Players shrug off the unexpected retirement of veteran guard Brenden Stai.
FOXBORO, Mass. (AP) – Joe Andruzzi is certain the New England Patriots will recover from Brenden Stai’s unexpected retirement. After all, the same thing has happened before.
“These veteran guards that come in here, they must be scared,” Andruzzi joked on Monday, a day after his training camp competition retired unexpectedly for the third consecutive year. “I heard it was me and (guard Mike) Compton have been running them out (of town).”
Stai told coach Bill Belichick on Sunday that he was done with football. Belichick didn’t see it coming, but maybe he should have: Two years ago, Joe Panos retired on the first day of training camp, and last year Rich Tylski quit after two days.
Stai, Panos and Tylski all play guard, and each of them were signed as veteran free agents. Stai was expected to compete with Andruzzi at right guard, and he had taken most of the snaps with the first team in practice and the team’s first exhibition game while Andruzzi recovered from offseason knee surgery.
Stai, who has three children, told Belichick it was a personal decision. Like the coach, Andruzzi could only speculate about what’s keeping the competition away.
“These guys come in and they come into a whole different scheme and I guess they’re not used to it,” Andruzzi said. “They just don’t feel the love of the game any more, I guess.”
Fortunately for New England, Stai’s decision came just as Andruzzi was ready to return to full practice.
Andruzzi became well-known in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks because his three brothers are all New York City firefighters; they all survived the collapse of the World Trade Center towers. They were honored by the Patriots before their next home game and by the NFL at the Super Bowl, which New England won to cap off an emotional year.
Since those high times, Andruzzi has been plagued by injuries. He came down with a mysterious virus last year that kept him out of much of training camp. He had a sore knee for much of last season, but he put off surgery until the end of the year.
Over this past summer, he did no football-related activity, and he missed most of the first two weeks of practice. Now, he’s ready to go – and just in time.
“It’s been a long process for me,” he said. “I can’t compare anything to last year. It was a rough offseason last year and I wasn’t able to do anything. That whole virus thing just put a big toll on me, then the season came on and fighting through that and coming back and getting a new injury.”
Belichick said he didn’t expect to try to sign anyone else to replace Stai. After teams start making their cuts, that could change.
“I think for now, we’ll go with what we’ve got,” Belichick said. “In all honesty, there’s not a lot out there. Most players are in camp with somebody.”
AP-ES-08-11-03 1807EDT
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