FOXBORO — The injury bug keeps biting the New England Patriots.

Rodney Harrison became the latest victim when he suffered a season-ending and possibly career-ending right quad injury on the last play of the third quarter of Monday night’s 41-7 victory over Denver when he chased Denver quarterback Jay Cutler.

He had to be carted off of the field.

It was announced during the game that Harrison had suffered a knee injury, but several reports yesterday stated it was a right quad injury which could take 8-to-10 months to recover from. In all likelihood, at 36 years old, Harrison would probably retire.

New England coach Bill Belichick gave no update of the injury during his conference call yesterday.

“I don’t have any updates on injuries,” Belichick said. “It was difficult for all of us to watch Rodney get carted off like he did. We hope that [all] goes well for him. When we have some more information we will give it to you. I don’t have a timetable on it, though.”

Harrison, a 15-year NFL veteran who is a three-time first-team All-Pro selection, two-time Pro Bowler, and the only player in NFL history to record 30 interceptions and 30 sacks, was the anchor and emotional leader of the Patriots defense.

“Well, Rodney is one of the leaders on the defense from experience and from his playing style and production,” Belichick said. “He is a good player and has been a good player going on six years now. It was hard to watch him go through what happened last night. That’s tough. I feel badly for him. You hate to see that with any player. That was very unfortunate for him and we all feel badly for him.”

State of knee a mystery

Sammy Morris rushed for a career-high 138 yards and a touchdown before leaving Monday’s game with a knee injury late in the second quarter.

He was seen leaving the locker room walking without a limp, but Belichick would not expand on the extent of his injury.

“I really can’t say too much about it,” Belichick said. “It’s the day after the game. We will see how it goes today. When we go to practice tomorrow we’ll see where all the players are tomorrow. Some of them will go out there, try to practice and are able to practice and there will be other guys that we’ll find out they are not quite ready to go tomorrow.

“Then we will go through the same thing on Thursday. That is really pretty much the way it works. So we will just have to wait and see on a day-to-day basis how everybody is doing. So we’ll call Sammy day-to-day.”

It is possible that Morris did not play in the second half as a precautionary move since New England was already up 20-0 at halftime.

Maroney’s injury long-term

Belichick said the reason the Patriots placed running back Laurence Maroney on season-ending injured reserve was because they didn’t think his shoulder would heal before the end of the season.

”It was a problem with his shoulder that we thought wasn’t going to resolve this year,” Belichick said.

Good words for Green-Ellis

Belichick praised rookie running back BenJarvus Green-Ellis for his 13-carry, 65-yard, one- touchdown performance in his first professional game running the ball.

“I thought he ran with good vision and good balance like he usually does in practice,” Belichick said. “Hopefully he can continue to take those experiences and the work that he got last night and build on that going forward in the opportunities that he gets in the coming weeks, whenever those are. But he did a nice job for us and I think he runs the ball in practice with good patience, good vision and good balance.”

roblee@projo.com