FOXBOROUGH - A year ago, the Patriots were one of the league's healthiest teams, losing 154 games to injury. That was the 4th fewest in the league, per Sports Info Solutions, trailing only the Raiders, Jaguars and Rams.
This year, the storm clouds started rolling in early - try OTAs and a season-ending injury to TE Julian Hill - and haven’t let up since. The Pats went into Sunday’s game against the Steelers without, among others, Carlton Davis (neck), A.J. Brown (IR/ankle), Harold Landry (PUP/knee), Brenden Schooler (NFI/back), and backup lineman Marcus Bryant (IR/knee). Now, add Mike Onwenu (ankle) to the list. He reportedly broke his ankle in the first half. While Mike Vrabel wouldn’t confirm the nature of the injury, he did say, “I wouldn’t anticipate him being out there here in the next few weeks. If that changes and it ends up being longer than that, then we will let you guys know,” then added, “Mike hurt his ankle. I think you guys could see that on the TV.”
We could, and it was fairly gruesome. Onwenu is no doubt headed for the IR, and it feels like it could be another season-ender. The Pats don’t have a player capable of reaching the same heights as Onwenu could and did, especially during the second half of last year. 36-year-old Greg Van Roten had some understandable struggles stepping into that role versus that Pittsburgh front, and veteran depth piece Ben Brown, though active, is coming off a knee injury himself. Could first-rounder Caleb Lomu be a candidate, if not immediately, in the near future?
“Again, there are a lot of things that we could look at,” Vrabel said. “Caleb has been trying to predominantly practice, be there, be ready to go playing tackle. So, we have some guys that we could move in there, and Caleb would be one of the guys that could possibly do that. But again, we just have to make sure that we have the best five available, and then the other three guys that are versatile on game day.”
Previously, Vrabel noted that making the adjustment from tackle to guard isn’t