The wildfires out west – with smoke reaching all the way to New England – could jeopardize the Patriots’ upcoming game against the Seattle Seahawks.
Coming off a season-opening win over Miami, the Patriots are scheduled to play in Seattle on Sunday night. Two Seattle Mariners baseball games have already been relocated because of smoke from wildfires raging across the West Coast, and forecasters expect smoke to reach very unhealthy levels in Western Washington through at least Thursday.
The Mariners and San Francisco Giants are playing a two-game series at Oracle Park in San Francisco instead of in Seattle. The Seahawks’ stadium is adjacent to the Mariners’ home field, and the city’s current air quality has been rated as one of the poorest in the world.
According to the Boston Globe, the NFL is monitoring the situation.
One possible solution, if the game is not able to be played Sunday, is to move it to Week 6, when both teams are scheduled to have a bye.

JEANNETTE BELICHICK, the mother of Patriots Coach Bill Belichick, has died. She was 98.

Patriots spokesman Stacey James said Belichick died Monday night of natural causes in Annapolis, Maryland.

Belichick was preceded in death by her husband, Steve, who died in 2005 at age 86. In addition to their son, Bill, she is survived by three grandchildren: Holy Cross College women’s lacrosse coach Amanda Belichick and Patriots assistants Stephen Belichick and Brian Belichick.

Both Ohio natives, the former Jeannette Munn met Steve Belichick in the 1940s at Hiram College, where she taught French and Spanish and he was a football, basketball and track coach. They were married in 1950 and had their son, Bill, in 1952.

Following her husband’s assistant football coaching stints at Vanderbilt and North Carolina, the couple moved to Annapolis when Steve took a coaching job at Navy.

Bill Belichick made a donation to Hiram College in honor of both of his parents in 2015. It established a reading room named for his mother in the school’s library and purchased resources to aid the foreign languages department. It added his father’s name to the college’s fitness center.

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ROSTER MOVES:  The Patriots promoted kicker Nick Folk and cornerback Myles Bryant from the practice squad to the 53-man roster.

Folk handled kicking duties in Sunday’s win over Miami, but was sent back down after the game. This is Bryant’s first time on the active roster after beginning the season on the practice squad. He was signed as an undrafted free agent out of Washington.

To fill their spots on the practice squad, New England signed quarterback Jacob Dolegala and center James Ferentz.

Ferentz appeared in 15 games for the Patriots last season, with two starts. Dolegala spent last season with the Cincinnati. He was inactive for 15 games and dressed but did not play in the other.

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