With around two and half minutes left in the first half of the New England Patriots’ season opener at the Buffalo Bills, Patriots wide receiver Danny Amendola has left the game, apparently re-aggravating a groin injury he had suffered.
While attempting to pull back on a route, Amendola appeared to hold up and was forced to leave the field with visible discomfort. Earlier in the week, he was said to have looked good in warmups leading up to the game, and had been listed in the team’s injury report, but did get the start anyway.
To that point, Amendola had recorded three catches for 40 yards, an average of 13.3 yards per grab. At this point, there’s no word on his return, but he did spent time stretching it on the sideline and didn’t go to the locker room, so the injury doesn’t look to be as bad as it appeared to be (UPDATE: His return is questionable according to a tweet by ESPNBoston.com’s Mike Reiss; he did return in the 3rd quarter). Either way, this may open up some new questions about the 27-year-old’s health, as he went with a clavicle injury last November as a member of the Rams–said to have been life-threatening.
Amendola was brought in as a replacement for the departed Wes Welker, who joined Peyton Manning in Denver.