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CINCINNATI -- From his vantage point on the Cincinnati Bengals' sideline, offensive coordinator Jay Gruden could see the carnage that was getting ready to ensue. He hoped his quarterback did, too.

Andy Dalton did, alright, but with the play clock ticking toward zero, he ran out of time to make the necessary line-of-scrimmage adjustment.

So, on a pivotal fourth-and-1 late in the second quarter of Sunday's game at Cleveland, instead of running for a first down, the Bengals "ran into a slaughter."

That was the way Gruden described to reporters Monday afternoon the sequence that resulted in running back BenJarvus Green-Ellis' two-yard loss on an important play that had originally been designed to gain two yards. As he took scribes through the play, Gruden came to an important conclusion: next time, someone, anyone, has to call timeout and get a new play put in place.

"Hindsight, running down on the clock, fourth-down-and-1 on such an important play, take a timeout," Gruden said. "That's on me more so than anybody, probably."

Little did the Bengals know at the moment Green-Ellis was laid out by two defenders that that would be the closest they would come to picking up a touchdown the rest of the afternoon. When the day ended, they had lost their second game of the season, this time by a 17-6 margin. With the six points coming off a pair of field goals, the loss marked the first time in three seasons that Cincinnati had not scored a touchdown in a game.

"For us to score six points anywhere against anybody is shocking, quite honestly," Gruden said. "It's something we have to fight out of."

On the play involving Green-Ellis, one that multiple players cited "miscommunication" as being the reason it didn't work, Gruden said a scenario presented itself in which the Browns' defense slipped a defender into a spot that was not accounted for by the Bengals before the snap. When that linebacker shifted down into place, it allowed the fateful "slaughter" scenario to take shape.

Gruden said Dalton saw the shifted defender and attempted to make a change at the line to account for blocking him and running around him. But the combination of a loud FirstEnergy Stadium crowd and a dwindling play clock made it impossible for the audible to be made.

Offensive tackle Andrew Whitworth put it this way: "half the people were thinking one play and the other half ... it was just a cluster, basically."

"Yeah, miscommunication, so to speak," Gruden said. "It was good defense by them. Clogged up the holes pretty good. We didn't get a lot of movement. It was not like we didn't have a play that couldn't work at all. We still had a chance to get the first down, but we didn't get any movement up front and ran into a slaughter."

The play came while the Bengals were on Cleveland's 7. Cincinnati had just driven 66 yards and was threatening to take the lead. At that point, the Browns were leading, 7-3.

Cincinnati went on to amass just 266 yards of total offense, 63 of which came on the ground. It was the third time this season the Bengals had been held to less than 100 yards rushing.

"Yeah, it's embarrassing," Gruden said of the offensive issues. "You put a lot of work in your gameplan, a lot of work into practice, and we have a very talented team. For us to go out there and lay an egg like we did, it's not a good feeling. Hopefully it's motivation for us more than embarrassing. Hopefully it doesn't happen again. It can't happen again."

DETROIT -- Reggie Bush's big 37-yard touchdown run in the second quarter of Sunday’s 40-32 win over the Chicago Bears almost didn’t happen.

Bush fumbled the play before and the ball was recovered by Detroit receiver Calvin Johnson, extending the Lions drive with 2:52 remaining in the first half.

The Lions went to the line on the next play, calling another handoff to Bush. Quarterback Matthew Stafford was in shotgun with Bush a step behind him and to his right. Center Dominic Raiola saw something in the Chicago defense that told him to make a call with his veteran left guard, Rob Sims.

“I saw a weak dog and I saw a nickel coming off the edge,” Raiola said. “We said all week we wanted to hit one right into the mouth of their blitz and that’s really what it was.

“It was a call we practiced all week and we hit it.”

Raiola told Sims to engage the defensive end, Julius Peppers. In doing so -- and getting a good push on Peppers out to the left, he almost made it appear as if he and left tackle Riley Reiff were doubling Peppers on the snap.

They weren’t, as Reiff’s man, linebacker James Anderson, blitzed far on his side. This opened up the first part of a massive hole for Bush, who by the time he reached the line of scrimmage had almost the entire width between the hashmarks to run through and make his initial cut.

In the pre-snap, Bears defensive tackle Nate Collins was initially lined up right over Raiola, but on the snap he slid over to engage right guard Larry Warford. Warford sealed Collins away from the hole.

