LANDOVER, Md. -- When your rookie fifth-round pick is a proverbial graybeard on the offensive line, you may be in for a long afternoon.
But despite the fact injuries forced the Pats to start Dan Koppen (the rookie from BC who started the past two weeks) at center, Russ Hochstein at left guard and Tom Ashworth at right tackle (no starts and just mop-up duty between them), not one of the above did anything to disgrace himself yesterday against the Redskins. Actually, they were pretty good.
"I thought they did a great job," said quarterback Tom Brady. And Brady would know. He was only sacked once (an 8-yarder yielded by Ashworth to Renaldo Wynn) and was generally kept upright. That's a decent day's work considering the hard-to-handle Bruce Smith and Lavar Arrington were among the Redskins looking to do him harm. "They did everything we asked. Those guys have pride in what they do and they fought for everything today."
The Patriots also ran the ball 30 times for 106 yards -- a respectable 3.5 yards per carry.
Right guard Joe Andruzzi wasn't stunned that they played well.
"We've played with them in preseason, we play with them everyday in practice," said Andruzzi. "They're here to play ball, they're not here to be backups. We held up real well in there. They had some mishaps here and there, but that happens."
It's hard to say how long these three will all be in the mix. Guard Mike Compton is gone for the season, tackle Adrian Klemm was out yesterday and didn't make the trip and center Damien Woody made the trip but couldn't go after the training staff worked him out before the game. Chances are, they'll be called upon again.
Still, it was hard for them to savor their performance given the result.
"This is a team effort," said Koppen. "We went out and didn't get the win. It doesn't matter what everybody did, the only thing that matters is we're 2-2 and now we get ready for next week."
