The final stat line — two catches for 16 yards — won’t tell you Kendrick Bourne had much to do with Sunday’s game.
But his return to the field felt more triumphant than that after Bourne saw just two snaps last week.
"I responded well. I didn’t let it get to me,” the receiver said after the game of his benching last week. “I’m a team player. That’s truly what it’s about. It doesn’t matter if I get zero plays, man. If we win, we win."
Bourne still didn’t have the kind of role we all expected following Robert Kraft’s apparent nudge to play the pass-catcher more in Week 2. But when he was in the game, Mac Jones looked for and found him.
His second catch of the game went for a first down that he celebrated emphatically, and he probably would’ve had his third shortly after had Jones thrown a better ball over the middle of the field.
That kind of momentum could come in handy for Bourne as Jones and DeVante Parker fail to connect down the field and the tight ends struggle to make plays in the passing game. Though Jakobi Meyers (nine catches for 95 yards) and Nelson Agholor (six catches for 110 yards) look like the team’s top two receivers at the moment, Bourne still has time to re-establish himself as a top playmaker in the Patriots’ offense.
As long as Matt Patricia doesn’t get in the way, that is.
On top of that, Bourne hinted the Patriots have overhauled their offense on the fly, "scrapping" several things that haven't worked consistently and "playing to our strengths" better as they learn what they can and can't do.
“We’re not even close to where we can be," he said.