This allowed Raiola a clean path to the second level, where he was able to block linebacker Lance Briggs.

“We were working on that,” Sims said. “We knew they were going to try and slant Julius and we just, Dom made a good call. Dom told me to go out to (Peppers) and I did and we caught them in it.

“That’s the thing with them, they are really good at moving and when you can catch them in it, you can make some hay. And Reggie don’t need much.”

Bush had a wide open lane to run through. He ran almost right at the Raiola-Briggs block before cutting back to the right side and into the second and third levels of the defense.

It appeared as if defensive end Cornelius Washington was the man who was supposed to mark up Bush at the snap, but he was on the edge of the defense and looked like he hesitated on the snap out of the backfield and ended up chasing Bush from behind. He had a chance to tackle him, but missed.

Then Bush made another quick cut right and -- this is really what made the run -- jumped over a diving Major Wright. Had Wright kept his feet, he would have had a better shot at the Detroit running back.

Once Bush made that move, he had one more assist. Wide receiver Ryan Broyles put a good seal block on Chicago cornerback Tim Jennings to give Bush a deep crease in the secondary.

Jennings would end up almost catching up to Bush, but those few extra strides helped turn the play into a touchdown.

“A sweet run,” Stafford said. “It was a play that honestly we had been working on in practice all week knowing they were going to blitz us, which they always do.

“Instead of getting out of it, just running right into it. Dom made a great call up front, (Brandon) Pettigrew had a great block to seal off the back side and let Reggie do the rest.”

Letting Bush do the rest is becoming a common theme for the Lions these days. Detroit’s offensive line had done such a good job against Chicago on Sunday, the 37-yard touchdown was merely one of the big runs Bush was able to find.

The touchdown was the longest run of the day for Bush, who had four rushes of 14 yards or more and 139 yards overall.

“Reggie Bush is special,” Wright told reporters after the game. “He has speed. He can shake you. He can do everything.”

EARTH CITY, Mo. -- After a two-game in five days sprint last week, we fell a bit behind on our study sessions, but we’re back despite some troubles with the All-22 film on the San Francisco game.

Considering we’re dealing with two Rams’ games -- at Dallas and home against San Francisco -- this week’s version of study session will be condensed, with a bit more overarching thoughts buoyed by examples from those games.

On to the defense:

• The first thing that stands out from the Dallas to the San Francisco game is the increased aggressive approach by the defense against the Niners. The Rams played more man coverage, and early in the game it seemed to be working. Eventually, the Niners were able to hammer away with the run game and it opened some things up for San Francisco.
[+] Enlarge
AP Photo/G. Newman LowranceJanoris Jenkins is off to a strong start in coverage despite some recent penalties.
• Cornerback Janoris Jenkins is playing better than the penalties that have been going against him might indicate. He’s been victimized by some borderline calls, the type of calls that second-year players don’t normally get against veterans like Anquan Boldin. But Jenkins was sticky in coverage and seems to be timing his attempts at pass breakups better. It was actually a bit surprising the Rams didn’t shadow Boldin with Jenkins given the Niners’ lack of other pass-catching threats.
• The other player who showed up against San Francisco was middle linebacker James Laurinaitis. He had probably his best game of the season with 12 tackles, and broke up a pair of deep passes down the field.
• Unfortunately for the Rams, there wasn’t much more to write home about, especially in trying to stop running back Frank Gore.
• The Rams greatly missed William Hayes (knee injury) in this game. Ends Chris Long and Robert Quinn struggled to set the edge, and tackles Michael Brockers and Kendall Langford didn’t get much push up the middle.
• On a pair of Gore’s long runs, including his 34-yard touchdown, Brockers and Langford get wiped out and it allows a blocker to get to the second level to remove the linebackers. Niners guard Mike Iupati pulls right on Gore’s touchdown, and is able to bury Alec Ogletree and open the path to the end zone, in no small part because the defensive tackles are taken out of the play.
• In last season’s two meetings with the Niners, the Rams had great success against Colin Kaepernick by turning up the heat with the blitz. This season, not so much. The Rams blitzed 10 times, less than the 60 percent rate they did in 2012, and Kaepernick had success against it. Although the Rams got home for a sack once, Kaepernick completed seven-of-eight for 71 yards and two touchdowns.
• The Rams don’t seem to be getting home much on the blitz at all this season, and many of the blitzes seem to be telegraphed. Slow-developing blitzes such as the one that came on Kaepernick’s first touchdown pass to Boldin seem to keep popping up. On that play, the Rams rushed just three down linemen, but then linebackers Ogletree and Laurinaitis circled around to the right side. Neither got anywhere near Kaepernick, who got the ball out quick as Boldin beat the struggling Cortland Finnegan for a touchdown.
• We’ll add special teams in this space again with a nod to punter Johnny Hekker, who is quietly having a Pro Bowl caliber season.

