COVID-19. Injuries. Personal tragedies.
You could hear the exhaustion in New England Patriots running backs coach Ivan Fears’ voice as he rattled off all the blows he and his position group have absorbed over the course of this terrible, terrible year.
“It’s probably the craziest year I’ve ever been around,” Fears, who’s been coaching in the NFL since 1991, said Friday in a conference call.
The coronavirus pandemic has hung like a thundercloud over the 2020 NFL season, and it hit the Patriots’ locker room hard in early October. Eight players landed on the reserve/COVID-19 list, two games were postponed and the team looked out of sync for a month, dropping four straight games following a promising 2-1 start.