New England Patriots News: Bryan Stork placed on injured reserves.
Stork is out due to a concussion.
With the Super Bowl champions playing on opening night of the National Football League, big injury news deal a huge blow for the New England Patriots.
According to reports, offensive line Bryan Stork was recently placed on injured reserve due to a concussion but has a designation to return.
This deals a huge blow for the team as the second-year man played a huge part in their title-winning match against the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl XLIX. He played at center during that match and was part of every offensive snap for New England.
As a result, Stork will not play against the Pittsburgh Steelers in their first match of the new season.
Sources also revealed that Stork can practice after Week 6 of the season, but cannot play for a total of eight weeks.
And taking Stork's place during his absences are rookie David Andrews and veteran Ryan Wendell. Josh Kline is also a name thrown around that can play in Stork's position.
Unfortunately, there is no name at the moment for who will start on Thursday's match against the Steelers.
Many applaud the strong offense that the Patriots have shown. Against the Steelers, history has shown that Brady and the rest of the team enjoy battling Pittsburgh as their last meeting resulted in a 55-31 route for the defending champions.
Most would be looking at Tom Brady as the engine that makes the offense run, but missing one of their more reliable players in Stork may make the Patriots' seemingly perfect offensive armor a little less menacing than thought of.
However, it should not remove the fact that the Patriots are still heavily favored in the match-up and the key battle would still be between Brady and Pittsburgh quarterback Ben Roethlisberger.
Their match will be at the Gillette Stadium on Thursday, with the game starting at 8:30 PM ET.
