the playoffs on the horizon. That said, Mike Vrabel did not provide much insight when talking about his team\u2019s injury situation on Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s probably too early to tell,\u201d he said. \u201cAlex Austin will continue to practice and his return to play, we\u2019ll evaluate that. And then see where the other guys are \u2014 see where Spillane, Landry, Tonga and Jared are as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Patriots will be back on the practice fields on Wednesday, starting the on-field preparation for their upcoming wild card game against the Chargers. This will give us a clearer outlook when it comes to their injury situation, including K\u2019Lavon Chaisson and that quartet of absentees.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New England Patriots\u2019 2025 regular season was a major success, and they managed to end it in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":658268,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2050],"tags":[7,1167,249,52640,91604,12136,2326,2094,6,208],"class_list":{"0":"post-658267","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-england-patriots","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-new-england","10":"tag-new-england-patriots","11":"tag-new-england-patriots-analysis","12":"tag-new-england-patriots-playoffs","13":"tag-new-england-patriots-injuries","14":"tag-newengland","15":"tag-newenglandpatriots","16":"tag-nfl","17":"tag-patriots"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115847878867418103","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=658267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/658268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=658267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=658267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=658267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}