Thursday night was a bad time to be a New England Patriots quarterback.
Over the course of the team’s loss to the New York Jets, Patriots quarterbacks were sacked seven times and hit a whopping 15 times.
Five of the sacks and 10 of the hits were on starting quarterback Jacoby Brissett. The remainder came in the closing minutes when rookie Drake Maye entered the game in mop-up duty.
Regardless of who was back there, it was a bad showing for New England’s offensive line.
“It’s not good,” center David Andrews said. “It’s not good, and we have to be better up front. We’re gonna work and we’re gonna try to do everything we can to be better. That’s not sustainable and that’s not winning football.”
The offensive line was identified as a major concern for the Patriots heading into the season. Over the course of the past week, the situation has only gotten worse.
Left tackle Vederian Lowe and left guard Sidy Sow were ruled out with injury. In their stead, rookie Caedan Wallace got his first career start at left tackle while former practice squad player Michael Jordan played at left guard.
It was a rough showing, with announcer Al Michaels describing Wallace’s debut as a “baptism by fire.”
After the game, Patriots coach Jerod Mayo acknowledged that the offensive line was a concern — as was everything else.
“I thought the offensive line today had a hard time, had a hard time,” Mayo said. “There were times earlier in the game where the pockets looked pretty clean. But as the game wore on, similar to last week, started falling apart as far as the protections.”
Between injuries and Okorafor leaving the team, the Patriots haven’t had a consistent offensive line through the first three games of the season. That’s part of the problem.
“The offensive line, you want those guys to be able to go out there as a unit and gel together,” Mayo said. “But whether through injury or through whatever it is, we just haven’t found the right combination.”
The Patriots now face a 10-day layoff before their Week 4 matchup against the San Francisco 49ers. That will give the offensive line time to heal up and potentially get some starters back.
However, that will not include the return of Chuks Okorafor, who opened Week 1 as the team’s starting left tackle. That was until Okorafor unexpectedly left the team. After a brief stint on the exempt/left squad list, Okorafor was placed on the reserve/left squad list, ending his season.
