The Patriots have spent the last two games without Harold Landry as the veteran pass rusher has dealt with a lingering knee injury. But with the playoffs just days away, Landry has begun to ramp back up.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Thursday] was the first time in a couple of weeks we could see him running around. We\u2019ll put the film on and see exactly how it looks, but he\u2019s been rehabbing his butt off,\u201d outside linebackers coach Mike Smith said Thursday. \u201cHe\u2019s been in this game long enough to know how important the playoffs are and how hard it is to get to the playoffs. He hasn\u2019t taken a day off since we let him rest. We\u2019ll see how it looks today, talk to the training staff and Vrabes, and go from there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Landry has nursed a knee injury for most of the season, one he first appeared to suffer all the way back in Week 6 against the New Orleans Saints. The 32-year old\u2019s practice participation had then been managed throughout the season before New England ultimately decided to hold him out of their final two regular season contests.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s been banged up a little bit all year and there\u2019s certain things that people just don\u2019t realize and how tough that kid is,\u201d Smith said. \u201cCame to a decision in the last couple weeks to rest him just to get him some rest, kind of forced it on him because he wants to be out there. But to get him back, and he never missed a day. He was here in meetings like he was preparing, had all his notepads out, his pens and different color pens and all that stuff. It\u2019s just big for the room.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Landry\u2019s absence, the Patriots relied more on veteran Anfernee Jennings and rookie Elijah Ponder across from K\u2019Lavon Chaisson.<\/p>\n
While the duo filled in adamantly for Landry \u2014 with Smith sharing Jennings was named player of the game on defense in recent weeks and Ponder recorded another sack in the season finale \u2014 the captain\u2019s presence back along the edge will be a welcomed boost in a win-or-go-home contest Sunday night.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo see him out there running around, I\u2019m not going to lie, makes you feel better as a coach,\u201d Smith said. \u201cFeel a little more comfortable knowing that you got one of your best players coming back, hopefully. We\u2019ll see how it looks, talking to the trainers and Vrabes, they make those decisions. But just his presence man, it\u2019s big.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Patriots have spent the last two games without Harold Landry as the veteran pass rusher has dealt…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":664940,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2050],"tags":[7,1167,249,52113,91604,12136,2326,2094,6,208],"class_list":{"0":"post-664939","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-first-read","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\/115861995175784910","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664939","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=664939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/664940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=664939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=664939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=664939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}