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If you were hoping for major changes on the offensive line after a rough couple of weeks up front for the Patriots, it doesn’t look like you’re going to get your wish.
The revolving door at right tackle – most recently featuring fourth-year pro Yodny Cajuste – has left a lot to be desired for New England, which has struggled to protect quarterback Mac Jones the last few weeks. Isaiah Wynn has already been benched and turned into a swing guard, and Marcus Cannon was bad before being put on injured reserve.
But Belichick apparently won’t consider bumping his best offensive lineman, right guard Mike Onwenu, out to tackle to mitigate those issues.
When asked by reporters Wednesday about whether the team would consider moving Onwenu to right tackle, which he played extensively as a rookie, Belichick brought up the important of keeping the young guard at the position he’s best suited for.
“That’s what we’ve tried to do since we drafted him,” the Patriots head coach said. “… We didn’t really ever anticipate playing him at tackle, and then we got into a bind, we put him out there and he played pretty good. But I think he’s built to play guard. He’s comfortable playing guard. He has a really good skill set in there. That’s where we would like to play him, for sure.”
None of that definitively means, of course, that the Patriots absolutely won’t move Onwenu outside under any circumstances; they had to put him at right tackle last year at points due to injuries and COVID-19, for example.
But offensive line has typically been a unit New England doesn’t seem to like displacing multiple players at if they don’t have to. With Onwenu playing like an All-Pro-caliber guard, perhaps simply rolling with Cajuste at right tackle is the easiest path if the team doesn’t want to play Isaiah Wynn at that spot any longer. That way, the team could, in theory, keep their regular starters in at every other position (though Wynn’s ability to swing to guard might put Cole Strange on notice).
So as much as people might like to see the Patriots put their best offensive lineman at a more premium position, the team seems much more inclined to play him where he’s performing the best. That’s a plenty logical decision. Hopefully the rest of the line can hold up better than they have of late with David Andrews back.