PITTSBURGH -- A quarterback who won his first 13 NFL starts and was a two-time Super Bowl champion before the age of 28 is not accustomed to losing. So maybe it was no surprise that Ben Roethlisberger said after a 34-27 loss to the Minnesota Vikings that the Pittsburgh Steelers might be the worst team in the NFL.

The comments raised a lot of eyebrows, but they sure beat the alternative.

Roethlisberger could have ripped into an offensive line that is a major reason why he is on pace to get sacked a whopping 60 times this season. He could have said he might have been able to complete an improbable and season-saving comeback in London had he gotten a little more help from his teammates.

And to be sure, Roethlisberger had to take some of the blame for the Steelers falling short at the end against the Vikings. He turned the ball over twice, and he took a sack and lost a fumble when the Steelers would have had one more chance to score a touchdown had Roethlisberger thrown the ball out of bounds.

But I thought his postgame comments showed true leadership. Roethlisberger didn’t try to put any sort of spin on the Steelers’ worst start since 1968. Instead, he essentially challenged everyone to take a long, honest look at themselves with the Steelers pushed to the brink.

“Ben is part of the solution there,” said ESPN NFL Insider Billy Devaney, the former St. Louis Rams’ general manager. “He is not the problem. They still have time to get things straightened out.”

Only one team since 1990 has made the playoff following an 0-4 start.

Devaney happened to be a part of it.

He was San Diego’s director of player personnel in 1992 when the Chargers won 11 of their final 12 games after an 0-4 start.

Devaney did not go as far to predict the Steelers will pull off a similar turnaround. But he thinks the offense will get better as the offensive line gets more experience and as Le'Veon Bell settles in at running back.

SAN DIEGO -- Coach Mike McCoy confirmed that San Diego Chargers pass-rusher Dwight Freeney tore a quad muscle during Sunday’s game against the Dallas Cowboys.

“He does have a torn quad, and we’re exploring all of the options,” McCoy said. “We’re getting all of the medical advice, and [exploring] what is in his best interest moving forward.”

He did not rule out the possibility of the team placing Freeney on the injured reserve with a designation to return. Under the injured reserve rules, Freeney will be ineligible for the next eight weeks. He can return to practice six weeks after being placed on the list and be eligible for the Dec. 8 game at home against the New York Giants.

McCoy said that Larry English would be the team’s first option to fill in for Freeney. But he did not rule out going outside the organization to find pass rush help if the players on the roster are not getting the job done.

“Any time you lose a great player like Dwight Freeney it’s a blow to your football team,” McCoy said. “That’s offense, defense or special teams. When you lose one of the great players of all time from your team out with an injury like that during a game, it’s tough. But you give a lot of guys credit for stepping up.”

Along with English, McCoy said rookie sixth round draft choice Tourek Williams played 10 snaps, and did a nice job.

McCoy still does not know the availability of the three starters along the offensive line that missed last week’s game. Left tackle King Dunlap (concussion), left guard Chad Rinehart (toe) and right guard Jeromey Clary (clavicle) did not play against the Cowboys. Rich Ohrnberger injured his groin during the game while playing right guard, and had to give way to Stephen Schilling.

“With the injuries that these guys have, everyone’s different,” McCoy said. “All three of these guys who missed last week, the severity of their injuries are different -- they’re completely different injuries. And we’re going to get out there on Wednesday and see who’s available.”

McCoy did say that he os hopeful to get starting cornerback Shareece Wright back. Wright has missed the last two games with a hamstring issue. San Diego’s other cornerback, Derek Cox, also could miss Sunday’s game at Oakland. Cox left the Dallas game with a knee issue.

Baltimore Ravens wide receiver Jacoby Jones will return to practice this week after missing the past three games with a knee sprain.

This is an encouraging sign for the Ravens as they try to mend a banged-up wide receiver group. Jones was injured in the season opener when his own teammate, rookie Brynden Trawick, ran into him on a punt return. Jones had been projected to miss four to six weeks.

