Bill Belichick says players’ preparedness to step up has been “a great strength” of the team

Photo courtesy of patriots.com

Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

And the New England Patriots always seem to find that way.

The team placed tight end Martellus Bennett and special teamer Nate Ebner on injured reserve earlier this week, and the Patriots’ staff was soon on its way to making moves to find the “next men up.”

Offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels and head coach Bill Belichick commented on the injury situations.

“You hate for that to happen with any guy,” McDaniels said. “And certainly, we were excited to have Marty back and looking forward to trying to build as we went through the year. You know, he was here for those couple weeks and worked hard to get himself caught back up in the offensive system and was fun to be around and gave us some production in the time that he was in the game.”

“We only had him for a short time, so it’s not like we’ve had him for four months,” McDaniels continued. “So, we’re going to keep rolling along we normally do. We’ve got a group of guys that are available to use each week, and whatever group that is, we’ve got to do the best we can to put those guys in great position to have success and give them each a role that they can function in and play well.”

“Of course, we’ll miss Nate but, again, that’s an unfortunate part of the game,” Belichick said on Ebner’s knee injury. “We have other players that have worked hard that will get an opportunity, and I’m sure that they’ll go out there and do their best to make the most of their opportunity and provide a high quality of play for us. That’s what a full team is about, how everybody depends on each other and how we need everybody. Hopefully, that’ll be the case. We certainly expect them to do that and expect them to step up and do their job. That’s really been a great strength of our team. Hopefully, it will be going forward and there will probably be other examples, somebody else that we will need to do that along the line. I don’t know who or when or exactly what it’ll be but, hopefully, everybody will be prepared, and we’ll be able to continue to be productive with the players and the people that are in there.”

BB summed it up pretty well. When you play for the Patriots, you always have to be prepared - because when your number is called, you better be ready to “do your job.”

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