Patriots fans and fantasy football owners already know this, but Laurence Maroney is apparently taking a cue from his quarterback and disappearing for 2008. With a passing game in sudden turmoil and no real competition (Lamont Jordan? C’mon) for the starting role, Maroney should be putting up monster numbers this season. Instead, he’s got all of 93 yards and no touchdowns to show for the first five games of the season, and after missing Wednesday’s practice, he’s probably out again next week.

But it barely makes sense, really. Sure, Maroney’s got the shoulder injury, but he was playing through it earlier. Now, he’s either telling reporters that he’s dealing with “issues” off the field, or he’s blowing them off completely, skipping a media event on Wednesday.

Maroney doesn’t want any of this to be construda construed as a lack of effort on his part, however. Seriously, don’t do that at all:

“Well, all I can say is I’m trying,” he said. “At the end of the day, no matter what the media say, no matter how they perceive me, how the fans perceive me, I’m trying. At the end of the day, that’s all I can do. If I was out here and not trying, that’s one thing. But I’m actually out here trying to do what I can do so I really don’t care what everybody else says.”

I think the main topic is that he’s trying.

For what it’s worth, the coaching staff hasn’t called Maroney out yet–publicly, anyway–and they’ve got much more pressing concerns, like figuring out why they’ve been paying Matt Cassel anything more than $8 an hour. Still, if the Patriots want to get back to the Super Bowl, they’re going to need to make the playoffs first, and with the eighth-worst offense in the NFL, that’s hardly a guarantee right now. Maroney would be very wise to get back on the field as soon as possible.