Coach John Harbaugh wouldn't indicate whether Jones' return to practice means he'll play Sunday at the Miami Dolphins.

"We'll see how well he does with [practice]," Harbaugh said Monday.

Of the six wide receivers on the roster, four are dealing with injuries: Jones (knee), Marlon Brown (hamstring), Brandon Stokley (groin) and Deonte Thompson (concussion). Torrey Smith and Tandon Doss are the only healthy receivers.

According to Harbaugh, Brown is doing well and Thompson is not showing any significant side effects from a concussion. Stokley injured his groin Friday, and he was ruled inactive Sunday after the injury tightened up on him in pre-game warmups.

But, outside of Jones, all should be available for Sunday's game.

"It's hard on us, there's no question," Harbaugh said. "We're down legs on that side of the ball. It's hard to work on the things you want to work on. But you have to do it. Everybody faces that. It'll be good to get those guys back."

In other injury news, Harbaugh also didn't seem too concerned about cornerback Lardarius Webb's hamstring injury.

The New England Patriots announced the release of defensive back Kanorris Davis on Monday afternoon, bringing their active roster down to 52 players.

Davis was promoted from the practice squad on Saturday afternoon to play a core special-teams role, logging 16 snaps on Sunday night and appearing on all four core special-teams units.

The undrafted rookie out of Troy is now subject to the league's waiver system. If he goes unclaimed on waivers Tuesday, he seems like a strong candidate to be re-signed to the practice squad.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Ryan Fitzpatrick is starting at quarterback for the Tennessee Titans on Sunday against the Kansas City Chiefs, and very likely for a while beyond that.

While Jake Locker is out with hip and knee injuries, the Titans need a new backup.

Dowell Loggains said during the preseason that he'd stand on the table for Rusty Smith, though Smith was cut and then signed to the practice squad.

The likely move to back up Fitzpatrick would be to promote Smith to the 53-man roster. But Mike Munchak hardly offered a ringing endorsement of the 2010 sixth-round draft pick out of Florida Atlantic.

"We haven't decided what we're doing yet at that position," Munchak said. "...He knows our offense well, he knows what we are doing well. So you have to take a lot of those factors into what's the best thing if something does happen now to Ryan? What's the best thing for this team to win. We'll consider our options before we decide what to do."

But why have Smith on the practice squad if he's not technically the third quarterback?

"I didn't say he's not going to be the two, we're always going to take a look at the situation before we make a decision," Munchak said. "Standing right here, I'm not going to make the decision right now. We haven't made any decisions right now. We're just going to make sure it's the best decision when the time comes."

"If he's not the guy, I'll explain to you why at that time."

Munchak said the Titans would have available quarterbacks in for a look on Tuesday.

There is hardly a quality list of available quarterbacks. It includes veterans like Charlie Batch, Byron Leftwich, Tyler Thigpen, David Carr and Trent Edwards.

There are also young quarterbacks on other practice squads the Titans could sign, though they can't try those guys out and making that move would be the biggest possible indictment of Smith.

Those quarterbacks include Indy's Chandler Harnish, Buffalo's Thad Lewis, Oakland's Tyler Wilson and Cincinnati's Greg McElroy.

If Locker doesn't go on IR-recall, which Munchak made sound unlikely, the Titans will have to cut someone to make room for Smith or an outsider.

Offensive tackle Byron Stingily and rookie defensive end Lavar Edwards have both been inactive for every game. Rookie cornerback Blidi Wreh-Wilson re-aggravated a hamstring injury in the win over the Jets and they could put him on IR to create room.

TEMPE, Ariz. -- Arizona coach Bruce Arians didn’t need his notepad to evaluate the Cardinals’ offensive performance in their 13-10 win over Tampa Bay. In fact, he needed just one word: “Putrid.”

Here are a few notes from his Monday news conference:

• Arians said linebacker Daryl Washington will start immediately, most likely alongside Karlos Dansby.
• The defense played one of its best games this season, Arians said, especially the run stop.
• Adding to his “putrid” description of the offense, Arians said its troubles are starting to get repetitive.
• Arians hasn’t seen a team take this long to pick up his offense before.
• Dan Williams is expected to rejoin the team Tuesday night.
• Arians said Nate Potter looked “OK” at right guard taking over for an injured Daryn Colledge. The second-year player’s athleticism helped him.
• Arians also alluded to getting rookie linebacker Kevin Minter back this week.
• Arians didn’t have an update on the injured players who left Sunday’s game but said they were all minor.

