Before the season started, we wisely (and some would say obviously) declared Matthew Judon far and away the Patriots' best player, not just on defense but on the entire roster. Through the first four weeks, nothing had changed in that regard. But with Judon set to have surgery on his injured bicep tendon Wednesday, a roster devoid of top-end talent takes a significant hit.
Early timetables for this injury are anywhere from eight to 10 weeks. While Judon has expressed a desire to teammates to return before the season ends, there is no guarantee that the bicep will heal in time for him to come back in time or, if this downward slide continues, that it would even make sense for him to play if the Pats are out of playoff contention.
In his absence, albeit in a one-sided game with a small sample size, the Pats used Jahlani Tavai and Anfermee Jennings on the edge in obvious running downs but also opened the door for more play time for rookie Keion White. It was what you would expect - his sheer power is too much for most tight ends - some offensive linemen as well - but as a pass rusher, he doesn't have a ton in his bag just yet. That will be part of the job he'll have to grow into.
"It'll be multiple guys, obviously," said Jerod Mayo when I asked how they go about replacing Judon. "Keion is going to have to play more, simply said. We really need him to show up. There will be different guys on the roster to fill that void with (Deatrich) Wise and guys like that."
Trey Flowers might qualify as a "different guy." He's eligible to come off PUP this week; I could see a scenario in which he is used in conjunction with White to a) lessen the load on the rookie and b) see if Trey can recapture some of that old Patriots magic he possessed during his first go-round in Foxborough. No matter how playing time is divided, this much is certain - the defense takes a sizable hit without the one player that opposing offenses had to game plan for.
As for Christian Gonzalez, my understanding, per source, is that he suffered "multiple issues" in his injured shoulder and, like Judon, sought a second opinion. But based on the severity of the problems, the rookie cornerback is also expected to be sidelined for the foreseeable future.
Gonzalez doesn't have a history of shoulder issues, which could help shorten his absence, but again, more will be known about whether or not there is a need for surgery or if that could be put off until the offseason. With Jack Jones' hamstring pull considered more problematic than initially let on, and Jon Jones dealing with that ankle that has kept him out for three weeks, the Pats cornerback ranks are thinner than the hair on a balding man's head. Currently, the top options remain Myles Bryant, Shaun Wade, Jalen Mills and rookie Ameer Speed, whom Bill Belichick called a developmental project back just before putting him on the original 53-man roster.
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Bill O’Brien is walking a fine line. The Patriots offensive coordinator was brought here, first and foremost, to rebuild Mac Jones after that cluster fudge of a season a year ago. As someone who still sees himself as a head coach in this league, it’s also about O’Brien re-elevating his profile in the NFL after a short stay at the University of Alabama. Getting Jones to a top-15 at his QB position would be a fine way to start.
There were signs of growth for the first three weeks of the season, even if the scoreboard and the won/loss column didn’t show those results. There was a sense internally that the worm was turning. That feeling got scrambled faster than a couple of eggs at your local diner, with Jones at the center of this mess. He turned it over three times, two ending up as defensive touchdowns. Belichick later pulled him from the game, a benching that wasn’t termed as such by the big boss, but come on, what are we doing here? Mac’s internal clock sped up faster than one of those time-lapse movies. He needed to sit. His play was that poor.
So now it’s on O’Brien to rebuild the machine.
“When you play quarterback in this league, you have to limit the mistakes, and you have to limit the bad games that you have,” said O’Brien during his Tuesday press availability. “We've got to do a better job of coaching up some things with him a little bit better. He's got to do a better job of making good decisions for us. He knows that. He takes a lot of ownership. You guys saw that, I think, after the game, he blames himself. The game wasn't lost because of one guy. The game was lost on our part because of how poorly we played and coached in the game. And so Mac is - he's here today - he's working very hard to get back on the right track. And we have a lot of belief in Mac.”
O’Brien is saying the right things because he did see his quarterback do plenty of good stuff in the first three weeks and even in the first couple of series versus Dallas. But when the wheels came off the wagon, there was no putting them back on in-game. Some suggested burning the tape and never speaking of it again. Cute, but this isn’t the time, and Mac is not in that place.
"Look, there's nothing that we just say was a bad day. That we're just moving on. We don't do that. We really examine what we're doing, what we did in that game, what we can do better,” said O’Brien. “We can do a lot of things to help Mac’s decision-making. He can do things himself to be better. I'm sure he would tell you that. He'd be the first to tell you that. And so we're gonna work hard on that this week. You know, here's some things that we're going to help you with, whether it's mechanics or where your eyes are, or what it is, and then, you know, he's already talked about, ‘hey, here's some things I'm going to do.’ And we're going to be on the same page. We're very much in it together. Nobody's pointing fingers, and we feel like we have a lot to improve on. We have to get it done, though.”
Every week, there is urgency in the NFL, but Sunday’s home game against the Saints may be the biggest for Jones and, in turn, those like O’Brien, who was brought in to clean up this offensive mess. The Pats have had 71% of their drives end in either a punt or a turnover. That's dead last in the league. At just 13.5 points per game, it hasn’t gotten to the point where one bad game could be dismissed like we would in the Tom Brady era. This isn’t that. Not by a long shot.
Then there’s the honest appraisal that Jones has to have with himself. There is no world in which he of, at best, average arm strength, should be firing footballs from one hash mark to the opposite side of the field, outside the numbers. Never. Ever. And if the quarterback doesn’t hammer that into his own head, you can bet O’Brien has - and will continue to do so.
“You always have to play mentally within yourself,” he said of his QB knowing his strengths and weaknesses. “It doesn't mean that you can't take calculated risks. That doesn't mean that you know, when something opens up, and you're not necessarily a runner, that you can't take off and run. It doesn't mean that. It just means that you have to do a really good job of making sure that you understand what we're trying to do on every play and then executing that play to the best of your ability - at a high level - and take what the defense gives you. And really, you know, I would say, for the most part, Mac does that. …but you know, I thought that last game for Mac, some of the decisions that he made were very uncharacteristic of Mac, and I think he'll get back to doing it the way he knows how to do it.”
Playing within himself is supposed to be one of the tenets of Jones' game, of his mental makeup. He knows better than anyone; he doesn’t run like Lamar or have the hose that Mahomes or Allen possess, but he can still win by using his brain and making smart plays. That may be boring to some, but in his rookie year, it helped fuel a mid-year win streak and an eventual playoff appearance in which he was your best player in that loss at Buffalo. If he doesn’t get back to that, the Pats will find themselves doing what so many other franchises have and continue to struggle with - finding another future franchise QB after the previous one doesn’t work out. That’s just how this league rolls. And it may roll right over Jones and the Pats if we see more games like the one we just watched.