Happy Trails To Michael Jenkins, We Hardly Knew Ya

Odds are that nobody thought Michael Jenkins was going to make the Patriots 53-man roster (which will be decided on August 31) heading into the 2013 NFL regular season or at least he wouldn't have much of an impact if he did. New England took any intrigue (haha yeah right) out of the equation by releasing the 10-year veteran wide receiver this afternoon.

If they are healthy, I feel like the five receivers (assuming they carry that many on their active roster) heading into the September 8 opener at Buffalo will be Danny Amendola, Aaron Dobson, Julian Edelman, Josh Boyce and KenBrell Thompkins. Of course, they could always pick up another veteran that gets cut by another team before Week 1. In fact, I hope they do that since looking at that aforementioned list, you have to wonder how they'll do when the games get real.

In other Pats news, after giving heart attacks to Pats fans around the world yesterday afternoon, Tom Brady appears to be fine (albeit with a new brace on his left knee) at their walk-through for tomorrow's second preseason game (vs. Tampa Bay). Exhale.

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"Who Needs Experienced Receivers?"-The New England Patriots

We are less than a week away from the 2013 training camp starting for the New England Patriots and at the moment, their top three wide receivers are Danny Amendola, Julian Edelman and Michael Jenkins. Um, holy shit! The news that they released receiver Donald Jones today without ever taking a snap in preseason or regular season wasn't particularly noteworthy on the surface except when you consider all the issues surrounding their passing game. Aaron Hernandez is in jail (bet you didn't know that), Rob Gronkowski had more surgeries than that poor bastard in Operation while Wes Welker is now playing in Denver and Brandon Lloyd is a free agent. It makes you wonder what Tom Brady thinks about all these developments (hint: it can't be good).

This heaps more undue pressure on rookie wide receivers Aaron Dobson and Josh Boyce, who I can't say I know much about either way. The best we can hope is that New England changes its identity to more of a running the ball to set up the pass (something which basically doesn't exist in today's NFL) offense coupled with a good defense. Yikes. Thankfully for the Pats, they still compete in the worst division in the NFL and sports so no matter how bad things look in the preseason, they should still find a way to go at worst 4-2 against the miserable Dolphins, Jets and Bills thus winning their millionth AFC East title (woo!) in a row.

It's hard to remember a time in the past decade (since it never occurred) during their amazing run of consistent success when the Patriots faced this many issues heading into the season. Not what you're looking for when you're coming off the AFC Championship Game and a few steps away from their first title in eight long years.

UPDATE 7/23: The players won't take the field until Friday but today it was announced that Rob Gronkowski and Julian Edelman will start on the active/PUP list. Rookie defensive lineman Armond Armstead was placed on the non-football illness list. Players on the active/PUP list can be activated any time, whereas if they're on the reserve/PUP list then they miss at least the first six weeks in the regular season.

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