The injury of Rob Gronkowski is devastating for the Patriots. Instead of hitting their groove before they playoffs they now have to figure out how to play without their biggest offensive weapon. New England has now gone from having two of the best tight ends in the game in their starting lineup to none. However, that could change Thursday if Aaron Hernandez finally makes his way back from his injury.

There’s no doubt Hernandez can play, but since being drafted by New England injuries have plagued the young tight end’s career. Now is the time the Patriots need him most and you can bet he will step up. The latest is Gronkowski could miss anywhere from 4-8 weeks, but some are even more optimistic than that saying it could only be a few weeks.

Regardless of when he returns, the Patriots are in no risk of missing the playoffs. Barring any setbacks he will be back and ready to go before their first playoff matchup, but in the meantime it would be nice to see his counterpart Hernandez take control of the Patriots offense. How much does this really hurt the Patriots chances? If your confident in your football knowledge click here for online betting.

Head coach Bill Belichick took some heat Monday for leaving his start tight end in the game during a blowout against the Colts. Gronkowski broke his arm blocking on an extra point when the game was already well-decided. Belichick had this to say on NFL.com defending his decision:

“Football players play football. You tell me which guys are going to get hurt and I’ll get them out of there.”

“I think you have to be careful when you are trying to run a team to go up to one guy and say, ‘Michael, we’re going to leave you in the game because we don’t really care about you, but Glenn, we’re going to take you out because you’re really important,’ ” Belichick said. “I don’t think that’s really a good way to approach a team. I’ve never done that. I don’t think that would be a very successful approach to it.”

It’s hard to argue against Belichick because if it had gone like the hundred other extra point plays in Gronkowski’s career we wouldn’t even be talking about this. Unfortunately it went badly and now the team must pay. We all know and understand Gronkowski’s toughness so a return in three weeks or so is not out of the question. The important thing is he recovers fully in time to hopefully play a regular season game or two before the Patriots make their playoff run. In the meantime it’s Hernandez time and not many other teams can bring in a guy with that much talent after losing arguably the best tight end in the game.