Patriots' Defense Bolstered by Addition of Bruschi, Other Physically/Mentally Impaired Defensive Players

Foxboro, MA – After watching season-ending injuries ravage their once top-ranked defense, the New England Patriots welcomed back Pro Bowl linebacker Tedy Bruschi (right) on Sunday night, activating him from the physically unable to perform, or PUP list.

The Patriots also activated several other physically and/or mentally handicapped players whom Bruschi met during his lenghty rehabilitation, some of them also dangerously close to death if they so much as take a wrong step.

“He’s got heart and will play through anything,” Bruschi said of Cleon Thomas, a 53-year-old diabetic who is unable to leave his house without a rolling oxygen tank. Thomas will play strong safety in place of Rodney Harrison.

“If he can breathe, you know Cleon will give one-hundred and ten percent. And as long as he’s got that golf club cart thing rolling next to him, he’ll be making plays . . . the easier plays, anyway. The ones closest to him. If he can, you know, breathe.”

Bruschi, 32, who suffered a potentially career-ending stroke three days after returning from his first Pro Bowl appearance last February, met Thomas and the other new Patriots defensive players – such as artificial heart recipient Sheilah Mulroney, iron lung user and cancer victim Eddie McTavish, and Klumpar “Klumpy” Kassir (left), who suffers from severe, crippling birth defects of the thighs and legs -- at the Windsor Acres physical rehabilitation and therapy center.

“I saw the way Klumpy -- all the guys at the rehab called him Klumpy -- zipped around on that little skateboard thing of his and I thought, ‘This guy’s a ‘Belichick kind of player,’” Bruschi said. “He might not have legs that work, and his feet may be wrapped all the way around his back like some sort of human pretzel. But he’s got the speed, the upper body strength, and the low center of gravity necessary for the complex defensive schemes we run.”

"And he bites," Bruschi added. "Peyton [Manning]'s game falls apart when you bite him."

Coach Bill Belichick has maintained that once Bruschi was on the active roster, he would be treated like any other player. As for those “other sideshow freaks,” Belichick admitted, “I’m not so sure.”

“I think one of them has a sheep’s kidney and no liver or something,” the three-time Super Bowl-winning coach said. “And there’s another guy who’s got only one eye and just shuffles around in little circles mumbling something about the Bay of Pigs and Castro. But the Castro guy seems to get good pressure on the quarterback, so we’ll just let him play until he either collapses or has some sort of mental breakdown . . . just like with Tedy.”

Belichick added: “And not a football mental breakdown, as in he forgot his nickel coverage assignments. I mean an actual nervous breakdown, as in stabbing someone in the neck with a pen. He’s kinda got that wild look in his eye. His good eye.”