TAMPA, Fla. -- Greg Schiano isn’t a good dancer, so someone please stop the music.

The coach of the 0-4 Tampa Bay Buccaneers spent a good chunk of his Monday doing his best not to directly answer questions about the status of former starting quarterback Josh Freeman.

"I’m not going to be naïve," Schiano said. "There are a lot of factors involved. This is not high school football. It’s professional football. There are salaries and there are contracts and there are those things involved. What I do is I focus on the things that are going to help us win games."

What’s going on around One Buccaneer Place is a soap opera, and it has more of a high school than professional feel. Schiano and Freeman are involved in a standoff that needs to end now because it’s not doing the rest of the team any good.

The Bucs have plenty of other problems to work on as they go through a bye week. They need the couple that already has divorced internally to go ahead and officially separate.

No matter which side you came down on in the original benching of Freeman, it’s pretty clear he can’t be around this team anymore. Intentionally or not, he has become a distraction and the situation has become a circus.

The latest example came Monday afternoon when the locker room was open to the media. Mike Glennon and Dan Orlovsky, the team’s other two quarterbacks, appeared to come out of a meeting. Each of them went to their locker, grabbed some things and left.

A few minutes later, a team employee was seen gathering up a few items at Freeman’s locker. The employee walked into a hallway by the equipment room and handed the stuff to Freeman, who never entered the locker room.

If there’s any logic in the building, Freeman should never enter the locker room again. In an exclusive interview with ESPN last week, Freeman said he would like to be traded.

So trade the guy -- if you can. Minnesota and Tennessee look desperate for quarterback help, but are they desperate enough to take a shot on Freeman after watching what has happened the past few weeks? Is anybody going to get more desperate in the days before the Oct. 29 trade deadline?

Maybe and maybe not. If the Bucs want to wait to see if someone pushes the panic button and gives them a draft pick for Freeman, they should do what former coach Jon Gruden did to former receiver Keyshawn Johnson back in the day. They should send Freeman home, pay him to stay away and keep his rights.

Or there’s another option. The Bucs could go ahead and just release Freeman now. It would mean giving up on a former first-round draft pick and that never looks good.

But the Bucs already have given up on Freeman and the whole thing has been ugly. There’s no sense dragging this out any longer.

The Bucs need to stop the music.

LAKE FOREST, Ill. – Chicago Bears coach Marc Trestman said on Monday that he is unsure if rookie linebacker Jon Bostic will be disciplined by the NFL for the hit he delivered to Detroit Lions wide receiver Kris Durham as he lay on the ground following an onside kick with 43 seconds left to play in the Bears’ 40-32 defeat at Ford Field on Sunday.

“I did not see it, I really didn’t see it,” Trestman said. “I haven’t heard about it and I haven’t heard from the league about it. We’ll see what happens the next couple of days.”

Bostic was not penalized by the officials, but the hit upset Lions coach Jim Schwartz who referenced the incident during his postgame news conference on Sunday.

“Kris Durham made a couple big plays at the end, probably no bigger than recovering the last onside kick,” Schwartz said. “He took a big shot for it, too. We talk a lot about player safety and he’s lying prone on the ground and is getting himself up and takes a helmet right to the back and we don’t get any call there. It’s a little hypocritical to talk about player safety when we allow that to not get called. Kris toughed it out, and he had to hold onto that ball and he did. He did a nice job today”

The NFL fined Bostic $21,000 in August for lowering his head and making forcible contact with a defenseless San Diego Chargers wide receiver, Mike Willie, during a preseason game at Soldier Field. Bostic appealed the fine.

Let's keep talking about Texans quarterback Matt Schaub, shall we?

Earlier today I linked a story by Grantland's Bill Barnwell in which he contends the Texans can win a Super Bowl with Schaub. Now here's a story by my friend Mike Silver of NFL Network, who counts Schaub and Bengals quarterback Andy Dalton as the two quarterbacks holding back their contending teams.

Silver says when the Texans were overachieving underdogs, Schaub was fine. But now that expectations have risen, Silver says, he's not good enough.

