The New England Patriots are waiting for the NFL to make an official ruling on the appeal from Tom Brady regarding his four-game suspension to start the 2015 season. According to NFL.com the decision should be coming any day now leaving the team in state of limbo until then. The Patriots got through OTAs and minicamp while dealing with the potential of Brady missing time at the start of the year and tight end Rob Gronkowski is confident that it stays that way regardless of who is under center Week 1.
While promoting his book Good To Be Gronk, the Patriots' tight end made it clear that the team was not motivated by "Deflate Gate" and the current suspension placed on Brady was not going to hurt their focus heading into the regular season.
"Just gotta worry about myself and worry about what I gotta do to help out the team the most and worry about my job," Gronkowski said, via ProFootballTalk.com. "Just gotta take all the outside distractions and just block them. Put a block on all that, whatever it is, whatever's going on, and just worry what I gotta do in order to help out the team. We stay motivated all year around. We just want to be humble, we just want to go in every single day, from the first day of camp, through camp, preseason, first game, we just want to keep just grinding, just worry about what's ahead of us that day, and just do our own job."
Without Brady, Jimmy Garoppolo will be under center Week 1 for the team. The second-year quarterback only saw a brief amount of time on the field last season, but he did record a touchdown after Brady was taken out of a game. According to receiver Brandon LaFell, Garoppolo has shown a great deal of growth this offseason and the team has full confidence in his abilities moving forward.
"Jimmy has grown a lot since he first stepped foot up there in Foxborough last year," LaFell said, via Sirius XM Radio. "He got a little experience during the later part of the season against Buffalo; he showed a little glimpse of what he can do. He's been having a nice OTAs, a nice offseason with us. I feel like studying behind Tom has been great for him. If we have to be without Tom for the first couple games, I'm pretty sure Tom will be in Jimmy's ear helping him prepare each and every way he can to go out here and lead this team."
According to John Clayton of ESPN, the Patriots are still candidates to add players to the roster during training camp. Names like Wes Welker, Ray Rice and Reggie Wayne have been tossed around as options. There are some doubts in the run game considering LeGarrette Blount has been suspended for the first game of the season. New England would not be hurt by adding another offensive weapon, especially if it is Garoppolo under center.
