Patriots: James White has emotional reaction to Rex Burkhead injury

Patriots running back James White had a tough time watching his backfield mate Rex Burkhead go down on Sunday.

The New England Patriots saw their playoff hopes deflate to 7% per 538.com on Sunday after losing to the 2-7 Houston Texans.

The good news? According to some prominent public figures, that’s enough to try to get their playoff hopes to the Supreme Court. Otherwise, there’s nothing good about the place this team finds itself in, and that dour feeling translates to the injury front, too.

Promising OL Isaiah Wynn went down with a knee injury late in the fourth quarter, just as he was finally starting to get his career on track. And, prominently and painfully, key offensive weapon Rex Burkhead tore his leg up on a low and vicious tackle, and couldn’t put any weight on it as he attempted to limp off the field.

In the postgame scrum, still trying to shrug off the painful on-field loss, fellow running back James White tried to contextualize Burkhead’s injury. It got pretty emotional.

We hurt for him, too, of course, but that’s a special brotherhood in that locker room. You simply hate to see a devastating injury as the awful cherry on top of this brutal sundae, and we can guarantee the players on that roster are feeling it worse than we are.

Naturally, the fear is that Burkhead tore his ACL, which would end his season. This will also throw his future in New England into flux — the 30-year-old running back is not under contract for next season, and has a lengthy rehab ahead of him.

Every time a grinder who we care deeply about goes down unceremoniously, it hurts. But Burkhead did not deserve to enter free agency with an “incomplete” on his 2020 report card, after all he’s given us over the years.

This may very well be the end of his Patriots career, and White took that to heart, too.