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September 3, 2007

Monday morning wrap

Hey all --

As you can expect, it has been an interesting morning on many levels here, as the Rodney Harrison story loomed large over the proceedings. Though Harrison begged the media in his Friday night conference call not to badger his teammates about his four-game suspension, it was inevitable that there would be questions.

Bill Belichick was first to face the firing line, and in his opening statement called Harrison's situation "unfortunate."

"His statement, his comment (on Friday) was pretty thorough. I don't have anything else to add to that. It's unfortunate and we'll see him when he gets back in four weeks," Belichick said.

In the locker room, it was not the ghost town that we expected (like the day Deion Branch was traded). James Sanders, the likely candidate to fill in for Harrison, would not talk much about his mentor, except to say, "we can't wait to get you back, we love you, we cherish what you did for this team" and his return is anticipated.

Junior Seau, who has been a teammate of Harrison both in San Diego and here, echoed Sanders' thoughts, but didn't want to be asked about it more than once: "We all love Rodney and we hope everything goes well for him." Asked for more thoughts, the linebacker replied, "We're not talking about Rodney, we're talking about the Jets."

Randy Moss also granted a few minutes (now this was starting to seem like a diversion, especially since Tom Brady had his weekly press conference today...) and sounded like a man who will be on the field this week:

"I want to play. Will I play? I don't know," he said, indicating that his month-long absence was more babying him than anything else. "That was the approach - to fix and heal my leg and not have it linger. Me and the guys in the training room got well-acquainted."

And for those fans chomping at the bit to see him in uniform, Moss feels your pain.

"I'm as excited as they are. When I get out there, I will be ready to play," he said.

Brady did take to the podium, and did address the loss of Harrison.

"I think everybody wishes he were playing, but that's not the case. He's dealing with it and we're dealing with it. We have to find a way to move past it," he said.

Practice access is at 12:55 p.m. We'll report on who's out there shortly after that.

shalise

Posted by Shalise Manza Young  at 12:02 PM | Permalink