FOXTON, MASS. — The New England Patriots have a receiver whose name is on a poster in the front office, a receiver the team spent a first-round grade and a salary figure to bring in, and that receiver is now, as of Friday, an entry on an injured-reserve list, which the team has described, in the words of a person with knowledge of the move, as “a line.”

That is the word, and it is, by the account of everyone on the sideline, the correct word. A.J. Brown, the 29-year-old wide receiver, suffered a high-ankle sprain in the season-opening loss to the Seahawks, and the Patriots, having placed him on injured reserve, will have him out for a minimum of four weeks, which is, on the team’s own timeline, “the number, and the number is a line, and the line is where he goes.”

The high-ankle sprain, in the medical world, is the injury that takes the most time and gives the least explanation, a fact the coaching staff has, in the days since, turned into a strategy, which is to say a schedule, which is to say a list, which is to say, in the words of a team source, “the line.”

"It's not an injury. It's a line. And we have a line now, which is more than we had on Wednesday."

The four-week minimum, it should be noted, is not a number the team picked. It is a number the ankle picked, and the team has, in the time since, done what the team does with numbers it did not pick, which is to look at them, nod, and put them on a document. The document, which has, by the account of a person who saw it, “a column,” is the one that every team has, the one that is, in the league’s own words, “the injured-reserve list,” and the one that Brown is now, officially, on.

The fans, to their credit, have adapted to the news in the way that New England fans adapt to news, which is to make it into a thing that has already happened. A season-ticket holder, who had been to the opening game and had seen the ankle go, offered the team’s most important fan quote of the week.

“I’m not mad about the ankle,” he said. “I’m mad about the line. The ankle’s just a thing that happened. The line is a thing that’s going to happen for a month. That’s the difference, and the difference is why I have a plan.”

THE INJURY, AS THE TEAM DRAWS IT

  • Injury: high-ankle sprain, right ankle.
  • When: the season-opening loss to the Seahawks.
  • Status: injured reserve.
  • Minimum time out: four weeks, per the team.
  • What the team calls the number: "the line."
  • What the fans are doing: making a plan.
  • What the coach has: a clipboard, and, per one source, "the same column."

At press time, the team had not announced a return date beyond the four-week minimum, but a coach, asked about the receiver’s status, pointed at the clipboard, looked at it, and said, “That’s the line. That’s all of it. That’s the whole thing. We don’t do the ankle, we do the line,” and then, to the person next to him, “We’ll get him back. The line’s the only thing that matters, and the line’s a number, and the number’s fine.”