The Patriots Release Austin Seferian-Jenkins Due to 'Personal Issues'

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You always have to tread lightly when an athlete, a coach or really anyone in any profession takes “a step away for personal issues” for any length of time. It’s why the term “personal day” was invented. Because some things are nobody’s goddamned business and we all have a basic right to keep it to ourselves. I’ll never forget a buddy of mine who’s an earnest, diligent workaholic once got bitched at by his boss for taking a personal day to come golfing with us as part of our friend’s bachelor party. Because obviously he worked for someone who didn’t grasp the whole “personal” part of that contractually allowed time off.

So it would be irresponsible and potentially downright cruel to speculate as to why Austin Seferian-Jenkins needs to take a month for himself. All you can do is hope he’s well and that whatever he needs gets taken care of. For his sake, not so much his employers. For every case of a guy suddenly leaving camp like Reggie Wayne did because he saw how hard the Patriots practice and noped the hell back to Indiana, you’re inevitably going to have players with real world problems that need to be addressed and cannot wait. Whichever of those apply to ASJ, godspeed.

That said, we’re left to wonder how the Patriots will handle it if he doesn’t return. Ben Watson will miss all of September with the most benign PED suspension in league history. Gronk is spending his time doing work for children’s charities and saying he’s not walking through that door:

Which leaves us with a – and I’m using the term more loosely than my buddy’s boss used “personal” – depth chart of Matt LaCosse, Stephen Anderson, Ryan Izzo and Andrew Beck to play the first four weeks of the season. Who have a combined 63 career catches between them.

And since all the rumors about Kyle Rudolph coming here didn’t materialize and the team isn’t likely to find some other full time professional tight end on LinkedIn looking for work, there’s only one solution. And it’s going to involve Josh McDaniels scheming the crap out of the situation.

But what else is new? He’s in for another season like last year, where he was faced with a wide receiver corps that didn’t include Julian Edelman for the first month. Then practically all his running backs were out at the same time. So he did what he does: He steered into the skid. McDaniels figured out how to maximize James White and use Cordarelle Patterson as a running back until the reinforcements arrived. And it looks like he’ll have to do the same this year. Without a top tight end in an offense that for the better part of a couple of decades has been built around not one but two top tight ends.

But that’s for September us to worry about. All today us can do is hope that whatever caused Seferian-Jenkins to need time away from the game is resolved, for his sake.