In a little more than 90 minutes, the New England Patriots and Jacksonville Jaguars will play for the AFC title and a berth in Super Bowl LII. The game projects to be a hard-fought battle that sees two teams going against each other that are in as good a physical shape as they can be at this point in time. A look at today's inactive players reflects this.
DT Alan Branch
WR Kenny Britt
RB Mike Gillislee
LB David Harris
TE Jacob Hollister
WR Bernard Reedy
OT LaAdrian Waddle
The Patriots' inactives feature no real surprises: Mike Gillislee was limited in practice all week long because of a knee issue and listed as questionable on Friday's injury report. The same goes for right tackle LaAdrian Waddle, who suffered a knee injury during New England's divisional round victory over the Tennessee Titans and will be replaced in the starting lineup by Cameron Fleming, as well as defensive tackle Alan Branch.
The rest of the players declared inactive is no real surprise: Kenny Britt, David Harris, Jacob Hollister, Bernard Reedy are depth players at this point in time. All four are healthy scratches.
A look at the list above also shows that some key members of the Patriots are ready to go for today's game: Quarterback Tom Brady, for example, is active and will start today despite being designated as questionable on Friday – not all that surprising. Running back Rex Burkhead, who missed New England's last three games due to a knee injury, will also be on the field.
For comparison, the Jaguars' inactives look as follows:
Jaguars inactives. #JAXvsNE pic.twitter.com/hP0FtLfpiT
— New England Patriots (@Patriots) January 21, 2018
No real surprises on this list from Jacksonville's perspective.