The New England Patriots have truly had a huge blow to their team. Tuesday, the Patriots had to place Leigh Bodden, their starting right cornerback, on injured reserve, which will end his NFL season – before it even starts and after just signing a few months ago a four-year contract worth $22 million.

Last season, he tied for the team-leading interceptions at five and is now being placed on the IR due to a struggling knee from early preseason but the more imminent factor is a torn rotator cuff. The entire move was sort of a surprise only due to the fact that he has been able to battle his knee injury throughout the preseason and was able to perform last week in the preseason game against the St. Louis Rams, which was his first preseason game. However, the knee isn’t what landed him on the injured reserve and it was a shoulder injury instead – the Patriots were very good at keeping this one a secret until they wanted it out.

With Bodden on the injured reserve and out for the season, it’s going to let the other players shine. Drafted out of the 2010 NFL Draft this year in the first round is Devin McCourty, who is very likely to get more playing time than expected as well as the 2009 NFL Draft pick from the second round, Danius Butler, will also get more playing time – these two guys may even get bumped into roles to start.

Apart from Bodden, the Patriots have also placed three other players on injured reserve this year – safeties Josh Barrett as well as Bret Lockett in addition to defensive lineman Darryl Richard. The Patriots also released Terrence Johnson, another cornerback, which made the Patriots roster drop from 80 to 75.

While all this did help New England get to their required limit roster, it has hurt them having to rule out starters for the season but hopefully back-ups can come in and make it seem like nothing has changed – or at least improve this year.

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