On Thursday, Alex Van Pelt was asked a question before practice that has been asked repeatedly of both him and head coach Jerod Mayo throughout the first four-plus weeks of the NFL regular season.
Does the instability along the offensive line impact rookie Drake Maye’s “development plan” or timeline to become the eventual starting quarterback?
“Right now, we’re just trying to win games on Sunday, so I would say no,” said Van Pelt, as if he had this answer ready in the holster. “I think that we just gotta continue to do what’s best for the team, and get us in a position to win on Sunday.”
While the question is undoubtedly redundant at this point, it continues to be a fair one to ask, as seemingly every day that passes, a different offensive lineman is dealing with some sort of injury.
On Wednesday morning, starting center David Andrews was lost for the season as he opted for season-ending shoulder surgery that will have him ready to return to the football field in 2025.
In the wake of this news, both Mayo and starting quarterback Jacoby Brissett spoke before practice on Wednesday about Andrews’ backup Nick Leverett, who came into their Week 4 game in San Francisco in relief of the injured Andrews. Both the coach and the QB spoke of Leverett through the prism of him being the man snapping the ball in Week 5 at home against the Dolphins.
Less than an hour after Mayo and Brissett spoke, Leverett received the next-man-up media treatment in front of his locker as he got ready for practice, as reporters huddled around the backup to talk with him about the opportunity he was getting as the new starting center.
All sounds pretty normal, right?
Veteran goes down, leadership says some nice stuff about how he’ll be missed, new guy gets the nod of approval, new guy talks about the exciting opportunity ahead.
Pretty standard stuff.
But then practice started, and the newly anointed starting center received exactly zero reps with the first-team offense.
All of those went to rookie Bryan Hudson, an undrafted free agent who was released by the Lions in August and scooped up by New England to join their practice squad.
Leverett was listed in Wednesday’s practice report as a limited participant with an ankle injury - which made the extra time he took getting taped up for practice make a lot more sense after the fact.
So is Hudson now the man in the middle for the Patriots offense against the Dolphins?
Honestly, it’s too early in the week to tell.
But Wednesday was a bad sign, as you would imagine the newly minted starter would need as many first-team reps as possible to get comfortable with Brissett and the rest of his beat-up offensive line.
No, I will not force you to sit through an entire article about another backup center again. But what I will tell you is Hudson has a similar foundation as Leverett, as he spent significant time at all three positions on the offensive line throughout his five years at Louisville. He has versatility, and that’s what this team needs right now as members of the position group continue dropping like flies.
“He’s a guy that’s played center,” Van Pelt said of Hudson. “You know, he got all the reps yesterday in there with the first group. He’s very capable.
“It’s just another guy that’s gonna learn the system. He wasn’t here for OTAs and all of that, so it’s just catching him up some.”
So when you read all of that, you can’t blame any reporter for wanting to ask this question for the 57th time:
Does the instability along the offensive line impact rookie Drake Maye’s “development plan” or timeline to become the eventual starting quarterback?
Van Pelt says no.
Do you believe him?