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In not even 90 minutes, the New England Patriots will play their 13th game of the 2019 regular season, trying to improve their record to 11-2: the reigning world champions will square off at home against a Kansas City Chiefs team that is entering today’s contest with an 8-4 record. Before getting ahead of ourselves, however, let’s take a look at the players on both sides who have been declared inactive and will therefore not participate in today’s contest:
Patriots inactives
OC Ted Karras
DT Byron Cowart
CB Joejuan Williams
QB Cody Kessler
OL Korey Cunningham
TE Ryan Izzo
RB Damien Harris
The Patriots entered the weekend with eight players listed on their injury report. Only two of them, however, have been ruled out before today: starting center Ted Karras will miss the game due to a knee injury and will be replaced in the starting lineup by veteran backup James Ferentz; rookie defensive tackle Byron Cowart, meanwhile, has missed the entire week of practice due to a head injury — he too is out today.
The other six players, however, are all active: wide receivers Julian Edelman (shoulder) and Mohamed Sanu (ankle), offensive tackle Marcus Cannon (illness), linebacker Ja’Whaun Bentley (knee) and defensive backs Jason McCourty (groin) and Patrick Chung (heel) will play against Kansas City. McCourty will return after missing the Patriots’ previous two games — certainly a welcome sight against Kansas City’s superb offense.
With the exception of Karras, the list of inactives does not include any of New England’s key players.
Chiefs inactives
CB Morris Claiborne
RB Damien Williams
CB Rashad Fenton
QB Chad Henne
OL Jackson Barton
OL Nick Allegretti
TE Deon Yelder
Kansas City already ruled Damien Williams, Morris Claiborne and Rashad Fenton out on Friday. The rest of their inactives are also rather unsurprising.