According to the Boston Herald’s Karen Guregian New England Patriots QB and reigning NFL MVP Tom Brady has had two additional procedures on his surgically repaired knee to combat the infection that set in after his October 6^th surgery to reconstruct his torn ACL and MCL.

According to a source on the West Coast who is close to Brady, the quarterback had a second surgery last Wednesday, which Brady confirmed on his website, then has had the two additional procedures since then.

Guregian writes, “According to the source, the fear is the patellar tendon graft used to replace Brady’s anterior cruciate ligament is in danger of becoming compromised. Should that occur, the entire ACL reconstruction would have to be removed and redone from scratch.”

If that were the case it would push the All-Pro’s rehab schedule back further. Brady is reportedly on an IV antibiotic for the next six weeks.

According to Dr. Arun Ramappa, chief of sports medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, “In all likelihood, they’ll be able to eradicate the infection, and be able to maintain the original surgery. What it sounds like, is they’re doing everything they can to try to preserve his knee, preserve the graft, so they don’t have to do another surgery. If he’s had three surgeries, they must be quite concerned about there being an infection.”

“The less knee surgery you have, the better, but he’s a tremendous athlete,” Ramappa said. “As long as the graft is OK and the infection is gone, he should be able to come back just fine. This will just be a blip on the screen.”

Patriots QB Matt Cassel reacts after throwing a 4th quarter TD pass to Wes Welker in New England's 41-7 win over Denver. Getty Photo.

The NFL announced today that New England Patriots QB Matt Cassel was named the AFC Offensive Player of the Week for Week 7 with his 18 for 26 performance for 185 yards and 3 TD tosses against Denver on Monday night.  The outing earned him a game rating of 136.3 the 10th highest single game rating in Patriots history.

Four Patriots QB have earned the weekly honor in the past, Cassel joins Drew Bledsoe, Tom Brady, Tony Eason and Scott Zolak as winners of the award. New England QB Doug Flutie was also recognized as the Special Teams Player of the Week in 2005 for his memorable drop kick extra point in the season finale.

In other news the team made some more roster moves today placing S Rodney Harrison officially on the IR and they signed S Antwan Spann off the practice roster to take his place on the 53-man roster.  For the time being this effectively squeezes out free agent S John Lynch but you can never say never, especially when Bill Belichick is involved.

The signing of Spann also leaves them with two open spots on the 8-man practice squad as those were taken by recently released C/G Dan Connolly and S Mark Dillard.

With the Patriots playing at home Monday night we’ve pushed the Tuesday “In The Red Zone” feature back to Wednesday so without further audieu.

The Patriots looked like last years team on Monday night in the 41-7 rout of the Broncos. It was New England’s fifth straight win on MNF to improve their overall record to 17-21 in 38 appearances and that came on the 600^th broadcast of the Monday Night Football. Hard to believe it’s been around for 39 years already.

We start where we always do with Patriots head coach Bill Belichick’s Patriots Tuesday chat on WEEI.

NFL.com’s Adam Schefter was the first to report that Rodney Harrison suffered a torn quad at the end of the third quarter and that his season, and possibly the career of the 15-year NFL vet, is over.  This will be his third season ending injury since he came to New England.

With Harrison done for the season, the Patriots need some defensive help and four names keep popping into my head. Those being CB Ty Law, S John Lynch, LB Rosevelt Colvin and LB Junior Seau. Granted only one is a safety but all four know the system and there are younger players in the linebacking corps or one of the corners who could possibly play the safety position. The consensus seems to be that the Patriots will make overture’s to bring Lynch back this week.

Running back Sammy Morris also missed the second half with a knee injury and there’s no news there yet either. Hopefully it isn’t too serious as Laurence Maroney is already on IR, LaMont Jordan has missed the last two games and another injury to the backfield would leave the team very thin.  As it is i think we’re looking at he return of Kyle Eckel.  Hey is Corey Dillon still in shape?

Reiss’ Pieces has the “Bits from Belichick” after a Week 7 rout of a conference foe.

Karen Guregian of the Herald has the Good, the Bad and not the Ugly from Week 7.

The ProJo’s Jim Donaldson says the Pats were pumped on Monday night.

The Patriots media department released some game notes and we get them from Eric McHugh of the Patriot-Ledger in Quincy.

Monday night was Andre Tippett Night and he was celebrated at halftime of the game.

Don’t forget to look for the official Sox & Dawgs Rams – Patriots Week 8 Preview available on Friday morning at your local computer.

After a great start by the Buffalo Bills the Patriots find themselves 1 game out of first in the AFC East heading into Week 8.

1. Buffalo 5-1
2. New England 4-2
3. New York 3-3
4. Miami 2-4

AFC East Week 8 games are:

• Patriots host the Rams
• Bills visits the Dolphins
• Jets entertain Herm Edwards and the Chiefs

Elsewhere in the NFL:

The San Francisco 49ers fired head coach Mike Nolan on Monday and replaced him with linebackers coach Mike Singletary, who won a Super Bowl with the Chicago Bears and is a Pro Football Hall of Fame member.  Singletary who has no head coaching experience was chosen over offensive coordinator Mike Martz, who is a former head coach with the St. Louis Rams. 

The Cleveland Browns suspended TE Kellen Winslow Jr. two days after he went off on club officials for how they handled his recent hospitalization with swollen balls or a staph infection depending on who you believe.  The Browns weren’t happy with him airing their dirty laundry and decided to do something about it and he will not play in their next game Sunday against Jacksonville and it will cost him $235,294.  Maybe the “soldier” should have taken his swollen balls, kept his mouth shut and went home.