Belichick: We had a little bit of a bad luck with Adrian Klemm Saturday afternoon. During the team period he hurt his knee. He was examined Monday afternoon by our doctors and they did the surgery on him late last night. I wasn't able to really get a definitive explanation on the surgery and all the details until early this morning and I wanted to talk to the doctors and Adrian before I said anything and make sure I knew what was going on. Then I had a commitment here for the better part of the day.
What I can tell you is that Adrian had some surgery to repair a ligament and he probably is going to miss training camp. That is the way it looks at this point. We will just have to monitor his progress and his rehab as he goes along. Part of the issue was that he didn't have a lot swelling in the knee so if that continues to be the case that certainly would bode for a better prognosis. That is basically the situation with him.
We will wait and see how things progress in the next six weeks or so going into camp, but we do expect a complete and full recovery eventually. The exact timeframe we are not sure, but again we will just have to re-evaluate him in about six weeks when we get to camp.
Q: Which knee was it?
Belichick: I think it was his right knee.
Q: Is it torn?
Belichick: He had surgery on the lateral collateral ligament.
Q: Do you know how he did it?
Belichick: Yes it was in the team drill. It wasn't a contact injury he landed on his knee and then he went down.
Q: What does this do for the outlook of your offensive line, does it put Bruce Armstrong any more back in the picture than he was a few days ago?
Belichick: Right now the main thing we want to do is get the information on Adrian and see what the actual surgery and prognosis are on him. As far as the future, we will have to look at what our options are. The events that have occurred in the off-season were that Bruce Armstrong wasn't with us, we did some things on the offensive line and then we drafted Adrian. So, we had made contingency plans on the offensive line prior to acquiring Adrian.
Now we will just have to evaluate that and see what we can do. It is obviously disappointing that Adrian got hurt, but unfortunately some things happen in football and we just have to let it go and adjust and move on. I feel very badly for him because he's worked very hard and was making very good progress, but he'll be back. Nobody is going to give us any sympathy, but he'll be back and he'll get an opportunity. I think he's got a good outlook on things and it is just a temporary setback for him.
Q: I saw you and Bruce Armstrong on TV today at Drew Bledsoe's tournament, were you talking to him at that point about the possibility of coming back?
Belichick: I've talked to Bruce a couple of times in the last week or 10 days and we both knew that we were going to be at that event so we got together and had a brief discussion, a follow-up on some things we had talked about earlier.
Q: Is it a situation where you started talking about contract with him or did you ask him what it would take to get him back or did he ask you?
Belichick: No, Bruce and I aren't going to have any contract talks. Those talks will be between his agent and Andy Wasnyczuk. Bruce and I talked just a little bit about his situation and a little bit about ours and however things go they will go from there between his representatives and ours.
Q: Has he had any problem with his knee in the past?
Belichick: No.
Q: When you get into ligament, wishful thinking 6-8 weeks, but realistically it is a long-term thing usually?
Belichick: Well it depends on the degree of the injury.
Q: ESPN was saying that he might be out as long as four months is that possible given the injury? It's not the anterior or the posterior ligament, which I assume, would be the worst.
Belichick: Right, as I said it was the lateral collateral ligament, not the ACL.
Q: Is that generally a lesser timeframe for recovery than the other two?
Belichick: Well everything is less than the ACL.
Q: Has there been any kind of history or precedent for that kind of injury and how long it would take somebody to come back from it? Do you recall any other player that had that kind surgery?
Belichick: I can't pinpoint a date or a time that Adrian is or isn't going to come back. The general feeling right now is that he is probably going to miss training camp. That is about as good as I can tell you. We will re-evaluate it as we go and see how he is progressing. We don't do anything for another six weeks so we will see where he is then and evaluate it at that point and time.
Q: Given his situation as a rookie how difficult would it be for him to be productive in the regular season if he can't play at all during training camp?
Belichick: Well, it is not going to help him any, but I don't know. It certainly is not to his advantage to miss the time, but there is nothing we can do about that. It is an event that has occurred and we will just have to do the best we can with the opportunities that we have and that he has.
