After having the day off Thursday to celebrate Thanksgiving, the Patriots were back at Gillette Stadium on Friday to continue their preparations for Sunday’s Week 13 tilt at home against the Indianapolis Colts (5-7).
This will be New England’s final game before hitting their late Week 14 bye week. After the break, it’ll be four more games to close out the season:
- Week 15 @ Arizona
- Week 16 @ Buffalo
- Week 17 vs. Los Angeles (AFC)
- Week 18 vs. Buffalo
That’s five more games for the 3-9 Patriots to put together some semblance of an arrow pointed in the right direction to finish out this albatross of a season.
Part of that would entail some of the younger players on the roster taking a step forward during this home stretch, something that we’ve seen inconsistently throughout the 2024 season outside of rookie quarterback Drake Maye (who, to be fair, was mostly bad in Week 12).
With that in mind, Andrew Callahan of The Boston Herald asked first-year head coach Jerod Mayo on Friday before practice, “In some words, you said recently, ‘Hey, these next five games, we need to figure out really who we can count on to kind of use moving forward.’ Who are some players that you need to find out a little bit more than others?”
Mayo, initially saying he didn’t want to get too specific, then decided to name some names.
“You need a guy like Layden Robinson to show what he can do,” said Mayo. “We need a guy like Cole Strange before the end of the season to see what he can do. You can use Caedan [Wallace] in that same bucket. We need to see what the receivers can do and what they're going to look like going forward, and that's the hard part for me.
“Look, you want to win right now, but at the same time, I think it would be a disservice to go to the end of the season and not know exactly what we have.”
All three offensive linemen Mayo namechecked have had extremely different experiences in 2024.
Robinson, the rookie fourth round pick out of Texas A&M, has started six games at right guard, and has appeared in eight games overall. While he’s looked capable at times, Robinson has been a part of offensive line combinations that got both Maye and veteran QB Jacoby Brissett into trouble this season. Robinson’s most recent start in Week 9 saw the rookie playing just 21 snaps before being benched due to poor performance. With Robinson also missing time this season with an ankle injury, there’s still a lot of unknown about who he is as a prospect moving forward.
Speaking of unknowns - let’s talk about Strange.
His career started with a perpetual “huh” across the football world, as the UT-Chattanooga product was drafted 29th overall in 2022 by Bill Belichick despite being seen league-wide as a player with the upside of a third round pick.
Strange started his entire rookie season at guard with mixed reviews - definitely ending the season on a higher note than it began, but still with a lot of question marks moving forward. After coming out of the gates in 2023 with a stronger sophomore campaign, Strange’s season came to an end after only 10 games when he tore his patellar tendon, moving him to the season-ending IR.
With this injury being among the more serious ones you can suffer on a football field, Strange has had to watch as his fellow offensive linemen struggled throughout this entire season, quietly rehabbing as offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt continues to search for the right combination along the O-line.
With veteran center David Andrews going down for the year in early October with a shoulder injury, there was some conversation around Strange coming back as the man in the middle of the line. While that convo has quieted as his rehab has stretched deep into the season, it’s a wonder where Van Pelt will decide to work-in Strange if-and-when he’s given the green light to return. As of now, all we know is the 26-year-old will not play this Sunday against the Colts.
For Wallace, there’s not a lot to go off of for his rookie season. The third round pick out of Penn State had been a career right tackle for the Nittany Lions, yet there was an expectation from the Patriots that Wallace would one day be a player that could play on the left side for them, protecting Maye’s blindside.
In his first and only start this season, he was tasked with figuring out the left tackle position on a short week in New York against the Jets. Wallace looked bad against the New York pass rush, as the New England offense had one of its worst games of the season in a 24-3 loss at MetLife Stadium. After hurting his ankle in Week 4, Wallace has been on the IR ever since. Mayo said on Tuesday Wallace is close to a return. Whether we see him get another shot on the left side of the offensive line is unknown at the moment.
While this five-game sample size is crucial for the young, unproven players on the roster to show they belong a part of the team’s future plans, Mayo doesn’t want his team to lose sight of how important it is to head into their bye week with a win.
“It's huge - it's not just another week,” said Mayo. “I would say every week, we're trying to go out there, put on a good performance and walk away with a win. But 100% - even in the past, as a player, you're like, ‘Man, we better win this game,’ because that's the difference between maybe a four-day break and a three-day break or a five-day break. So, it's definitely important.
“Again, when you look over the last – it's easy to sit here and focus on the last game. But the four games prior to that, I thought we were going in the right direction. We had a hiccup, and hopefully we can get back on track this week.”
New England is currently a 2.5-point home underdog for Week 13 at both BetMGM and FanDuel.