Mike Dussault

As if the injury to Hernando wasn’t enough the buzz kill just got worse with both Dan Koppen and Myron Pryor having their 2011 seasons ended on IR.

There was some optimism last week that Koppen might return but it looks like the ankle was worse than anyone initially thought. Dan Connolly is a decent replacement, in comparison to the undrafted rookie the Jets have filling in for Nick Mangold the Pats look a lot better off. Still Mangold will return, Koppen will not.

Myron Pryor is such a tease. He showed great flash as an interior rusher in the Miami opener, and now he’s done with a shoulder injury. Without him or Mike Wright things are looking a lot like last year for the interior pass rush. Landon Cohen has been brought back to fill in as he did in 2010. As we said all off-season missing Wright and Pryor was an extremely underrated cause of the pass rush problems, and now we’re dealing with the exact same thing again. Hopefully Wright can return, but after another concussion I’m not holding my breath that he’ll be out there any time soon.

These are both significant losses for the Patriots to overcome, but as they say, next man up do your job.