"In reality, the bulk of the anger shouldn't be directed at Schaub," Silver writes. "Rather, Texans fans should be ticked off at general manager Rick Smith, who didn't explore other options, and [coach Gary] Kubiak, who clearly has more faith in his quarterback than logic suggests he should."

The Texans have been criticized a lot recently for the four-year extension they gave Schaub last year on the eve of the 2012 season opener that totaled $69.7 million. Here's what I found while examining his contract:

The deal averages $15.5 million per year, with a $17.5 million signing bonus. It guarantees Schaub's base salary of $7.25 million this year. Between the signing bonus, this year's base, last year's base and a few workout bonuses, the Texans will have paid Schaub about $29.7 million of that contract by the end of this season.

If they decide Schaub isn't part of their future, they don't have to pay him one cent more. Schaub's 2014, 2015 and 2016 bases aren't guaranteed and in each of those seasons he has a roster bonus that pays him $1 million total if he's active for 16 games. That's $40 million the Texans would not be on the hook for if they didn't want to be.

Whether they will or not will depend on how Schaub plays the rest of this season. As I've been writing, I don't see his performances so far as evidence that the Texans should move on from him.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Andy Reid provided the Kansas City Chiefs a look into his coaching philosophy with one of his decisions in Sunday’s win over the New York Giants. If this is indeed how Reid will coach the Chiefs over the long term, they will benefit.

The decision in question came with 9½ minutes left in the fourth quarter and the Chiefs leading 17-7. Ryan Succop kicked a 53-yard field goal that would have put the Chiefs ahead by 13 points. But a Giants penalty gave Reid the option of taking the points off the board and giving the Chiefs a fresh set of downs. He took the latter.

After some anxious moments -- the Chiefs were penalized 15 yards for clipping on their next play -- they eventually scored a touchdown to go ahead 24-7.

The fact that the decision paid off for Reid isn’t what makes it a good one. It’s that he’s coaching to the strengths of the Chiefs.

Those strengths are a ball-control offense (the Chiefs had possession for almost 36 minutes on Sunday) and a defense capable of controlling games (the Giants took just 10 snaps on Kansas City’s side of the field). Chances were the Chiefs were going to chew more time off the clock and still get points on the drive. If they didn’t, chances were their defense would stifle the Giants.

There was little risk by going against the book under such circumstances, and Reid recognized that. He and the Chiefs were rewarded for it.

“Maybe just a gut feeling that I’ve tried to trust,’’ Reid said. “I can’t tell you I didn’t have a little indigestion on that gut feeling with the [clipping] penalty right there. That bothered me a little bit, but we overcame that and we got rolling.’’

These decisions won’t always work out for Reid. That’s acceptable when there’s little downside to failure. All situations are different, and Reid will have many factors to consider the next time he’s faced with a dilemma.

But over the long haul, the Chiefs will prosper with a coach who not only has a killer instinct, but listens to it.

ASHBURN, Va. -- Washington Redskins running back Alfred Morris said X-rays showed he did not break any ribs, but he’s not sure when he’ll return. Morris left Washington’s 24-14 win against the Oakland Raiders late in the third quarter.

He said his “ribs are fine, a little tender. I’m all good.” But the good news for Morris is that Washington has a bye this week before playing at Dallas on Oct. 13.

“It helps me out,” Morris said. “It gives me extra time to recover. Even though the bye week is early for me it’s perfect timing. ...It could be a fast recovery or a slow recovery. I really don't know."

Morris, who gained 71 yards on 16 carries, said his ribs were a little sore during the game.

“You could see he was sore,” Redskins coach Mike Shanahan said. “The first quarter he wasn’t running normal and different things I’ve seen him do throughout the course of time.

But at the end of a nine-yard run in the third quarter, Morris said a Raiders defender fell on top of him, causing him to arch his body.

“That was icing on the cake,” Morris said. “It was hurting before, but it wasn’t nothing that I feel like would take me out of the game. [After that] I was like, 'Yeah, this isn’t something I’m going to walk off.'"

New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick confirmed Monday afternoon what was reported earlier in the day: star defensive lineman Vince Wilfork’s season is likely over.

Wilfork left Sunday night’s game in the first quarter with what was reported to be a torn right Achilles tendon.

“It doesn’t look too good for Vince,” Belichick said during his weekly interview on Boston sports radio station WEEI. “I think he’s got a pretty serious injury and it’s probably unlikely that he’ll be able to play again this year.”