Exploring some New England Patriots hot topics in the form of a mailbag:
Mike, it is my understanding that Gronk and Wise will need to pass cognitive tests from the independent neurologist in order to be cleared to play. Is that accurate? If so, is there an individual baseline against which current responses would be compared or standard benchmarks?
Erik, the final decision is with the Patriots head team physician and that decision must be confirmed by an independent neurological consultant. They are looking for the player to demonstrate a tolerance of activities in the five different steps of the return-to-participation protocol without recurrence of signs or symptoms of concussion being observed or reported.