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According to multiple reports, New England Patriots wide receiver Danny Amendola did not travel with the team and will not play on Sunday Night Football against the Denver Broncos.
Per @STEVEBURTONWBZ, who had it first, yes, Amendola is out. He's not even traveling with the Pats to Denver. https://t.co/R2oHwtnYKd
— Andrew Mason (@MaseDenver) November 28, 2015
Amendola was listed as questionable for Sunday Nights game when the injury report was released Friday night, but rumors began to swirl that he would be out late that night. Amendola suffered a knee injury during the third quarter of Monday Nights game against the Buffalo Bills.
The Patriots offense comes into Denver with a very banged up offense. They have lost running back Dion Lewis and wide receiver Julian Edelman for the season, and now receiver Danny Amendola for Sunday Nights game. To make things worse for them they just put wide receiver Aaron Dobson on the IR, and backup receiver Keshawn Martin has missed the past five games with a hamstring injury, and is listed as questionable for Sunday's game. This leaves veteran Brandon LaFell and Chris Harper as the Patriots healthy wide receivers.
I haven't even talked about the Patriots offensive line struggles yet.
Yes, the Patriots still have the beast of a tight end in Rob Gronkowski to worry about, but containing him just became a lot easier with Amendola, Edelman, and Lewis out.
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I would expect the Patriots to pound the ball, and use multiple tight end sets against the Broncos defense to make up for the losses at the receiver position. The Patriots have shown in the past that they can win in multiple different ways on offense, so let's not overlook them just yet.
I expect this to be a tough, defensive game between two playoff teams in a playoff environment. Whichever offense makes the least amount of mistakes will more than likely come away with the victory.
I like the Broncos chances. They have Tom Brady and a banged up Patriots offense coming into Mile High. This reminds me a lot of the 2013 playoff game between these two teams.