Danny Amendola's Day Off

Danny Amendola had a sheepish grin curl along his face on Monday when asked about the injury that had him sidelined all of last week - and his answer making it obvious and apparent that New England's top receiving option has been briefed on the "official version".

Amendola sure didn't look very hurt following the Bucs game

And the "official version" is that he very proud and very happy - thrilled to be back and looking forward to tomorrow.

Patriots' coach Bill Belichick affords himself some autonomy when meeting with the media because, after all, he's the one who makes up the "official version", and has been laying down the "official version" of things since he arrived in Foxboro a decade and a half ago - but when the players speak, they are mindful of the KGB types hovering close to the scrum of microphones and cameras, careful to divulge only the "official version"...

Which is a line of horse hockey, of course, but what are you gonna do?  There's no rule that says Belichick has to reveal anything to anyone except the commissioner's office, and they burn stuff there - nothing gets out.  So we're stuck with the "official version".  We don't have to like it and we don't have to believe it, we just have to accept it, because there's nothing else coming.

And that's because there is nothing else.

And we know this from years of being Patriots' fans.  Belichick has been feeding us the same company line for so long that it has become an institution in New England, driving the bandwagon while dangling a carrot in front of the media and fans as well as the mule pulling the thing - it's almost as if he feels it's his duty to lay little clues out there for us to find...

We'll probably never know why the former St. Louis Rams' receiver with an impressive medical chart full of maladies and boo-boo's was held out of last Thursday's debacle in Detroit, but one can guess - and with speculation being all Belichick leaves us to work with, no one could blame any of us if we felt that Danny Amendola's boss simply gave him the day off...

...because he was in the way.  Belichick needed to see what he had in the receiving corps if Amendola's reputation for breaking like cheap glass ever surfaced - he needed to build some confidence that his pass catchers could perform without Amendola there to deflect attention away from them - and we'll know how much confidence he was able to garner from them between now and Saturday, when teams are forced to make tough cuts to get down to 53 players.

With New England, it seems fairly cut and dried as to how the roster will shape out, but there are many teams without as much certainty and perhaps even a surplus of pass catching talent that will be forced to release an above average veteran wide out - and that player will be on the market for about as long as it takes an email to simultaneously reach 32 general managers, so a team that needs a receiver better have the players' agent on speed dial and an itchy dialing finger.

Will the Patriots be one of those teams?  Maybe, but chances are they have their attention on defensive tackles potentially hitting the free market, maybe even a safety, a guard or a corner.  It's an opportunity that teams need to have contingency plans for - so giving Danny Amendola the day off was simply due diligence, and ifBelichick could have a little fun with it at our expense, then so be it.

After all, all work and no play makes Bill Belichick a dull boy.