FOXBORO — This is, perhaps, the ultimate “it-is-what-it-is” situation.

Rodney Harrison has admitted to taking a banned substance, and is serving a four-game league-mandated suspension as a result. His team must play without him for the first month of the season. There is no appeal.

Yesterday, the New England Patriots responded, in their way, to questions about their veteran safety, even though Harrison had asked that his teammates not have to supply answers for his situation.

But human nature being what it is, it was nearly impossible to prevent that from happening.

Head coach Bill Belichick tried to get it over with quickly, addressing Harrison’s suspension in his opening statement yesterday.

“Of course this is unfortunate,” he said. “I thought that his statement and his comments (in a Friday night conference call) were pretty thorough. I thought he said as much about it and covered it pretty thoroughly, so I don’t really have anything else to add to that. Obviously it’s unfortunate, and we’ll see him when he gets back in four weeks.”

As to how he got the news and whether he was disappointed, Belichick reiterated that he has said all he has to say.

Six more questions relating to Harrison’s situation — including whether the NFL should have blood testing in addition to urine testing — followed before Belichick left the dais.

“I’m just trying to coach this team and get them ready for the Jets,” he said to the drug-testing query. “I don’t really have any comment on what the league policies are, what their rules are or what their deal is. They have people doing that. They certainly know a lot more about it than I do.”

Belichick does know his team, and knows third-year safety James Sanders has improved a great deal since filling in for Harrison last year, when Harrison was injured.

“James played quite a bit for us last year, played well and did a solid job. I’m sure we’ll call on him to do some things, but how exactly all of that will unfold, some of that is dependent on what our situation is and who the Jets have in there and so forth,” Belichick said.

Sanders, who will start Sunday in New York, has had Harrison as a mentor since being drafted by New England in 2005. He likely spoke for most of the players in the locker room when he said, “All I can say about the Rodney situation is that we love him, we care about him, we hope everything goes well for him. But other than that, I’ll let you talk to him or Bill about those questions.”

Sanders acknowledged that Belichick has called his number, and that he’s “ready to go” against the Jets.

Junior Seau made one statement on Harrison and then steered the questioning toward the season-opener.

“We all love Rodney and we hope everything goes well for him,” said Seau, a longtime teammate of Harrison in San Diego and New England. “(But) we’re not talking about Rodney, we’re talking about the Jets and the guys that are in this locker room.”

Harrison’s forced absence is something the entire team has to overcome, Tom Brady said.

“I think everybody wishes that he were playing, but that’s not the case,” the quarterback said. “He’s dealing with it, and the team’s dealing with it and we’ve got to find a way to move past it. Any time you miss a good player like that, it strains other parts of the team. But hopefully we have enough good players to make up for it.”

smanza@projo.com